Light never goes any faster or slower than light speed unless it is
stopped dead in its tracks by hitting solid matter. What happens to it
is that its wavelength, or frequency changes. Short wavelengths have a
lot of energy in them, while long wavelengths have little energy. As
light is pulled into a black hole, it gains energy as it falls. Since it
can't speed up, its frequency merely goes higher and higher. A black
hole has a deep enough gravity well that light generated inside the
black hole, by the time it reaches the inside edge of the event horizon,
has lost ALL of its energy, so the photon dissapears. Likewize, light
entering the black hole's event horizon from other sources gains energy,
and is bent in a trajectory. The event horizon is described as the
altitude above the black hole at which the most energetic visible light
is bent so much that it is trapped in orbit around the black hole. This
is the true event horizon. There is also an apparent event horizon which
is merely caused by the lensing effects the gravity field has on laght
passing by the black hole, outside the event horizon, which varies in
relationship to the distance of the observer from the hole. The farther
away you are from the hole, the bigger the apparent event horizon seems
to be. As you approach the hole, the apparent event horizon shrinks in
size.
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@together.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive MikeySoft: Graphic Design/Animation/Publishing/Engineering ------------------------------------------------------------ How many fnords did you see before breakfast today?