Shadowing Practice: What If I Fell Into A Black Hole? - Learn English Speaking with Video

Imagine that you're flying through space, when suddenly you start to get dragged toward a dark abyss.

Reality as you know it starts to change.

Time begins to warp and… "So you start to feel this strange sensation of being stretched." You're falling into a black hole,

one of the most astonishing places in our universe.

Some are so big that they can fit over 60 of our solar systems across them, with masses up to 100 billion times our sun.

And once you fall past a certain point, nothing can escape.

Or can it?

I wanted to know the latest cutting -edge research about black holes, so I called up my favorite physicist, Dr. Brian Cox.

To answer the question, If you fell into a black hole, what would actually happen to you?

What would it feel like?

And what does our newest science tell us is really happening?

Inside a black hole.

Black holes.

One of the strangest things in existence.

A mathematical enigma.

You've come face to face with the structure of space and time.

Don't let me leave, Murph!

Spaghettification.

Black holes ain't so black.

Nature doesn't work that way.

It's the most wonderful thing.

It's incredible.

Imagine that you and I are on a mission to fall into a black hole.

And we have some imaginary spaceship that can take us as far and as fast as we want.

So we get into our spaceship.

What now?

What is a black hole and how do we find them?

So essentially what's the idea behind a black hole?

Let's say you take the sun, a star, the mass of the sun.

And you just collapse it.

And you keep on collapsing it.

And you squash it down.

becomes three kilometers.

Three.

If you artificially squashed all of that mass into that tiny little space, the gravity, right at its surface, would be immense.

So immense that if you wanted to escape… The speed you'd have to travel to escape its gravitational pull, it's called the escape velocity, would exceed the speed of light.

So even light rays emitted from the surface, if you could squash it down that far, would just stay there.

That is a black hole. can escape.

At first, black holes were just a mathematical quirk, a weird solution to equations that seemed to otherwise fit our universe.

They were only theoretical. But then...

we started to find them.

Over decades, scientists measured the movement of stars and galaxies and gases that were warped by seemingly empty patches of space.

Left behind, we now know, by the collapsing death of stars much larger than our sun.

We discovered that black holes are real.

We can now tell they're all over our universe.

Some estimates say they're up to 40 quintillion of them.

And almost every galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center including our own Milky Way.

Let's go.

Let's imagine that we choose the black hole at the center of our own galaxy.

Yeah.

Sagittarius A star, I think it's called.

I know that we took this picture of it.

What are we looking at here?

So here, the light, you might say, what is the light in this picture?

So it's not from the black hole, because we just said black holes trap light.

It's from what's called the accretion disk.

Say, what?

You're to imagine material spiraling around in orbit, around this very dense object, and very violently orbiting.

And so it heats up and emits light.

Wait, so then why in this photo do we not see the accretion disk across the middle?

Well, it turns out that we happen to be seeing this particular black hole from above.

But if you were to see it from edge on, something very weird starts to happen.

behind the black hole.

Because the black hole's gravity is so immense, it's causing light to be bent and distorted around it.

- So imagine this disc of material around this thing.

Then light rays, let's say from your perspective, from behind the black hole, go around into your eyes.

Sometimes they orbit and then go around into your eyes.

And they go into your eyes from every point on the disc, from underneath and at the top and behind.

So you see that, that's what you see as an image.

And in our little spaceship, we're getting closer.

As we approach, I start to wonder, how big is this thing?

Based on the way it pulls at the stars around it, scientists estimate that the black hole at the center of our galaxy has a mass of 4 .3 million times our sun.

But if you plopped it down inside our solar system, this black hole would only extend to about one -fifth of Mercury's average orbit.

small for its immense mass.

And compared to other black holes, ours is just Medium.

One of the smallest black holes ever found is J1650.

Its diameter is only about as long as Manhattan, but it has a mass of 3 .8 times our sun.

One step up would be the black hole in Messier 15.

It's about twice the diameter of Earth, with a mass of 4 ,000 suns.

Okay, now we're at the lower limit of what's considered a supermassive black hole.

This one is just under half the diameter of our sun, but about 100 ,000 times its mass.

And here's Sagittarius A *.

Now to the truly insane.

