[ChuckMcM]

If you read Stephen Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time" you will see that a variant on this question is what started him on the path of reasoning about black holes in the first place.

The question does not currently have a definitive answer. Although current mathematical analysis has in falling matter being dismantled at the sub-atomic level as it undergoes the tidal stresses associated with gravity. Basically if you were standing at the event horizon the pull on your feet would be several billion times the pull on your head.

The confounding factor is that if you're falling into a black hole the acceleration can get your velocity to nearly light speed, and at that velocity your perception of time slows, to the point of nearly stopping. So while people watching you fall in might see a burst of xrays as your physical being converted into energy, "you" might perceive nothing at all, simply that time stopped (which is really not something you can perceive) followed by your non-existence (which depending on your theology either has you returning you energy to the entropy of the universe or a visit with your deity and/or anti-deity if there a judgement step.)

Most theories do not currently postulate a 'far side' of a black hole, mostly because "hole" is a metaphor rather than a physical description of the object. In theory its really just a point where the numbers go out of whack because the equations have a divide by zero error there. This too is what fascinates a lot of people, the universe sets up this problem where it gets to divide by zero. A bit of calculus, a bit of fudging with infinities of both the positive and negative variety, and your guess is as good as anyone else's at this point.

Fun to think about though.

[sigterm]

> Basically if you were standing at the event horizon the pull on your feet would be several billion times the pull on your head.

This is not always the case. If the black hole is massive enough there won't be strong tidal force at the event horizon to disintegrate objects.

I don't know GR enough to judge your other statements. However, when discussing the time slowing down close by a black hole I suspect one must take into account of the strong gravity field and not just the velocity of the falling object.

[pdonis]

if you were standing at the event horizon the pull on your feet would be several billion times the pull on your head.

This is true for a black hole with mass a few times the mass of the Sun, the sort we expect to be formed by the gravitational collapse of stars. However, a much larger black hole would have much less tidal gravity at the horizon. Some of the supermassive black holes that are believed to be at the centers of quasars would have less tidal gravity at their horizon than you feel on the surface of the Earth.

The confounding factor is that if you're falling into a black hole the acceleration can get your velocity to nearly light speed

Velocity is relative. You will be moving at the speed of light relative to observers who are "hovering" just outside the hole's horizon; but other people falling into the hole just ahead of or behind you could have much smaller velocities relative to you, even well after you cross the horizon (depending on how close they were to you to start with).

and at that velocity your perception of time slows, to the point of nearly stopping

Your perception of time would be normal; you would notice nothing unusual in the behavior of clocks you carried with you, even well after you fell inside the horizon (assuming the tidal gravity was bearable--see above).

Also, "time" as you're using it here is relative; there is no absolute notion of "perception of time".

while people watching you fall in might see a burst of xrays as your physical being converted into energy, "you" might perceive nothing at all

They would only see this if it happened outside the horizon, which it might if the hole's tidal gravity was large enough outside the horizon. But in this case, while it would be true that you would perceive nothing at all, that would simply be because you would be turned into x-rays and destroyed; it would have nothing to do with any change in your "perception of time" due to relativity (see above).

Once you reach the horizon, even if you emit x-rays, nobody outside the hole will ever see them, since light emitted at or inside the horizon can never get back out. But your "perception of time" will continue just fine, assuming again that tidal gravity is bearable (see above).

Most theories do not currently postulate a 'far side' of a black hole

By "far side" do you mean a region inside the event horizon? If so, you are wrong; our current theories most certainly do predict (not postulate, it's not an assumption, it's derived as a theorem) that there is spacetime inside the horizons of black holes.

In theory its really just a point where the numbers go out of whack because the equations have a divide by zero error there.

This is only true in a particular system of coordinates; it is not true as a statement about the actual physics. That is, there is no actual problem with spacetime at the horizon; all physical quantities are perfectly finite there. The "divide by zero error" is a purely mathematical problem with one coordinate chart, which can be fixed simply by using different coordinates.

[ChuckMcM]

Sigh. And who are you going to inspire to study physics with those dry facts? :-) I wasn't going for depth here, shire could just goto google scholar or a decent physics library and follow the citation references off of Dr. Hawking's work if they want to pursue this in depth. I was shooting for a bit more pizazz than that :-).

It is a solid point though that the tidal forces on the event horizon of a really big black hole would be minimal. You'd be just as dead though. But I stand by my assertion that "Something pedantically accurate like 'nothing alive'" would be pretty boring and not really convey the interesting aspects of gravitational theory that result in singularities on what most folks consider "normal" space-time.

[pdonis]

I was shooting for a bit more pizazz than that :-).

Pizazz is fine, but not at the expense of truth.

You'd be just as dead though

Eventually, yes. Not at the horizon.

singularities on what most folks consider "normal" space-time.

There is a singularity at the "center" of the black hole, yes. (I put "center" in scare-quotes because a black hole doesn't have a "center" in the usual sense; but we don't have a better word for it.) But not at the horizon.