What would a probe measure locally near a black hole's event horizon?

[Nora_T]

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the concept of gravitational time dilation near a black hole’s event horizon. I get that time slows down relative to a distant observer, but I’m struggling to visualize what a probe crossing it would actually measure locally. Would its own clocks just tick normally until spaghettification, with no special moment at the boundary?

[AaronZM]

I picture it like this: the traveler’s own clock just keeps ticking, and there’s no dramatic moment at the horizon you would feel. It’s only the outside observer who would describe things as time dilated.

[JerryL]

For a supermassive black hole the horizon can pass almost without notice; you might not feel anything at crossing, until tidal forces later start to matter.

[JosephHH]

I did a rough thought experiment once: a free falling path crosses the horizon in a finite proper time, and you’d record that crossing as just another tick on your wristwatch.

[Addison_L]

Analytically: the horizon is a lightlike surface, and the infaller experiences crossing as ordinary local physics; spaghettification depends on tidal gradients, which can be tiny at the horizon for very massive black holes.

[HannahQH]

Is the boundary even something the traveler would sense?

[Evelyn_J]

I tried to picture the signal side: light from your own clock would redshift heavily for outside observers, but your own measurement of time stays normal.

[AriaXL]

Another drift: I keep thinking about how gravity affects everyday clocks on Earth, like GPS, and that helps me picture the scale, even if the black hole case still feels surreal.