Black holes not eternal prisons from "summary" of Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking
The idea that black holes could be eternal prisons has been a long-standing fear among scientists and the general public alike. It is easy to imagine a scenario where an object falls into a black hole, never to escape its gravitational grip. However, this fear is unfounded when we consider the principles of quantum mechanics. According to the theory of quantum mechanics, nothing is truly permanent in the universe. Even black holes, with their immense gravitational pull, are subject to the laws of quantum mechanics. This means that black holes are not entirely black - they emit a faint glow of radiation known as Hawking radiation. Hawking radiation is a result of quantum fluctuations near the event horizon of a black hole. These fluctuations can cause pairs of particles and antiparticles to appear, with one particle falling into the black hole while the other escapes into the surrounding space. Over time, this process can cause the black hole to lose mass and eventually evaporate completely. As a black hole emits Hawking radiation, it loses mass and eventually reaches a point where it can no longer sustain its gravitational pull. At this point, the black hole will undergo a catastrophic explosion known as a "black hole evaporation." This process releases all the energy and information that was once trapped inside the black hole, allowing it to be released back into the universe. Therefore, black holes are not eternal prisons in the sense that nothing can escape their grasp. Instead, they are dynamic objects that evolve over time and eventually release everything they have captured. This concept challenges our traditional understanding of black holes and opens up new possibilities for our understanding of the universe.
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