How-To: Make the Most of Falling Into a Black Hole

So, you want to know how to survive a fall into a black hole? Well, you’re in for a sad reality, because unless you are somehow able to go faster than the speed of light, it’s impossible to escape. Impossible as in impossible, not impossible as in “It’s impossible to get ten kills in Call of Duty 4 without dying!”… yes, it’s that impossible.

As Universe Today points out, your demise doesn’t have to be entirely quick. If you happen upon a massive black hole, then you could apparently survive for a few hours. It’s the small black holes that will hit you before you even blink… you will be dissolved in a few billionths of a second. Quick and painless has a new meaning…

Hitting a large black hole seems like the ultimate definition of hell, though. Due to extreme gravitational differences as you fall towards singularity, your head and toes will both be suffering a different pull, essentially resulting in you becoming an insane version of Stretch Armstrong. At the end of this ‘spaghettification’ process, you’ll be nothing more than a line of atoms.

I think I’ll stick to the small black holes…

Physicists used to think that black holes were sort of like quicksand in this situation. Once you cross the event horizon, or Schwarzschild radius, your date with the singularity is certain. It will occur at some point in the future, in a finite amount of proper time. The more you try to struggle, the faster your demise will come. It was thought that your best strategy was to do nothing at all and just freefall to your doom.