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From: carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Black hole trolling
Message-ID: <218100014@s.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 13 Mar 89 15:44:00 GMT
References: <605212786.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>
Lines: 27
Nf-ID: #R:<605212786.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>:-32:s.cs.uiuc.edu:218100014:000:1490
Nf-From: s.cs.uiuc.edu!carroll    Mar 13 09:44:00 1989


/* Written  4:30 pm  Mar  6, 1989 by kpmancus@phoenix.Princeton.EDU in s.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space */
	Easy.  The forces that hold a macroscopic object together are
electromagnetic.  They require the exchange of virtual photons between
the particles to be held together.  When the object extends across the
event horizon, the photons can no longer go from the atoms inside the
black hole to the atoms outside.  Thus the tether is neatly sliced.
/* - - */
Wouldn't that imply that anything going across the horizon would be reduced
to fundamental particles? The nucleons wouldn't be able to exchange strong
force particles (pions?), and the quarks wouldn't be able to exchange gluons,
etc.

But I've always thought that this is all moot, anyway. Given the prior existence
of a black hole (without worrying about where it came from), my understanding
is that due to time dilation effects, it would take an infinite amount of time
for anything to fall from (mostly) flat space across the horizon*. So, nothing's
fallen in yet into any black hole (assuming a finitely old universe). One might
also ask how fast an infalling object is going when it crosses the horizon,
assuming it fell from flat space.
-------------------
* `infinite time' for an observer in flat space, finite for the object itself


Alan M. Carroll          "And then you say,
carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu     We have the Moon, so now the Stars..."  - YES
CS Grad / U of Ill @ Urbana    ...{ucbvax,pur-ee,convex}!s.cs.uiuc.edu!carroll