How dense is matter inside a black hole?
First, the simplest definition of density: it is how heavy something is relative to its size. A pound of rocks weighs the same as a pound of ping pong balls. But the ping pong balls take up a lot more space. Hence, the rocks are much more dense. Another way to look at density is to think of it as a measure of the “compactness” of matter. More background… at the center of an atom is a very dense core called the nucleus. It’s composed of protons and neutrons (held very tightly together). Surrounding this nucleus in somewhat of a cloud are the electrons. Atomically speaking, the electrons are very far apart and far from the nucleus. Consider this: the entire atom composed of an electron cloud surrounding the nucleus is about 99.9% empty space. The electrons are negatively charged and repel anything else negatively charged with a very strong electromagnetic force, or EMF. Now imagine a force strong enough to overcome this EMF and compress atoms to a much greater density. This is what happe