The black hole in the galaxy M87 weighs 5 .4 billion suns.

You could fit our solar system around four times across it.

It was the first one we ever got a picture of in 2019.

And this is one of the largest black holes ever discovered: Ton 618.

It weighs 66 billion times more than our sun.

And it could fit nearly 40 of our solar systems across it.

But it might not be the biggest. of 100 billion suns.

But since this black hole is closer, we're seeing what it looks like more recently than TUN 618, which might have grown since.

And these are just the biggest ones we know of.

There could be an even more massive one, just waiting to be found.

And now we're starting to get pulled into one.

So we're falling towards this thing now, and we turn our rocket motors off.

We're just in free fall.

We're just floating.

100

So We're just there.

101

So we could be.

102

approaching this in this room now and we would have no clue that that's what's happening.

103

What about when we're in the accretion desk?

104

Wouldn't we be banged around by a lot of stuff?

105

We might get in a bit of a mess as we fell through the accretion desk.

106

You're absolutely right.

107

It's a bit nasty around these things.

108

But let's say that our room, this spacecraft, is magically insulated from radiation and heat and all those things.

109

Then nothing.

110

One of the most shocking things, from the point of view of someone outside, the description is very different.

111

Okay, now imagine you, yes, you, watching this.

112

You go outside and you look with an all -powerful telescope at me and Brian, light years away.

113

So what would they see happening to us?

114

as we fall towards this thing, as we approach the black hole, if they could see our watches, they would see our time tick more slowly,

115

more slowly, more slowly, and they would see our time stop on the horizon.

116

Stop.

117

This is incredibly important.

118

As we get closer to the black hole, there are now actually two journeys.

119

There's our journey as we see it, and then there's our journey as you would see it from far away.

120

And they are very different.

121

Why?

122

Because black holes are There's something weird there, but there isn't, according to Einstein.

123

Albert Einstein was the one who realized that space and time are actually one thing: space -time.

124

And space -time is stretchy.

125

Space -time responds, warps or curves, to matter and energy in the universe.

126

The theory that Einstein published will say, "Give me a ball of matter," and the equations will tell you how the fabric of the universe is distorted.

127

A black hole is the most extreme example of this distortion that we know about.

128

The math tells us that reality very close to it, and very far from it, are not the same.

129

So it looks to us like the universe is speeding up, and it looks to you like we're moving in slow motion.

130

Now we're crossing the line where no light can ever escape to reach you again.

131

For us, we don't feel that.

132

But for you, you never actually see us cross it at all.

133

They would never see us fall in.

134

From the point of view of someone outside, nothing goes into the black hole.

135

Ever.

136

us imprinted there forever or does the light from us slowly fade until...

137

This light is climbing away through this gravitational field

138

so it's getting stretched so we get redder and redder and redder, infinitely redshifted.

139

And from our perspective there's no turning back.

140

You can write the equations as a space being like a river

141

that flows into this thing almost like a sinkhole

142

or something in space

143

and the river of space flows at the speed of light inwards on the horizon and then faster than light inside.

144

So if you imagine that you're a photon, a particle of light, you're like a little fish swimming against the tide.

145

But if the tide's going at the speed of as fast as you can swim, the speed of light, you can't get out.

146

We're now past the event horizon.

147

But before I show you what's inside this black hole, let me show you something here on Earth.

148

I am finally building Huge If True's first website and I'm really excited about it.

149

The reason why I think we need one is that we obviously have our home on YouTube, but we need some place to tell you about the show, about different things that we're doing, and maybe sell some merch very soon.

150

Wait, I think I have a sneak peek.

151

Yeah, you'll see me wearing this a lot.

152

And it's got this cool If True one thing.

153

And I can build our site with Hostinger, our sponsor.

154

Clicked here, I got a business plan, which has a bunch of cool features, including an AI logo maker, if you're looking to just brainstorm ideas.

155

And of course, if you're looking to sell something, it has e -commerce features.

156

And I just start building.

157

I'm using their AI website builder, which is fun.

158

It can even write copy that's very good for SEO, which makes things easier.

159

If you want to build your own site, I've really been enjoying using Hostinger, and I think you might too.

