So how do black holes gain any mass then?
Well, from our point of view all incoming mass gets stuck very close to the event horizon. That's not too surprising considering the amount of information of a black hole is proportional to its surface area. So from a far away observer a black hole is more like a sticky sphere than an hollow ball.
At that point we probably can't tell more without diving into the math, and it's beyond my abilities. Yet the gross idea does not seem absurd to me.
It is also important to distinguish between the implications of a model black hole formed from the uniform collapse of a perfectly spherical dust cloud, from infinity, in an otherwise empty universe, with no charge or angular momentum, from what happens in nature.
So in that case, you wouldn't be seeing the "future of the universe" just the "future" (I guess) of the space around the black hole.
I kind of see blackholes in space as vortexes in a lake. Anything that gets "trapped" in the vortex moves much faster, including the water (space-time) itself. It doesn't impact the rest of the lake, except for the things that are on a collision course with the vortex, and then get swallowed by it (and spit back out?).
I think you meant to say ether.
So I had the idea that smaller black holes are at the center of the sun, the earth and so on, being the principle source of gravity and the "movement" that we see is just us falling into different black holes at the same time, which are also falling into each other. So micro black holes must be at the center of massive particles too. The world line of a photon on the other hand is just the intersection of two event horizons as they grow, so you get a wave model. And that's why you have entanglement: circles have two intersections, so if your model is two dimensional, you get two entanglements. But you can have vastly more complicated geometries and thus assembles of entangled particles.
I don't know the "standard model" well enough to take the analogy any further, not to mention string theory and all that jazz.
>So micro black holes must be at the center of massive particles too.
If an object has a schwarzschild radius smaller than its own radius, then it isn't a black hole. That literally describes all non-black-hole objects with mass. That's just the standard manifestation of gravity.
>The world line of a photon on the other hand is just the intersection of two event horizons as they grow, so you get a wave model. And that's why you have entanglement: circles have two intersections, so if your model is two dimensional, you get two entanglements.
Is there any connection here besides that an event horizon and the sum of all possible paths of a photon in a given amount of time are both spheres?
If there were a micro-black-hole inside of a particle, its event horizon would have to be within the particle, or else the particle would just be indistinguishable from a black hole. The particle wouldn't be like a normal particle with an invisible spherical event horizon surrounding it and affecting its interactions.
This is not an analogy as much as an example of an external-vs-internal observer problem. When you close the (opaque, insulated) door of your fridge, observers inside will see the (filament of the incandescent) light significantly dim, and if the door stays closed long enough, will see the light thermalize with rest of the internal volume. Someone standing outside the fridge might not even see the initial dimming; indeed, that observer may only ever see the light as "on" (rather than "heating from cold" or "cooling from hot").
[1] We could talk about naked singularities a bit: this usually means that there is at least one outside-the-black-hole observer for which the shape of the horizon is such that the centre of mass-energy of the BH is outside the horizon, rather than an observer for which there is no horizon at all. However, even these scantily clad BHs don't arise in realistic universes described by General Relativity. Fully naked singularites (where at least one observer exists which does not see any horizon at all) require an alternative theory of gravitation, or conditions extremely unlike those anywhere in our universe.
[2] Consider the observation of a supermassive black hole at the edge of the observable universe. From our view here around Earth, we see a race between a very bright star about to cross the black hole's event horizon and the black hole about to cross our Hubble horizon. Observatory A sees the star vanishing behind the horizon just in time; Observatory B sees the BH cross out of observability before the star vanishes behind the BH horizon. A and B have (very slightly) different Hubble horizons focused on them [3], and also with a (n also slightly) different radial distance to the BH horizon. "B" can never directly see the same coincidence of events that "A" sees; should "B" deny the infalling?
[3] Maybe this is illustrative of observer-centred observables? Glories (an optical phenomenon similar to rainbows) are so observer-specific that you and your handheld camera will have different ones (and each of your eyes will have different ones). As noted in the "From the air" subsection, we can tell what seat a photographer of a glory from a plane must have been sitting in. https://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/gloim1.htm Likewise, we can determine the location in spacetime of an observer of a star-into-black-hole event from that observer's detailed description.
My immediate, naive instinct is that by crossing this limit, the frame dragging effect, would be extremely powerful, to the point where it might increase the radius where Hawking radiation is formed/emitted and increase the rate of Hawking radiation to avoid passing the limit. A sort of self limiting process to prevent breaking the speed limit of c.
But in the time it took to write this out, I remembered angular momentum and realised that notwithstanding the additional angular momentum of the infalling mass, the conservation of angular momentum would just make the event horizon slower as it expands. Which makes the superluminal event horizon unlikely in my mind.
The biggest issue, aside from the model, is that time dilation is something which only matters when two observers “compare clocks.” Neither observer alone ever experiences a difference. The crew of a 99.9% lightspeed ship doesn’t experience time dilation... until they return home. It makes no sense to talk about the effects of time dilation from the point of view of a one-way trip to the event horizon.
That's not true. They see the universe around them moving much faster.
Time dilation has nothing to do with "returning home".
The biggest issue, aside from the model, is that time dilation is something which only matters when two observers “compare clocks.” Neither observer alone ever experiences a difference. The crew of a 99.9% lightspeed ship doesn’t experience time dilation... until they return home. It makes no sense to talk about the effects of time dilation from the point of view of a one-way trip to the event horizon.
That has to do with the experience of their frame of reference. Time does appear to “slow down” for them, rather everything else will seem to “speed up.” You can infer the difference, but you can’t sctually communicate that or compare with anyone else until you decelerate. In the extreme case of a gravitational event horizon, there will be no ability to ever communicate again. The fact that external observers will see you infinitely redshifted doesn’t imply anything about your experience of subjectively falling past the horizon. Both are valid frames of reference, but ultimately will develop spacelike separation which prohibits further communication.
As it relates to the issue st hand, you can’t make accurate statements about mass never passing through the EH based on observations from a distant from of reference.
So, if you don't sense anything, you don't sense time dilation either?
This is slightly more complicated. First of all, you haven't given a frame of reference. If you claim someone were moving at 0.99c then you have already set the frame of reference. And they would have to gain near infinite mass and would die. You seem to assume a restricted frame of reference though, inside the spaceship. So, a point of reference inside the spaceship would see light moving with c inside the spaceship. And would assume his own point of reference as the origin of the inertial frame of reference. So baring any outside measurement, how do you know the spaceship is moving with 0.99c and in which frame of reference?
Common sense dictates that the probe and the sample would require equal fuel to return to earth; but to an observer riding this cigar-rock, why would the universe cut our probe some slack if we changed its kinetic energy rather than the observer?
Recently, I worked out the ISS orbit using the Schwartzchild metric as an approximation of Earth. It's cool to see the orbital period pop out and agree with real life! It's then just a small step to calculate the time dilation experienced by ISS astronauts.
The answer is kinda easy if I can make up my own intrinsic definition. The mass is the mass of the stuff around the black hole. A black hole is a singular point, it can't have mass, don't be silly.