Someone Explain to me what a Black Hole is..

a dozen possible jokes, I am making none of them

You just saw Interstellar, didn't you?

You see, Timmy, when God created the Universe 6000 years ago...

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"Picture a trampoline and on this trampoline are many bowling balls of different sizes (acting as planets). Naturally, they would all roll toward the middle and the trampoline would sink...well that's what a black hole is."

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Bad explanation, but I kinda see where they were trying to go.


To understand a black hole you need to understand a few things.

1. matter is attracted to other matter.. that's what gravity is. We stick to the earth cause the matter in our bodies is attracted to the matter in the earth.

2. as you pile more and more matter on top it packs the atoms at the bottom tighter and tighter together, think of being squished at the bottom of a dog pile

3. The matter at the bottom is under pressure and gets packed tighter and tighter together, so it takes up less space eventhough it weighs the same amount as it did when it took up less space. That extreme pressure and tight packing of atoms creates heat... that's why the center of planets are molten lava. If you have enough matter and enough pressure, fusion begins... the sun is basically just a really big fricking planet that had enough matter and pressure for fusion to begin... Jupiter was almost a sun.

Now, let's move on to stars/suns...

1. All that heat and energy makes the stars want to expand and try to get bigger, but all the matter being attracted to other matter makes the stars want to stay together. Depending on the size of those stars certain things can happen

2. If they are smaller ones like our sun... as the fuel burns out they will eventually get much bigger but cooler, and engergy pushing the particles away from each other will be stronger than those attracting them together and most of it will eventually move away, but still leave some to collect into a very very dense but small star (a white dwarf) imagine something that weighs as much as a bowling ball but is the size of atom. that's kinda what a white dwarf is like scaled up.

3. If the star is really big, it will eventually explode in what is known as a supernova. But will retain/attract back enough of the matter that the white dwarf in this case is even more dense... so much so that the matter is packed so tightly together and has so much gravity that it becomes like a bowling ball the size of nothing. It has so much gravity that nothing within a certain distant can help being sucked into it, even light (which acts both as a particle.. i.e. matter and wave) ... Yes, even light has a mass and gravity... kinda, in a way.

Anyway, at this point you have a black hole, it has so much mass and gravity it just crushes everything together so tightly into a spot that takes up no space whatsoever. And the more it takes in the heavier and more dense it gets without getting any bigger.. that spot is known as the singularity.

Now... that's pretty much the way black holes work and what they are... there is a whole other level when you start into the way they effect time and space.. wormholes, other dimensions, time travel, etc.

That explanation seems more like the fabric of spacetime, not necessarily blackholes.

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One sentence summary? A region of space containing matter in which weak-arse gravity has overcome all repulsive forces.

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Pretty much.

Whats your email? Ill forward you the pics of paiges vag

Dude you are all over with these questions...you are touching on the core of Euclidean space vs Minkowski space-time, theory of relativity etc.

Euclidean is our ordinary understanding of the universe wherein gravity bends light, while Minkowski states that the path a beam of light takes, is a straight line (even if we observe it to be bent) Under Euclidean understanding we state that gravity is an attractive force between all things in the universe, which is always acting on any object that occupies a space in time. Without going to far in Einstein theory of relativity, a super massive object bends space-time (not just space) around itself. The more massive an object, the greater effect it will have on its surroundings both visible and non.


This picture shows an experiment that was crucial to helping prove relativity. It is showing astronomers from Earth observing light that is behind the Sun. The Sun's effect on light (from its mass) is such that it bent the light from the star around itself allowing us to view it from Earth. It is an objects incredible mass that is responsible for this warping of space-time.

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Euclidean is our ordinary understanding of the universe wherein gravity bends light, while Minkowski states that the path a beam of light takes, is a straight line (even if we observe it to be bent) Under Euclidean understanding we state that gravity is an attractive force between all things in the universe, which is always acting on any object that occupies a space in time. Without going to far in Einstein theory of relativity, a super massive object bends space-time (not just space) around itself. The more massive an object, the greater effect it will have on its surroundings both visible and non.


This picture shows an experiment that was crucial to helping prove relativity. It is showing astronomers from Earth observing light that is behind the Sun. The Sun's effect on light (from its mass) is such that it bent the light from the star around itself allowing us to view it from Earth. It is an objects incredible mass that is responsible for this warping of space-time.

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Now explain it like I'm 5 years old.

Hmm I'll try... everything that ever has been, is affected by gravity. Bigger things have more effect than smaller things. And black holes are where all the monsters live

I think a 5 year old may have more important things to worry about than relativity. i.e. naptime, cooties etc


The question in a sense asks to explain the cause of gravity, of which there is currently no widely accepted theory. Not to say Bro's question is unanswerable; Einstein was tasked with summing up his theory into one sentence:

"Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. (Albert Einstein)"

Chew on that one.