Black Hole Complementarity

[laifuthegreat]

According to Black Hole Complementarity, when an observer sees another falling into a black hole, the effect that gravity has on light waves would make any observation of the person slow down, eventually stopping him before he hits the horizon. In addition, he will appear to be "stretched" across the whole horizon, his particles being hit and separated by the halves of virtual photon pairs that, since the other half is unobservable inside the horizon, have the same effect as normal photons. Meanwhile, to the one falling in, there is nothing particularly interesting about the horizon. Am I correct?

 

Then in theory, say the person falling in is feet first. What will happen? Will his feet appear to slow down and never hit the horizon although he should observe nothing special at the horizon? In addition, since the stretched horizon (hot membrane resulting from aforementioned unruh effect) is above the horizon, won't the person falling in observe it anyways?

Edited April 14, 2011 by laifuthegreat

[MigL]

A good elementary book, by Kip Thorne called 'Black Holes, Einstein's outrageous legacy', may clarify some of your thinking. Incidentally, what are virtual photon pairs ??? A photon does not have an anti-particle for virtual pair creation ( by what another photon ???).

[laifuthegreat]

A good elementary book, by Kip Thorne called 'Black Holes, Einstein's outrageous legacy', may clarify some of your thinking. Incidentally, what are virtual photon pairs ??? A photon does not have an anti-particle for virtual pair creation ( by what another photon ???).

 

 

Sorry, I think I meant any virtual particle that can become Hawking radiation.

[Spyman]

For the person falling into the Black Hole spacetime would be very curved relative the distant observer, so in his view the Event Horizon is even more further down and while he continues to move closer, he will never be able to reach it.

 

Interacting with an event horizon

An observer crossing a black hole event horizon can calculate the moment they've crossed it, but will not actually see or feel anything special happen at that moment. In terms of visual appearance, observers who fall into the hole perceive the black region constituting the horizon as lying at some apparent distance below them, and never experience crossing this visual horizon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_horizon#Interacting_with_an_event_horizon