Time Dilation - Black Holes - And THE FUTURE IS OURS!

Posted by Zero 9 years, 7 months ago to Science
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Li'l help here?
Trying to flesh out a thought. Not sure if it's valid. Got alotta smart folks here. Figured I'd run it past ya.

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Recall the old thought experiment on time dilation and black holes - I think from "Brief History of Time" but maybe not.

An astronaut is taking a one-way trip into a Black Hole while video-linked to an observer.

The observer sees the astronaut slow down as he approaches the BH, the astronaut sees the observer speed up.
And the effect becomes more pronounced as the astronaut nears the Event Horizon.

The observer sees the astronaut slowing to almost a stand-still while the astronaut sees time flying past in the observer's world.
One sees time slow to zero, the other sees time fly off to infinity.

In fact, in that last moment, that exact instant our hapless flyer arrives at the EH, the observer sees his friend come to a complete stop - while the astronaut's last glorious vision of the outside world is nothing less than the end of time.

And this is not an illusion - this is really happening.
If the astronaut's course were to simply graze the BH's gravitational well, he would emerge that much farther into the future. Seconds - days - eons - all based on how close he came to the Event Horizon.


All this is pretty straight forward. Nothing controversial here. Well established theory supported by many empirical observations. (Gravity DOES equal Acceleration and acceleration WILL move you into the future.)

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Now comes my question.

In our world, our man is space has just plummeted into a black hole! And it didn't take him a million years to do it. It took just a few seconds. (Or minutes or whatever...). And then he was gone. It looked like he got stuck at the event horizon, but he didn't. A millisecond later his spaghettified subatomic particles discovered what lies at the bottom of that bottomless pit.

But our man -
(Woman? Nah, a woman wouldn't be that stupid!! Ha!)
- now dead and gone, lived long enough to see the end of the universe.

[drumroll please...]
Doesn't that mean that the future "already" exists? That the ENTIRETY of time exists now. Already. As a whole. A discrete THING that we simply move through JUST LIKE SPACE.

It doesn't affront our sensibilities that Pluto can exist elsewhere while I exist here. Why is it such an affront that Now and Then and Someday (perhaps even Long Ago) can coexist? After all it is SPACE-TIME.

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That's my question.

Based on what I've laid out,
assuming well-established theories are not overthrown,
is it not OBJECTIVELY TRUE that the future already exists?

(I missed something didn't I? I'm game. Fill me in. Help me out.)


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  • Posted by robertmbeard 9 years, 7 months ago
    In your thought experiment, those of us who are outside observers see the astronaut take zillions of years to plummet into the black hole (although gravitational tidal forces will obliterate him in the process). From his reference frame, it doesn't take much time. However, if he were able to see those of us well outside of the black hole's EH, it would appear that time for us is accelerating, with eons of future history unfolding before his eyes.

    So, the future and present do not exist simultaneously. The astronaut (or at least his atoms), from our vantage point, takes zillions of years to die as it slowly plunges into the EH.
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    • Posted by 9 years, 7 months ago
      Not true. We see the mass of a star plummet into a black hole at relativistic speeds. Falling so fast it screams in x-rays.

      The time dilation is though the video monitor.

      For both observer and astronaut their sense of time is unchanged.
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