Why Not We Just Throw A Recording Device Into The Black Hole And See What Happens To It

A black hole appears out of nowhere. A small metal brick flies through the hole as if someone threw it from the otherside. An audio transmission plays from the object. It’s your voice as a child. Do you enter the black hole?

No, not as a first action, and without explicit instruction or invitation to do so.My first move might be to examine the “brick”, to see if it’s just a tape recorder or other recording device or something more sophisticated. I might not recognise my own voice, after all it sounds different outside my head than it does to me, and it’s been a long time since I’ve even heard my voice as a child.I’d examine the “black hole”, maybe poke it with a ruler or a broom handle to see if anything interesting happens. Maybe call through it, to see if anyone replies.At some point I’d remember my camera and start to take pictures of the brick and the hole, post them to the internet, and ask around if anyone has any idea who I should call about it.If I was foolish enough to investigate it by walking through it, I’d be sure to set up my computer’s camera to stream the event to my YouTube account.

What would happen if we dropped a video camera into a black hole while attached to an infinitely long cable connected to a monitor and recoder? If the camera survived the journey, would the cable remain intact? What might we see on the monitor?

So we just need a camera that can survive almost infinite gravity. A cable that’s infinitely long and enough infinite power to keep filming for eternity?You should just ask, I’ve got one in the back bedroom :)The problem you have is that time doesn’t work properly inside black holes.From outside the picture would seem to slow and then stop once the event horizon was crossed. No other picture would be sent or received. From outside it would look like nothing was happening, the camera would just sit there.The camera would see the universe aging rapidly. Stars would be born and die in a split second, but the signal would never reach the other end of the cable. The signal would be unable to leave the black hole.There’s also the problem of what you’re going to tie the cable to. Even if you wrap it around a planet, it’ll just get pulled through the planet by the almost infinite gravity.It’s like trying to tether the Earth with a thread. You can try, but it’s just not going to work how you think it will. Even if the thread was infinitely strong, the Earth wouldn’t stop, it would just break around the thread and keep going.Gravity affects everything with mass. An infinite cable will have a lot of mass. There is nothing massive enough to tie the cable to. Once the black hole has the cable then it won’t let it go. The infinite cable will feed the black hole until it consumes the universe.In short: Bad idea :)