Black Holes, the Couch, and the Minivan

The other day, I had the rare opportunity to clean the house from top to bottom without interruption. My wife and my mother-in-law took the kids to the state fair on a weekday to beat the crowds, which left me with an evening alone at home. I seized the chance to do some deep cleaning of the various nooks and crannies that tend to be glossed over when we tell the kids to pick up after themselves. I liken these areas to black holes, which have a gravitational field so massive, nothing can escape it. Not even information stands a chance of escaping, thanks to things only astrophysicists and mathematicians understand. But because I’m an armchair physicist today, this is my chance to compare something relatable to something as mysterious and terrifying as black holes. So I took my vacuum cleaner and prepared to begin my cleaning expedition into one of the most well-known, dangerous, and possible prospective areas inside the house: the couch.

Black Holes In and Around the House

Before I begin to explain what exactly I found under the couch when I was cleaning, there is, in fact, a second catch-all that attracts so much stuff it behaves like a black hole: the family minivan. My wife had already cleaned it out in preparation for her trip to the fair, but she and I both know that the cleanliness seldom lasts longer than 48 hours. Indeed, the minivan acts as a black hole because whatever falls into it is never seen again (at least until the next chance to clean it out). For example, kids’ lunches and road trip snacks are packed in little IKEA containers, which I also use for packing my lunches for work. After a few weeks, I notice that there are way more lids stored in the kitchen than containers. Why? The containers have become lost in the minivan, never to be seen again.

Shoes are the other big items to disappear into the void of the minivan. One day, all of kids’ shoes are neatly stacked in the coat closet, ready to be accessed for random trips to the play park. The next day, every single shoe is missing. My first thought is to go to the minivan to find them, knowing they are probably in the galactic abyss. Buried under IKEA containers, stuffed animals, and enough crumbs and dropped food to form a new Happy Meal, are their shoes. I don’t even know how it’s possible for something to be lost first and somehow be buried under older stuff.

The Event Horizon

Speaking of crumbs, this brings us back to the couch cushions. Sometimes, the kids will get to eat lunch while watching TV (we love PBS around here), but there is no table in the living room from which they can eat. That means they might sit on the couch with plates in their laps. And inevitably, food will fall from the plates into the void in between the cushions. It might be sandwich crusts, grapes, cheesy fish crackers, or a piece of broccoli. Whatever it may be, my wife and I are never alerted of this food particle’s trip beyond the event horizon of the couch, so, for all intents and purposes, it’s gone forever.

It’s like the event horizon of a black hole. It’s the limit at which the energy required to escape velocity of the black hole is greater than speed of light. But because the speed of light is coincidentally the speed limit of the universe (probably), that means nothing can escape the gravity of a black hole after it’s passed the event horizon. Picture the final hole of a mini golf course. It’s the one where the ball goes down a hole and is deposited somewhere else. You can’t get it back and you feel disappointed the game is over. The event horizon is a bit like that, except the game is over the ball forever so the disappointment is permanent.

The minivan is even more predictable in terms of black hole mechanics. Obviously, when we’re driving, my wife and I are not paying any attention to how much food, how many IKEA containers, or how many shoes fall to the floor because we’re watching the road. The event horizon of the family minivan is much larger and the gravitational force much greater such that it becomes a supermassive black hole. The observational limit of this phenomenon is the rear-view mirror. Once a food particle or shoe passes beyond the field of view of the mirror, it’s gone forever.

But while I was preparing to clean the couch, I was not to be bested by psychics. I walked the vacuum cleaner over to the couch and removed the cushions. There were a few smaller particles, probably due to spaghettification, so into the vacuum they went. But then I started to find larger things, like LEGOs. I set them aside and then continued to clean. Then, even larger things started to appear. I moved one cushion and found a book. Under the next cushion, a stuffed animal. I continued moving everything, vacuuming with increasing fervor, thanks to my feeling of accomplishment for finding treasures buried within my couch.

Observable Proof of Black Holes

You might think that taking a photo of a black hole was proof enough of black holes. But finally, I found definitive, observable proof that black holes and all they represent are real. I found in between two pieces of the sectional, something extraordinary. Grapes in all stages of evolution into raisins. I still can’t remember the last time we had grapes. Yet, there they were, sealed away from the rest of the universe. I may be a layman when it comes to psychics and how black holes operate, but I’ve watched enough YouTube videos and science fiction shows to know time kinda breaks down around them. The closer an object gets to a black hole, the slower it appears because time slows down relative to the observer. So recalling my YouTube education on general relativity, I’m pretty sure that time slowed down for the grapes that were closer to the black hole (as far as I could tell). The raisins were not so lucky and dried up because they were farther away from the black hole of the couch. Time for the raisins moved at a rate closer to normal, relative to me.

I’ve illustrated this effect with a hastily drawn picture in MS Paint:

Time Dilation in Real Life

Of course, after all this science and stuff, I had to throw everything away in the couch and finish cleaning up. The vacuum cleaner was full of everything that shouldn’t be in the couch and I fluffed up the cushions. I vacuumed the rug, stepped back to observe my completed task, and relished in the cleanliness. Of course, this would only last for a short time until my wife came home with the kids, as all things around small children do. Which is fine because let’s face it: raising children creates a sort of time dilation.

Let’s get serious now for a second. When we’re younger, time seems to move slowly, at a rate that made everything seem to happen at a comfortable pace. Now, as my children get older, time seems to move faster than I remember it did. My oldest is turning six this month. How did this happen? I feel like she was just born! I’m starting to understand the life is brief. I may be vacuuming crumbs from the couch cushions and cleaning out the minivan today, but in the future, those days will be gone. My kids will grow up, move out, and it will just be me and my wife before we know it. Sure, I really don’t like finding dried up grapes in between the couch cushions, but as strange as it may sound, they are markers in the timeline of life that remind me of how precious this period with my kids is. Unlike money which can earned again later, once time is spent, it’s gone forever and never comes back. Spend time with your family, with your loved ones, with your kids. The moments you have with them are precious and if you blink, you might miss them.

Conclusion

So there you have it: a ridiculous comparison of black holes to the nooks and crannies of my house. Don’t take it too seriously, please. If you’re an astrophysicist, please correct my crude description of black holes in the comments. My education about outer space basically comes from Youtube these days.