: Why do I keep hearing that there is no speed faster than light. How is anyone positive about that. If there is such a speed that is faster, isn't it possible to pass through the horizon of the hole, and come back out without being ripped into pieces? Also, I heard that once you pass through the horizon (supposing that a person did somehow), that death would be inescapable because of singularity, and something about how a person couldn't escape their own future. How can a person's future lie within the black hole, and if it is, could it be the key to time-travel, or maybe a fountaion of youth? just curious.

The reason shutles can break through the atmosphere of the earth is because the earth has a very small escape velocity. Escape velocity does not depend o nthe mass of the object, but the density. A black hole is an extremely dence star, so it has a great escape velocity. The escape velocity is greater than the speed of light, so light can not escape. Since light is the fastest thing known to man, us scientists prodict that nothing can escape.

An English scientist used the quantum theory to predict that particles can escape from a black hole. He predicted that when two part of a molecule crossed the event horizen they would split apart. One would go into the black hole and never escape, but the other half goes away from the event horizen and escapes.