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Do black holes look the same from any angle?

Ron Dippold
San Diego, California, US

In theory, yes; in practice, no. First let’s distinguish the parts of a black hole. In the centre is the singularity, where all physics breaks down because the maths goes to infinity. The part we can “see” is the event horizon, where almost no light can escape the gravitational pull. We can’t actually see it, because no light except faint Hawking radiation can escape to hit your retina, but we can tell where we stop seeing things – the central shadow.

Then there is the…