re: Could a human enter a black hole to study it?

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seems like you would be crushed by the intense gravity

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Not really how it works. You’re technically in a free fall, so a person who occupies a single point of space would effectively experience weightlessness. That person would just accelerate as they get closer to the singularity, because gravitational force increases as two objects get closer together.

The issue is that the human body (and whatever vessel that human is using to enter the black hole) is not a single point in space. We have dimensions, and volume. So the tidal forces (e.g. the difference in gravitational pull on separate parts of an object) would tear you apart.

So if you’re diving in feet first, at some large distance away from the black hole your feet and head experience roughly the same gravitational pull. Your body experiences uniform acceleration - a normal free fall.

As you get closer, the gradient gets steeper. Maybe your head is experiencing 1G of gravitational force but your feet are experiencing 2G. Eventually that difference in gravitational pull between your head and toes starts to overcome your body’s ability to hold itself together, and you literally get torn apart and turned into space spaghetti.

But if the black hole is big enough, you can make it far beyond the event horizon before the tidal forces get strong enough to tear you apart because the event horizon is much further away from the singularity than it would be for a small black hole.