Black Hole Gravity

[Whirligig Girl]

Here's a conundrum I have thought of. If gravity travels at the speed of light, then how does the gravity of the singularity of the black hole escape the event horizon at all? I've heard of stars that are so massive they don't leave anything behind when they die, could that be why?

I just woke up, and this is essentially dream logic.When I wake up I'll think about this more.

[lajoswinkler]

Because gravity is a consequence of spacetime distortion by mass. The distortion won't cease to exist outside the region where it's strong enough.

[CalculusWarrior]

It helps to think of the 'rubber sheet' spacetime analogy. If you drop a really heavy ball onto the sheet, a distortion will appear, but only propagate at the speed of sound of the sheet (in the real world, this would be equivalent to the speed of light hard limit). The distortion itself is unaffected by the speed at which it propagates.

[Sandworm]

Because gravity is not subject to gravity. Either it's a force not transmitted by a particle, or it is a particle that is unaffected by like particles. Or gravity is really a perturbation in 'time', the higgs or some other field. Or those are all totally incorrect as our understanding of how gravity actually operates between two masses is next to zero.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Sandworm

[ZetaX]

Because gravity is not subject to gravity. Either it's a force not transmitted by a particle, or it is a particle that is unaffected by like particles. Or gravity is really a perturbation in 'time', the higgs or some other field. Or those are all totally incorrect as our understanding of how gravity actually operates between two masses is next to zero.

That's not a correct explanation. If that were correct, gravity would violate causlity being bounded by c.