Question about black holes

[ALine]

Can you think of black holes as infinite potential wells?

[Markus Hanke]

1 hour ago, ALine said:

Can you think of black holes as infinite potential wells?

Not really, because in curved spacetimes the concept of “gravitational potential” only meaningfully exists if certain symmetries are present in that spacetime. It is not a generally applicable concept in the same way as it is in Newtonian gravity.

Also, the (Newtonian) mass of a black hole is finite, so the potential well wouldn’t be infinite.

[ALine]

gotcha, thank ya.