3 ms·
Position is relative, velocity is relative, acceleration is actually absolute. Tidal forces are not relative, they are agreed upon by all observers, who would a
by jerf 4y ago
Position is relative, velocity is relative, acceleration is actually absolute. Tidal forces are not relative, they are agreed upon by all observers, who would all agree that you got torn apart by those forces. You can remember this by considering the effect acceleration has on objects; there is no trajectory an object can take in which it will observe the surface of the earth being at 25G and consequently everything being crushed on it. They'll still see 1G, they just won't agree about the velocities being modified and in sufficiently extreme cases, won't agree about how long the forces were applied for, but they'll still see 1G.
Being able to witness varying accelerations would actually be a very strange theory, having instead a twin paradox in which one astronaut takes off and comes back home to a twin (and civilization) crushed to death, whereas the stay-at-home twin sees his twin take off, get crushed to death, and never return home at all. The YouTube videos trying to explain this universe would certainly be epic.
Again, this all happens in normal space too; the black-hole-ness of the black hole is not in play yet. Non-black hole objects can "spaghettify" too.