160

And right now they're offering you, the huge crew, 10 % off if you use the coupon code CLIO.

161

Make sure you use it if you sign up, because that helps this channel.

162

independent journalism.

163

Now, let me take you inside a black hole.

164

We're past the event horizon, but we're still falling and falling.

165

And finally, ah, we begin to feel something.

166

Gravity is increasing faster and faster.

167

And this is where we get to maybe my favorite word that I have learned in the process of this.

168

My understanding of this is when the gravity at your feet is so different This is spaghettification.

169

Could you explain what is happening here?

170

Yeah.

171

Another way of thinking about it is just

172

that the distortion in space -time is not constant over the length of your body.

173

It's not only stretching, it's also a squashing.

174

You start to feel this strange sensation of being stretched and squashed.

175

And as you go closer and closer to the singularity, those effects become much more extreme.

176

Until they're so extreme that first of all, you cease to stay together.

177

We're one long string of atoms?

178

What are we?

179

Yeah, and then the atoms get separated and then the protons, the quarks inside the protons will get separated and ultimately everything is gone.

180

Everything's been ripped apart.

181

And all the ripped apart pieces that used to be us are still racing inward toward the singularity.

182

I think it's really tempting to picture it as some infinitely dense point to which this star collapsed.

183

But since a black hole is a distortion of space -time, the singularity is not just a place, it's also a moment in time.

184

And it's in fact the end of time in Einstein's theory.

185

It becomes something that's in the future for anyone or anything that crosses the horizon.

186

So it's like, if you say, "Well, I want to escape this thing," it's like saying, "I want to escape tomorrow." If I said to you, "Let's run away from tomorrow," you'd go, "I can't run away from tomorrow,

187

it's in the future." That's what this thing behaves like, singularity.

188

If imagining the center of a black hole as "the end of time" feels like your brain is getting "spaghettified,"

189

It's okay, bye!

190

It's about to get weirder.

191

So we have passed through the event horizon, we have been spaghettified, we have hit the end of time.

192

The question is, can we ever get back out?

193

So the answer is, according to Einstein's theory, no. Einstein would say it's all over, you've got ripped to bits,

194

you've gone to this infinitely distorted space and time, and it's just done.

195

What would Stephen Hawking say?

196

Stephen Hawking discovered that black holes, which according to Einstein's math, nothing should ever escape and they should only live and grow forever as they just suck in mass around them,

197

something actually does get away.

198

What's called Hawking radiation is emitted from the black hole.

199

So what is that?

200

Particles being emitted, it's a temperature, it's glowing.

201

And so that means it's losing energy, and so that means it has a lifetime.

202

And that means one day it will be gone and space will

203

will be the Hawking radiation that's been emitted over these eons of time.

204

Okay, I think something is missing from my understanding of the universe.

205

I agree with you, something is missing in my understanding as well, and everybody else's.

206

Here's what I think is missing from mine right now.

207

So all of this matter has, including us, passed through the event horizon, ended up at the singularity.

208

It is something in there.

209

Yeah.

210

At the end of time.

211

And also, I know that every law that that we have about the universe says that information is conserved.

212

If a black hole will one day end up as nothing, what happened to you and me?

213

What happened to all of that stuff?

214

I mean, this is the central question.

215

So, um, Stephen's initial calculation was the Hawking radiation is information free, purely thermal.

216

So that would suggest, as you said, that the information, any record of anything that fell in will have been erased.

217

clear on this.

218

Information does not get destroyed in the universe.

219

It gets scrambles but doesn't get destroyed.

220

So that's what bothered everybody.

221

What happened?

222

What's the end of the story?

223

Did we answer the question?

224

So at the end of the story, We're not at the end of the story yet, but in 2019, a series of papers were published.

225

Those papers suggest that Stephen missed a bit in his calculation.

226

Very subtle.

227

But it turns out that the radiation is not information free.

228

At the end of the process, then all the information about everything that fell in is imprinted in the radiation, as you would normally expect.

229

On the one hand, that makes sense, because then the information is not destroyed.

230

weirder.

231

Because how then did the information, which went to the singularity and the end of time, and get outside again? as radiation.

232

But you say, well, what's the picture then?

233

What happened?

