One of the greatest scientists alive today is Stephen Hawking. Here I present a simplified-to-the-point-of-incorrectness simplification of what, basically, one of his most famous discoveries is all about. An adequate introduction would be from Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation ).
Well, basically a virtual pair of particle-antiparticle is formed. Its sort of like Mr Rong's "a^3 b +ab^3 + a^2 +b^2 +1" question where you add and subtract the same term so that you can factorise it easily. As far as physics is concerned, this sort of thing can happen without any irregularities.
Now the point of virtual particles is that they are, well, virtual. Since they cancel to equal zero, and they are formed out of nothing, and are conveniently right next to each other, they annihilate eah other. Nope, no spectacular explosion either, because of the fact that one has positive energy and the other has negative.
So you might be thinking, omg theres these miniature particles flying around annihilating things. Actually no. They annihilate themselves so fast that they usually do not cause any disturbance to the nanoscopic world around them.
However, all this changes when these virtual particles are near a black hole. When they form near a black hole, there is the chance that one will fall into the black hole, and the other will escape. Normally, both are not sucked in (to annihilate a short while later) of spiral down into the black hole (where they still annihilate a short while later). But in this special case, then they are separated and forced into reality. Because of some Law the particle that falls into the black hole is always the one with negative energy. Therefore, anyone outside the black hole, it seems that the black hole has just emitted a particle.
This is because the black hole absorbs a negative-energy particle, which sort of destroys some of the mass in the black hole, and a particle exactly opposite to the absorbed particle in charge is emitted, and thus the black hole loses mass at the same time another particle of the correct specifications to have just have been emitted speeds away from the black hole. The black hole would then have appeared to have emitted a particle, although by definition black holes are objects that do not emit radiation.
So there you have it.
A quick survey: if you understood none of what was said, comment "D"
less than 1% "C"
less than 10% "B"
less than 50% "A"
100% "S"
If you noticed a mistake comment "ZOMG".
Cheers,
CY
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Somewhere between A and S...
ReplyDeleteWhat law awas it that does not allow positive particles into the black hole? (just lazy to travel to wikipedia)
And... is it possible that our universe is made out of antimatter? (just curious, and can't find anything else to ask)
Also how is a pair formed? Why don't they eliminate each other immediately?
What has all this matter antimatter stuff got to do with radiation? Matter and radiation? See not much similarity.
But thanks for the good summary anyway.
Good questions.
ReplyDeleteFirst, it was to preserve total energy that the negative particles do not tunnel out of the black hole. How that works dont ask me.
Yes, it is certainly possible, and the chances are 50%. This is because the two types of matter normal and anti, are equal except for the opposite charges. So it is relative that we call the matter we are made off matter and the "other one" is antimatter. Similarly, if an alien were made of our antimatter, it would call itself matter although to us it would be antimatter.
Virtual particles are formed all the time and they do annihilate each other immediately, so they are usu not noticed. However, bcos of the extreme conditions then the particles separate, and thus are observable.
As for the last question, the matter is radiated.
Cheers,
cy
My response:"C", for :C. The part I understand is Stephen Hawking being one of the world's greatest scientists alive today.(-_-) If I remember correctly he's an old physcist who is in a wheelchair.
ReplyDeleteYes, he's in a wheelchair, but not because he's old. He has a degenerative disease which causes him not to be able to move and thus goes around in a motorised wheelchair. Poor guy, but he's compensated for physical ability in brains.
ReplyDeleteC.
ReplyDeleteCould you, uh, dumb it down a little?
???
Sorry.
The one percent that I know is, well, at least you wrote it in English...