[wacpnhys] Spaghetti and pancakes

As an object falls toward a black hole, from the point of view of the object, it undergoes spaghettification due to tidal forces.

However, time slows down the closer one gets to the event horizon.  From the point of view of an external observer, the object never crosses the event horizon, only getting closer and closer.  As it gets closer, it appears to undergo pancakification, approaching the shape of the surface of the event horizon, an effect which curiously seems exactly the opposite of spaghettification.

In other words, given the approach velocity of the object toward the black hole, we can calculate the time (in external observer's reference frame) of when it will cross the event horizon.  Let that time be, say, 7pm.  However, at a point near the event horizon, time progresses so slowly that what the external observer sees there is a snapshot of the distant past.  It will take a very long time for the clock there to reach, say, 6:59pm.  Until then, the object will not be observed to pass that point.