How an Astronaut Falling Into a Black Hole Would Die Part 2 263
First time accepted submitter ydrozd writes "Until recently, most physicists believed that an observer falling into a black hole would experience nothing unusual when crossing its event horizon. As has been previously mentioned on Slashdot, there is a strong argument, initially based on observing an entangled pair at the event horizon, that suggests that the unfortunate observer would instead be burned up by a high energy quanta (a.k.a "firewall") just before crossing the black hole's event horizon. A new paper significantly improves the argument by removing reliance on quantum entanglement. The existence of black hole "firewalls" is a rare breakthrough in theoretical physics."
You know what they say... (Score:4, Funny)
It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden ...oh wait, it IS the fall that kills you.
Re:So what should the family do? (Score:5, Funny)
The nearest black hole is 1600 light-years away
Famous last words...
Re:So what should the family do? (Score:5, Funny)
Interstellar racism, you think?
Re:Except that black hole "firewalls" don't exist (Score:5, Funny)
Black hole firewalls don't really exist.
Indeed. A firewall would be useless. Any virus trying to penetrate the event horizon would be turned into harmless spaghetti code anyway.
Re:Firewall? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, the firewall rules for a black hole are easy: You let every packet in, but none out.
Re:So what should the family do? (Score:3, Funny)
True, but in any scenario at all this is about what would happen to his corpse.
Re:So what should the family do? (Score:5, Funny)
"Well, the thing about a black hole - its main distinguishing feature - is it's black. And the thing about space -- the color of space, your basic space color -- is it's black. So how are you supposed to see them?" - Holly
Re:So what should the family do? (Score:4, Funny)
So the best answer on how an astronaut will die is "like the rest of mankind"?
I think the best answer is that the astronaut would die of humiliation, because of all the laughter from the other astronauts for falling into a black hole.
Re:So what should the family do? (Score:4, Funny)
"Look at how primitive things were just half a century ago."
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