[Physics] How would you describe a black hole to a complete layman

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Non-astrophysicist visitors to Black Hole, will most likely barely make it past the introduction before getting lost in the technical details. Moreover, the Wikipedia article does not teach laypeople how to think of a black hole, or give them a better intuitive sense than pop culture references to black holes, some of which are really awful!* So, please explain the concept of a black hole in a way that won't glaze over the eyes of your typical English or Business major.

*For examples, and the pop-culture smearing of the concept of black hole together with other gravitational anomalies, see:

Best Answer

Personally I'm not entirely sure how much technical detail you require, only in a generally digestible fashion. However, given that I have recently read answers provided to numerous questions regarding black holes*, formulated for the 'general reader' but by someone who, to drastically understate, certainly knows much, much more than myself, I'll quote:

A black hole is an incredibly dense celestial object containing so much mass it has generated a powerful gravitational field from which not even light can escape. Anything that falls into a black hole will be crushed out of existence.

Black holes are spherical and expected to be spinning, dragging the spacetime continuum like honey around a spinning spoon. In these confused regions of spacetime, it won't be clear whether you're travelling through time or space or both.

Just like any object that hits the black hole, light too will be swallowed completely and quite possibly forever. Light that misses the black hole, but passes very close to it will be deflected onto a new course through space.

Nothing, not even information is expected to be able to escape from a black hole. This s contentious because if, as Stephen Hawking suggests, black holes eventually evaporate and die, they must be radiating particles. In turn, it should be possible to detect and measure these particles, but currently none of our telescopes are able to get any readings when pointed at a black hole - these areas are void of any information. So, to resolve this contradiction , it's suggested even information is sucked into the heart of the black hole.

We don't know what happens at the centre of a black hole. Our current theories break down because they can't deal with infinitely dense objects. So, physicists are trying to develop new theories of gravity to answer what lies at the bottom and whether they lead anywhere. Called a singularity, one is thought to exist at the centre of every black hole.

This may be far less technical than you desire - let us know if so. Though, even so it is an easy read with enough of an idea and general knowledge to be contributed, I believe.

*Source: BBC Focus, Brian Cox, April 2011