- #1
Slinkey
- 30
- 0
I'll try to be as specific as possible with my question.
From my reading of SR I understand that an object that is moving relative to me will be contracted in the direction of its motion. I have no issue with that and I accept it as a fact. Would I be right in thinking that there is also length contraction in GR in that if two people are at different "heights" (different potentials?) in a gravitational field then the one in the stronger field will have a shorter rule than the one that is in the weaker field?
If so, then I have a question (if not then please ignore the question):
Imagine I am static with respect to the horizon of a black hole (I guess I will have to idealise this to a non-rotating black hole as well to simplify the question). I find the mass of the black hole and then can calculate the distance to the horizon from my position. We will call this distance d.
I then start lowering a rope to the event horizon (we assume this is a special rope that is not stretched in any possible way for the purpose of this question but is still subject to the dilation effects) that is equal in length to d.
Will the rope reach the event horizon? Or will it be too short or too long?
From my reading of SR I understand that an object that is moving relative to me will be contracted in the direction of its motion. I have no issue with that and I accept it as a fact. Would I be right in thinking that there is also length contraction in GR in that if two people are at different "heights" (different potentials?) in a gravitational field then the one in the stronger field will have a shorter rule than the one that is in the weaker field?
If so, then I have a question (if not then please ignore the question):
Imagine I am static with respect to the horizon of a black hole (I guess I will have to idealise this to a non-rotating black hole as well to simplify the question). I find the mass of the black hole and then can calculate the distance to the horizon from my position. We will call this distance d.
I then start lowering a rope to the event horizon (we assume this is a special rope that is not stretched in any possible way for the purpose of this question but is still subject to the dilation effects) that is equal in length to d.
Will the rope reach the event horizon? Or will it be too short or too long?