234

Because I understand if I take this and throw it into the black hole, it's gone across the horizon.

235

It's gone to the singularity.

236

It's definitely true that nothing comes out of the black hole.

237

So how is this information about this thing?

238

getting imprinted in the radiation.

239

And I should emphasize as a health warning here, this is ongoing research and there is no agreed upon picture.

240

This is the cutting edge of research into black holes.

241

One description of our perspective is, yeah, we go to the singularity, we get all scrambled up.

242

And then it looks like the interior of the black hole is in some sense the same place as the exterior.

243

You could almost picture wormholes opening up to the exterior and very naively,

244

you imagine our bits of information going through the wormholes and coming out again.

245

We end up outside.

246

The information ends up outside in the Hawking radiation.

247

Even as I say this, there are papers being written saying different things.

248

It's really cutting edge stuff.

249

- Different things like, well, maybe you never go in.

250

Maybe there actually is no in of a black hole.

251

Or maybe everything is just information with no real place at all.

252

And now my brain is breaking.

253

look like that there is a description of the universe.

254

That looks like a giant quantum computer which does not imply that someone built it right?

255

It doesn't even we're in a simulation

256

but it does suggest that there's a a good description of reality

257

that you can write down in the form of some kind of network of entangled qubits.

258

Something like that.

259

And I think it's fair to say that the jury is still out on these issues.

260

But the thing to emphasize is it's really, there's something really fundamental going on here.

261

And it probably, it almost certainly is associated with the nature of space and time.

262

themselves or space -time.

263

Black holes are an incredible gift because they stretch the limits of our understanding of our universe.

264

We struggle with it, but it's hard for us.

265

You start to come face to face with the.. with what?

266

With the structure of space and time.

267

In their strangeness, their extremeness, black holes reveal the hidden structure of reality that governs everything, including our everyday lives.

268

You're studying completely collapsed stars or the things at the

269

And you're gaining insight into quantum computers and networks of qubits and quantum information.

270

It's the most wonderful thing.

271

It's incredible.

272

One of the things that I really admire about you

273

and your work is that you have this sense of wonder at the universe.

274

You give that sense of wonder back to people.

275

You say, hey, don't you remember what it was like when you were a little kid looking up at the sky?

276

as you learn more about the universe, that sense of wonder can increase, not decrease.

277

Yeah.

278

And I think that's really special.

279

And I think that people need that.

280

And first, I just wanted to say thank you.

281

Thank you.

282

And second, My last question for you is, how do you feel when you go outside and look up at the night sky,

283

given what you know?

284

The sense of all.

285

and the sense of mystery and beauty increases the more you know about what you're looking at.

286

It doesn't decrease.

287

The number of mysteries increases the more you look at it.

288

So anybody watching this, if it's a clear night, you can go outside.

289

You can look in the direction of the centre of the galaxy and wonder about it.

290

But the more you understand about nature, the more mysterious and magical it becomes.

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Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les

Deze spreekles op niveau C1 is gebaseerd op de video “What If I Fell Into A Black Hole?”. Deze woorden komen het vaakst terug: hole, space, universe. Deze video bevat 290 zinnen en 3284 woorden om na te spreken. Het gesproken deel duurt 19:27. De spreker praat in een natuurlijk tempo van ongeveer 169 woorden per minuut, dicht bij een alledaags gesprek. 87% van de woorden hoort bij de 3.000 meest gebruikte Engelse woorden; de rest kun je beter vooraf bekijken.

Belangrijke woorden in deze video

De 15 moeilijkste woorden uit de video, met uitspraak en betekenis:

Woord	Uitspraak	Betekenis
singularity zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˌsɪŋɡjəˈlæɹətɪ/	bijzonderheid
horizon zelfstandig naamwoord	/həˈɹaɪ.zən/	horizon, horizont
emit werkwoord	/iˈmɪt/	uitzenden, afgeven
squash zelfstandig naamwoord	/skwɔʃ/	kalebas
accretion zelfstandig naamwoord	/əˈkɹiʃən/	accretie, vermeerdering
immense bijvoeglijk naamwoord	/ɪˈmɛns/	immens
disk zelfstandig naamwoord	/dɪsk/	schijf
orbit zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈɔɹ.bɪt/	baan
distort werkwoord	/dɪsˈtɔːt/	vervormen
imprint zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈɪm.pɹɪnt/	indruk
spaceship zelfstandig naamwoord		ruimteschip, ruimtetuig
warp zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈwɔːp/	vervorming
equation zelfstandig naamwoord	/ɪˈkweɪ.ʒən/	vergelijking
quantum zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈkwɑntəm/	kwantiteit
diameter zelfstandig naamwoord	/daɪˈæmɪdɚ/	middellijn, diameter

