this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

but like, the whole point of black holes is that time and space switch places, which means all the matter/energy inside them is packed in a single infinitely dense point

that's a pretty big thing to ignore

[–] ubergeek@lemmy.today 1 points 2 days ago

It's less than time and space switch in a singularity, and more that they are "undefined".

Like dividing by zero.

It's more complicated in ways that aren't intuitive.

Yes, at first glance, it appears that everything would continue to collapse down to a singularity. But a singularity is literally a failure of our model of physics. It's like dividing by zero- the result is nonsense. It's not an actual object.

From our perspective, time is stopped at the event horizon of a black hole. The singularity never forms because there isn't time for that to happen. If you fell into a black hole, would a singularity form as you are crossing the event-horizon? Maybe. Maybe Hawking Radiation is a thing and you're cooked by a wall of radiation as the collapsing object literally evaporates beneath you.

Keep in mind that high densities are needed for stellar black holes to form. An event horizon would form around the solar system if it was filled with air- and yes, there are black holes of this size.