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Why Black Holes Slow Down Time As You Get Closer To One
By RAY FERNANDEZ
The story of black holes began with the German meteorologist Karl Schwarzschild, who was also a mathematician and an astronomer. During World War I, Schwarzschild confirmed what Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicted: black holes warp, bend, and distort space-time.
Einstein was the first to realize that time is not constant but relative, and theorized it was relative to the point of observation or observer. However, to be scientifically accurate, time does not change or dilate because of where an observer may be; it changes due to changes in gravity.
According to Einstein’s theory, time will slow down near any massive object due to its gravitational pull. This is called gravitational time dilation, which increases exponentially near black holes because they are the densest objects in the universe with the greatest gravitational pull.
"It takes an incredibly massive object, such as a black hole, to make an appreciable difference in the flow of time. There's still much to learn about what happens to time and space inside a black hole," says Ota Lutz writing for NASA JPL.