AnswersCR English 3 S2 E3060OXThe Poetry of PhysicsQuestion 12
12
QuizMultiple Choice

The Poetry of Physics

Question 12 • *CR English 3 S2 [E3060OX]

Which excerpt from Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Death by Black Hole” best provides evidence that escape from a black hole is impossible?

Answer
A
. . . the speed required to escape a black hole is greater than the speed of light itself. . . . light travels at exactly 299,792,458 meters per second in a vacuum and is the fastest stuff in the universe.
B
But if the black hole were 6,000 feet across, then the same man’s feet would be only one-tenth of 1 percent closer to the center than his head, and the difference in gravity—the tidal force—would be correspondingly small.
C
Meanwhile, the stuff within the event horizon has collapsed to an infinitesimal point at the black hole’s center. So black holes are not so much deadly objects as they are deadly regions of space.
D
If you stumbled upon a black hole and found yourself falling feet-first toward its center, then as you got closer, the black hole’s force of gravity would grow astronomically.

Explanation

Choice A directly explains why escape from a black hole is impossible: escaping would require traveling faster than light, and light is described as the fastest thing in the universe. The other excerpts discuss tidal forces, the black hole’s center, or the increasing pull of gravity, but they do not state why nothing can escape.

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