TIL what 'spaghettification' means from that black hole meme

I saw that meme with the guy getting stretched into noodles near a black hole and thought it was just a joke about pasta. Looked it up and it's actually a real term in astrophysics for when gravity pulls stuff apart. Has anyone else run into a meme that turned out to be a legit science term?

2 comments

2 Comments

brian_rivera5924d ago

Fell down that rabbit hole myself. Turns out spaghettification is just one part of tidal force physics, which is the same thing that makes our oceans have tides on Earth. Makes you wonder how many other wild scientific terms are hiding in plain sight. Noticed that meme also got me reading about event horizons and how time slows down near them.

chen.casey23d ago

You've actually read up on it too, right? If you ever find yourself trying to explain this stuff to someone, just break it down like the tides on a beach. The moon pulls harder on the side of Earth facing it, and that's why we get high tide. Same exact force, just amped up to a million near a black hole. My advice is to skip the math and just focus on that ocean analogy until it clicks. Once you get that, the whole spaghettification thing makes way more sense. It's wild how one simple physics idea can explain both.