What Happens If You Destroy A Black Hole?

TL;DR

Black holes can theoretically be destroyed by overfeeding them with mass or angular momentum, but attempting to do so could break the fundamental rules of the universe.

Transcript

Black holes can destroy everything – but can they be destroyed? What happens if we push physics to the absolute limits, maybe even break it and the universe in the process? Let’s create a tiny black hole, about the mass of our moon, in the Kurzgesagt Labs and try to rip it apart. Nuke It Big booms break things. So to set the mood, let’s explode the... Read More

Key Insights

• 🖤 Black holes gain mass as they consume matter and energy, increasing their size and gravitational pull.
• 🖤 The "deleting ability" of black holes means that they are similar to elementary particles, as they can be fully described by just three numbers: mass, spin, and charge.
• 👻 Destroying the event horizon of a black hole would allow objects to escape, but the singularity at its center would still exist.
• 🖤 Overfeeding a black hole with mass or angular momentum might be a way to destroy it, but the feasibility of this is a topic of debate.
• 🥺 Naked singularities, without an event horizon, could lead to the breakdown of predictability and the fundamental rules of physics.
• 🖤 Waiting for a black hole to evaporate through Hawking radiation is currently the only safe and known method to destroy a black hole, although it would take an extremely long time.

Questions & Answers

Q: Can black holes grow in size?

Yes, black holes grow in size as they consume matter and energy, increasing their mass and gravitational pull.

Q: What happens when antimatter is thrown into a black hole?

When an object enters a black hole, its past identity is completely deleted, so throwing antimatter at a black hole has the same effect as throwing matter - it increases the black hole's mass.

Q: Is it possible to destroy a black hole by overfeeding it?

Theoretically, it might be possible to destroy a black hole by overcharging or over-spinning it with the right amount of matter or angular momentum, but this is a topic of debate among physicists.

Q: What are the consequences of destroying the event horizon of a black hole?

Destroying the event horizon would create a "naked singularity" that could break the fundamental rules of physics, leading to unpredictability and the breakdown of causality.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Black holes gain mass as they consume matter and energy, so exploding nuclear weapons near a black hole would only make it larger and more massive.

• The deleting ability of black holes means that throwing antimatter at them would have the same effect as throwing normal matter – the black hole would just increase in mass.

• While destroying the event horizon of a black hole would allow objects to escape, the singularity at its center would still exist, and the consequences for physics and predictability would be unpredictable.

• The only safe method currently known to destroy a black hole is to wait for it to slowly evaporate through Hawking radiation, which would take an extremely long time.