Black Holes and The End of Spacetime

[SteveManPhy076]

Recently I was reading Stephen Hawking's brilliant book "A Brief History of Time" and I believe I can recall him writing multiple paragraphs about falling into a black hole. I think I remember him saying that if you were to fall in all of time begins to collapse and the singularity will always be in your future but not your past, I'm taking this as meaning that you will never reach the point of infinite density?? Can someone elaborate, please?

(sorry I'm kind of dumb in comparison to him right now because I'm still in high school)

 

[phinds]

No, it doesn't. First, "singularity" is not really the "point" at the center of a black hole. "Singularity" just means "the place where the math model breaks down and we don't know WHAT is going on". Second, yes, you DO get to the center. He did not mean to imply that you don't. It will be in you future until you get there. Of course, that's all pretty meaningless anyway since you would have been utterly destroyed long before you get there.

Now, you WILL hear the singularity described as a point but it is believed that if we ever get a theory of quantum gravity, that will probably resolve to something more complex. Calling it a point is just shorthand for all of that.