Endless Facts, One Snippet at a Time
Hawking Radiation: How Black Holes May Evaporate
- Hawking radiation is a theoretical process where black holes slowly lose mass over time.
- It was proposed in 1974 by physicist Stephen Hawking.
- The effect arises from quantum fluctuations at the edge of the event horizon.
- Virtual particle pairs can form near the horizon—one falls in, the other escapes as radiation.
- This means black holes aren’t completely “black” but can emit energy.
- Small black holes would radiate faster and evaporate more quickly than giant ones.
- A stellar-mass black hole would take far longer than the current age of the universe to evaporate.
- If primordial tiny black holes exist, some could be evaporating right now.
- Hawking radiation links quantum mechanics, relativity, and thermodynamics in a unique way.
- It remains unproven but is one of the most fascinating predictions in modern physics.