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Equation 81 · A Horizon Is a Toll Booth, Not a Loophole

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ℓ=1 cm\ell=1\,\mathrm{cm}

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Inputs and operations1cm
Result or conditionell
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=

=

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which at the horizon itself scales as ℓ\ell c6c^6/(4G2G^2M2M^2) — falling as the inverse square of the mass. For a processor of laboratory size ℓ\ell=1\,cm\mathrm{cm} at the horizon of a black hole with the mass measured for the progenitors of the first LIGO gravitational-wave detection, around 30\,M⊙M_\odot , this tidal stress is already about 1.1×\times10^5\,m s−2\mathrm{m\,s^{-2}} , on the order of ten thousand Earth gravities across a single centimeter — enough to disassemble ordinary hardware well before the horizon is reached [ 16 ] . For the Sagittarius A* mass used above, the same formula gives roughly 6×\times10^{-6}\,m s−2\mathrm{m\,s^{-2}} across the same centimeter: negligible, and consistent with the…
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which at the horizon itself scales as ℓ\ell c6c^6/(4G2G^2M2M^2) — falling as the inverse square of the mass. For a processor of laboratory size ℓ\ell=1\,cm\mathrm{cm} at the horizon of a black hole with the mass measured for the progenitors of the first LIGO gravitational-wave detection, around 30\,M⊙M_\odot , this tidal stress is already about 1.1×\times10^5\,m s−2\mathrm{m\,s^{-2}} , on the order of ten thousand Earth gravities across a single centimeter — enough to disassemble ordinary hardware well before the horizon is reached [ 16 ] . For the Sagittarius A* mass used above, the same formula gives roughly 6×\times10^{-6}\,m s−2\mathrm{m\,s^{-2}} across the same centimeter: negligible, and consistent with the free-fall approximation actually holding at the horizon of a sufficiently large hole [ 14 ] . “Free fall is locally ordinary” is therefore not a universal statement about black holes; it is a statement whose validity is bounded, by real astrophysical data, to holes massive enough that the tidal term stays small over the processor’s own size — a condition satisfied at Sagittarius A*'s horizon and badly violated at a stellar-mass horizon of the kind LIGO has actually detected.

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