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Blackhole Warfare Strategy (kbin.social)

submitted 2 years ago by tkohldesac@kbin.social to c/askscience@kbin.social

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So this is something that's rumbled around in my head for a while and I'd like to see if I can get an answer here but I'm not sure I can word it correctly. Quick disclaimer, this is all 'as I understand it' not factual or even researched by any means so it may all just be a bunch of bullshit. Essentially the questionI have is this:

Time passes more slowly the closer you get to a black hole. If a civilization was at war with another civilization, wouldn't the civilization that could travel closest to a black hole always come out on top? The closer you get, the slower time passes so you could accomplish more in the same relative time. Is there something I'm missing? If we went to war with another civilization, rushing toward a black hole (not into it) would buy you tons of time to develop weapons/people/whatever and they would always come out on top.

Does my question make sense?

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[–] ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Time moving slower inside a black hole's gravitational field would have the opposite effect from what you're thinking. Like in the movie Interstellar, when they go down to the water planet they say "one hour on this planet is equivalent to 7 years on Earth".

So any civilization within a black hole's gravity well would actually be at a huge disadvantage and have considerably less time to prepare.

[–] tkohldesac@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Sorry - just saw this now.

I think you're right, I'm thinking about it exactly opposite. That was a good example, thank you!