Phrasal verbs die je zult horen

Woord	Uitspraak	Betekenis
end up werkwoord		belanden, terechtkomen
turn out werkwoord		uitvallen, resulteren
come out werkwoord	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	uitkomen
leave behind werkwoord		achterlaten
step up werkwoord		versnellen, verhogen

Zinnen om te herhalen

Korte, volledige zinnen uit de video die je in alledaagse gesprekken kunt gebruiken:

What are we looking at here?
What about when we're in the accretion desk?
Wouldn't we be banged around by a lot of stuff?
Could you explain what is happening here?
We're one long string of atoms?

Grammatica in deze video

De structuren die de spreker het meest gebruikt, met de exacte woorden uit de video:

Structuur	In de video
Voorwaardelijke zinnen if + zin, will/would + werkwoord — een voorwaarde en het gevolg	If a black hole will one
Lijdende vorm be + voltooid deelwoord — het gaat om wat er gebeurt, niet om wie het doet	being stretched · were warped · be bent
Present perfect have/has + voltooid deelwoord — iets uit het verleden dat nu nog telt	You've come · have learned · have passed
Betrekkelijke bijzinnen who / which + zin — extra informatie over een persoon of ding	one who realized · plan, which has · builder, which is

Uitspraak om op te letten

De spreker gebruikt 54 samentrekkingen en verkorte vormen, zoals we're, you're, doesn't. Spreek ze kort uit, zoals je ze hoort.

De “th”-klanken: mathematical /ˌmæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪ.kəl/, theoretical /ˌθi.əˈɹɛt.ɪ.kəl/, thermal /ˈθɜːməl/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/
De klanken “sh” en “zh”: squash /skwɔʃ/, accretion /əˈkɹiʃən/, distortion /dɪsˈtɔːʃən/, equation /ɪˈkweɪ.ʒən/, gravitational /ˌɡɹævɪˈteɪʃənəl/
Lange woorden — let op de klemtoon: singularity /ˌsɪŋɡjəˈlæɹətɪ/, infinitely /ˈɪnfɪnɪtli/, diameter /daɪˈæmɪdɚ/, gravitational /ˌɡɹævɪˈteɪʃənəl/, spaghettification /spəˌɡɛtəfəˈkeɪʃən/

Klanken die Nederlandstaligen lastig vinden:

Stemhebbende eindmedeklinker — /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/ niet verscherpen: emphasize /ˈɛm.fə.saɪz/, conserve /kənˈsɜː(ɹ)v/, inward /ˈɪnwəd/, fade /feɪd/, exceed /ɪkˈsiːd/
/æ/ — opener dan de Nederlandse “e”: singularity /ˌsɪŋɡjəˈlæɹətɪ/, diameter /daɪˈæmɪdɚ/, gravitational /ˌɡɹævɪˈteɪʃənəl/, scramble /ˈskɹæmbl̩/, atom /ˈætəm/
/g/ — een harde plofklank, geen Nederlandse “g”: singularity /ˌsɪŋɡjəˈlæɹətɪ/, gravitational /ˌɡɹævɪˈteɪʃənəl/, spaghettification /spəˌɡɛtəfəˈkeɪʃən/, enigma /ɪˈnɪɡmə/, entangle /ɪnˈtæŋ.ɡəl/

Zo oefen je met deze video

Luister de hele video één keer zonder te spreken en noteer de woorden die je niet kent.
Begin op 0,75× snelheid, spreek zin voor zin na en ga terug naar normale snelheid zodra het makkelijk gaat.
Neem jezelf op en vergelijk met het origineel; let daarbij op woorden als singularity, horizon, emit.

Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?

Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.

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