Gravity Be Not Proud
The discovery that black holes emit particles and might eventually evaporate threw theoretical physics into chaos. Here’s why.
Part 4 of a four-part series on exploring black holes. Part 1 is here, followed by Part 2 and Part 3.
In the 1960s, a young physicist named Stephen Hawking had a big problem: He was going to die. He had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—ALS, often known as Lou Gehrig’s disease—which is almost invariably fatal within a few years of the onset of symptoms. But he beat the odds, and when his symptoms stabilized after a few years, Hawking decided to focus on an area of physics that wasn’t heavily researched: the intersection of quantum physics and gravity.
Hawking ended up being one of the very rare ALS patients to survive the condition, at the eventual cost of being confined to a wheelchair and communicating primarily through a computer. And his work on black holes — along with the work of a small handful of other physicists — opened up a new field of research in quantum gravity.
The most shocking discovery to come out of Hawking’s work: Black holes can emit radiation and can eventually evaporate.
Unfortunately for physicists, the radiation from a real black hole is too faint to be seen…
