Opinions needed to end debate?

Question

Here's the debate: Lets say, by some kind of devine intervention, you could stand on the surface of a black hole.
I say:
1) The surface would be smooth, but such a matte finish that you couldn't see it, as if you were floating above it.
2) The surface temp would be 0 Deg. K (All atoms are "crushed" per say, therefore not having any movement amongst them {needed to creat heat})
Friend says:
1) Surface would be so smoothe that it would appear to look like glass
2) The surface temp would be 10's of thousands of degrees C due to the enormus amount of mass, but adds that because absolutely nothing is emmitted from a black hole, the temperature (even less than the thickness of an atom) above it would be 0 Deg. K.

Answer 1

A black hole has no surface. It has an even horizon. It's is just space and once you get inside you cannot escape.

Answer 2

You're very nearly correct, your friend is way off. A "black hole" is a solution to the equations of General Relativity that is a vacuum everywhere except at the infinitesimal singularity in the center. To a local observer, that is, a person anywhere in that "solution", space is locally empty and locally flat, and looks just like empty space. Distant starlight would be distorted (perhaps a lot) by the gravity of the black hole, but the local observer does not detect anything special at the event horizon surface. The surface cannot reflect like a mirror, since nothing that touches that surface ever returns to the outside. Also, the "surface" is made of ordinary, empty space.

It is, however, not quite at 0 K, due to Hawking Radiation. For a large black hole, the temperature is very, very low, very near 0 K, but for smaller black holes the temperature is higher until, for quantum black holes, it is essentially infinite just before the black hole evaporates. Locally, however, the region around the event horizon is no different that other volumes outside or inside of it---the production of virtual particles is almost the same; the Hawking Radiation is a manifestation of how those virtual particles appear from a distance.

A real black hole is a collapsed star, and you might think that this invalidates the time-independent, theoretical solution discussed above. Once you see the star collapse from outside, there is no way you can catch up with the stellar material---it is inexorably on its way to the singularity. By the time you get to the event horizon, the star is gone beyond it and the black hole looks just like the theoretical solution from the event horizon outwards.

Answer 3

1) I would say that your friend is probably closer to being correct on the first one.
The gravity on black holes is so strong that even light is pulled back towards it, which is why I assume you said it would be dark black. However, I don't think that the gravity would be so strong that light could not reflect off the surface for even the first 5-6 feet. So I do think you would be able to see the ground (provided there is a star up in the sky to provide a light source). I think the color of the surface would basically be the color of the rocks it last absorbed.
Your friend said it would be so smooth it would appear as glass. This I would be more willing to accept, as long as we are not talking about TRANSPARENT glass.

2) On the second, I again think that your friend is closer to being correct. I think that because of all of the force at work, there would be tremendous heat produced as the bonds on all of the molecules are broken up so rapidly. Therefore, I think that the surface temperature would be extremely hot. However, I don't think that the temperature would drop as rapidly as your friend thinks.
Yes, I know that one way to think of temperature is to talk about how rapidly atoms or molecules are moving at a given location. Also you are assuming that because of the gravitational force, there are no molecules near the surface to be moving around. However, I am thinking more of radiant heat. (And, since I am miraculously alive whilie I stand there,) I would think that the heat produced right under my feet would easily be felt throughout my entire body -- even if I was not in direct contact with the surface.
Just my thoughts on your hypothetical question.

Answer 4

there is not surface in a black hole, or maybe a few milimeters, but if it had some surface it will be smooth, but since the light can scape it will be impossible to see it.
the temp. will be high because the infinite friction and the gravitational tides, and the black holes do emit energy, such x rays and heat, and as a matter of fact mr hawking said that the black holes lose part of its matter is like it slowly evaporates. so yes you will feel heat.
stephen hawking postulated the information paradox, in wich a guy that fell in a black hole will suffer an horrible death because the gravity and the heat and the radiation, but for the guy that fell it will be just like nothing happened, the weather will be nice and he will feel nothing, because the black hole as soon as destroys the guy steals the information of every atom in his body, in a way we will be digitalized... when i heard about it, i was amaze, but later me hawking proved that he was "most likely wrong"

Answer 5

well the gravity of a singularity traps all light and immediately outside the event horizon it bends it. If you were looking straight down at it it would be black, if you look towards the edge you will see a lensing effect of whatever is on the other side from you.

As for the temp, I have no idea how stable and motionless the matter in a singularity is but it seems that there would be some vibration. With that much matter, even small vibrations would correspond to enormous amounts of energy. Whether this energy becomes heat is still debateable but it is likely to be converted directly to x-ray radiation and spewed off.

Answer 6

Well the black hole has no solid surface, it is an endless pitfall. If you were at its "surface" or event horizon, you will get spread unevenly due to tremendous gravitational force.
You won't observe temperature at the surface nothing can leave the event horizon. The energy trapped "inside" the even horizon will burn you off since light is trying to escape and the rotational and translational speed of the objects with in.

Answer 7

I don't believe that black holes exist but they are elegant theoretical entities.
Let's assume you have a classical black hole.
If you could access the surface it would have to be matt black as you suggested and be absolutely smooth and invisible.
Since a black hole would have no radiation the surface[event horizon ]would emit no electro-magnetic radiation the surface would have to be at absolute zero degrees it would also contain no matter.