I’m digitally nomading in the merry month of May, travelling around Italy in a camper van and slaving at a hot computer in the early mornings and late evenings. The current projects are all really interesting. They include a philosophy book, one on interieur design, a university website, publicity texts for a group that performs theatrical concerts, aimed at children, and various articles for a university magazine. One was about astrophysics and the planned construction of a telescope that can film black holes in colour (!). Naturally, a lot of surfing for terminology was involved. And that’s how I came across ‘spaghettification’. The word caught my eye immediately, me being in Italy and all. For those of you with a frailer constitution or who haven’t had their coffee yet, a warning: it’s gruesome!
In astrophysics, spaghettification is the tidal effect caused by strong gravitational fields. When falling towards a black hole, for example, an object is stretched in the direction of the black hole (and compressed perpendicular to it as it falls).
Basically, you’ll be stretched so thinly that at some point, you’ll break in two and your top half will pass its own bottom half!
Read all about it through the link in the first comment. I’m off for a bowl of pasta!