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drafting spec…
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--- name: ? status: compiling version: 0.0.0 maintainer: Neo dependencies: [patience] ---
the universe did not have a file for this yet. writing one now. (first visit only: future readers will see this page instantly.)
---
name: Hawking Radiation
slug: hawking-radiation
type: thermodynamic phenomenon
status: experimental
version: 1.974.0
released: 1974-03-01
maintainer: Stephen Hawking (original), universe (ongoing)
dependencies:
- quantum field theory
- general relativity
- black hole thermodynamics
- virtual particle pairs
- planck constant
license: CC-BY-UNIVERSE-1.0 (unverifiable, non-revocable)
tags:
- thermodynamics
- black holes
- quantum gravity
- radiation
- evaporation
- entropy
---
Black holes are not perfectly black. They leak.
At the event horizon, the vacuum is not empty. Virtual particle pairs spontaneously borrow energy from nothing, as permitted under the uncertainty principle. Normally they annihilate immediately and nobody notices. Near a black hole, the geometry is unkind: one particle falls inward, the other escapes outward. The escaping particle is real now. It has energy. That energy has to come from somewhere.
It comes from the black hole.
The black hole pays for each escaped particle with a small reduction in mass. Given enough time, it pays for all of them. The hole evaporates completely, leaving behind a faint thermal glow and a very long list of unanswered questions about where the information went.
ERR_INFORMATION_PARADOX Where does the information go? Unknown.
ERR_NEVER_OBSERVED No empirical confirmation exists.
ERR_FIREWALL_DISPUTE Entanglement near horizon produces fire or doesn't. Unresolved.
ERR_FINAL_STATE_UNDEFINED What remains after total evaporation? Null? Remnant? Unclear.
WARN_SEMICLASSICAL_APPROXIMATION This entire mechanism breaks down at Planck scale.
"Not only does God play dice, but he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen."
- attributed to Stephen Hawking, paraphrasing a disagreement he won
Is this the same as black body radiation? Spectrally yes, causally no. The mechanism is stranger than a hot object sitting in a room.
Will the Sun evaporate this way? The Sun is not a black hole. If it were, it would take longer than the current age of the universe to lose a single gram. Scale accordingly.
What happens to the information encoded in things that fell in? This is called the black hole information paradox. It has been generating papers since 1976. No consensus. Check back later.
1.974.0 Initial derivation published. Physics community initially skeptical, then quietly convinced.1.975.1 Jacob Bekenstein entropy connection formalized. Thermodynamics of black holes becomes coherent framework.1993.x Information paradox formally sharpened. Arguments begin in earnest.2012.0 Firewall paradox introduced. Arguments intensify.present Status: theoretically load-bearing. Experimentally: still zero confirmed observations.