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I've been reviewing what I could find about the current knowledge of what it would be like to fall into a black hole, and I think I'm beginning to get a
picture. Some of the URL's I've visited are
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/PUB/generichole [Broken]
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9902008
http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/schwp.html
http://www.gothosenterprises.com/black_holes/inside_black_holes.html
http://nrumiano.free.fr/Estars/int_bh.html
Plus my textbooks, Wald, "General Relativity" pg 156
Here's what I'm getting - corrections would be welcome
The static Schwarzschild solution has two separate flat space-time regions, joined by a non-traversible wormhole.
If the singularity was caused by an actual collapsing shell of matter, but the idealization that the collapse is spherically symmetrical is made, the situation will be different. The collapsing matter surface itself will block any access to the alternate flat space-time regions (Wald). I believe that this implies that the matter surface will also block access to the singularity (?). In other words, the way I'm reading this, because of the infinite time dilation near the center of a black hole, a sufficiently determined observer who accelerates hard enough actually can "catch up" to the infalling matter surface! (??) (Or is that better read as - must catch up to the matter surface (?)).
Life apparently gets even more interesting when the collapse is not spherically symmetrical, for instance if there is angular momentum or charge present. Here, exactly what happens is apparently still a matter of some debate. But the latest work, the second of my link collection, suggests the it appears to be generally similar to the Schwarzschild case, except for the existence of a "weak" null singularity whose physical interpretation is not fully understood at this point.
picture. Some of the URL's I've visited are
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/PUB/generichole [Broken]
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9902008
http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/schwp.html
http://www.gothosenterprises.com/black_holes/inside_black_holes.html
http://nrumiano.free.fr/Estars/int_bh.html
Plus my textbooks, Wald, "General Relativity" pg 156
Here's what I'm getting - corrections would be welcome
The static Schwarzschild solution has two separate flat space-time regions, joined by a non-traversible wormhole.
If the singularity was caused by an actual collapsing shell of matter, but the idealization that the collapse is spherically symmetrical is made, the situation will be different. The collapsing matter surface itself will block any access to the alternate flat space-time regions (Wald). I believe that this implies that the matter surface will also block access to the singularity (?). In other words, the way I'm reading this, because of the infinite time dilation near the center of a black hole, a sufficiently determined observer who accelerates hard enough actually can "catch up" to the infalling matter surface! (??) (Or is that better read as - must catch up to the matter surface (?)).
Life apparently gets even more interesting when the collapse is not spherically symmetrical, for instance if there is angular momentum or charge present. Here, exactly what happens is apparently still a matter of some debate. But the latest work, the second of my link collection, suggests the it appears to be generally similar to the Schwarzschild case, except for the existence of a "weak" null singularity whose physical interpretation is not fully understood at this point.
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