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LESSON 4 · Black Holes: Where Physics Breaks

The Ultimate One-Way Trip

What falling in feels like depends entirely on the black hole's size:

  • Stellar-mass black holes spaghettify you well outside the event horizon
  • Supermassive black holes have gentle tidal forces at the horizon — you could cross without noticing
  • Light bends around the hole, creating Einstein rings and distorting the sky
  • Inside, the universe's future compresses into a shrinking overhead window
  • All paths lead to the singularity — there is no direction called "out"

No one has tested this firsthand, and for good reason.