Eh thats kinda nitpicky. For non physics people “sucking in with lots of force” is good enough to describe “absurdly strong gravitational pull”. Its not a myth, its an over simplification.
It’s exactly the same gravitational pull as the star that previously collapsed… (And I’ve not read the article (yet), this is just a personal nitpick that I’ve had for a LONG time).
–edit after reading the article–
In terms of inevitably falling into a black hole, it’s only the material that formed interior to three times the event horizon radius — interior to what’s known as the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) in general relativity — that would inexorably get sucked into it. Compared to what actually falls into the event horizon in our physical reality, the purported “sucking” effects are nowhere to be found. In the end, we have only the force of gravity, and the curved spacetime that would result from the presence of these masses, affecting the evolution of objects located in space at all. The idea that black holes suck anything in is arguably the biggest myth about black holes of all. They grow due to gravitation, and nothing more. In this Universe, that’s more than enough to account for all the phenomena we observe.
That summary explains it better than I can.
I disagree. It is more than just a nitpick. Saying black holes suck things in implies that they are doing something different than any other mass. Which they are not. Would you say a star sucks in stuff around it? Or a planet? Or moon? No. That sounds absurd. It makes it sound like blackholes are doing something different to everything else - which is miss-leading at best. They way things are described matter as it paints a very different picture to the layman.
Would you say a star sucks in stuff around it? Or a planet? Or moon?
For a star, I absolutely would. For a planet or moon, it depends on the context.
Ok… so…
- Pull you in with the power of gravity
Does not ‘suck’ you in with the power of a vacuum…
About right?
“This is the only context in which black holes even appear to suck matter in: as they absorb matter that undergoes gravitational infall due to the black hole’s mass”
I may not be the smartest of person but this article seems to contradict itself a little