Do Black Holes Break Physics?
Black holes are already mysterious monsters, but it looks like they might be breaking physics.
Black holes are some of the most extreme objects in the Universe, capable of tearing stars apart and bending spacetime into tortured shapes. But, you might not know about their most extreme trait; they appear to undermine the very laws of physics as we know it. Welcome to the Black Hole Information Paradox, a terrible name for one of cosmologies most fascinating mysteries.
The problem comes from how black holes eat stuff and burp them back up again. Who would have thought that table manners would cause such a conundrum?
So, black holes eat up matter from the Universe, from dust and gas clouds to whole star systems. This matter is taken into the singularity, which makes the black hole heavier and larger. But, black holes slowly lose mass through quite a complex quantum effect around the event horizon, which turns the mass of the black hole into homogenous radiation called Hawking Radiation. The black hole will continue to emit this radiation until all of its mass has evaporated away. Sounds simple right? Black holes eat up stuff from our universe and turn it into simple radiation.
The problem is that this simplistic narrative breaks physics. You see, the black…
