Are black holes black afterall?

Aki

Are black holes black afterall? I remember reading in Hawking's book that black holes aren't black.

SpaceTiger

Are you referring to Hawking radiation?

Phobos

They are extremely black (since light cannot escape them) but they are not absolutely black due to Hawking radiation (which unaided human eyes wouldn't be able to detect anyway).

Labguy

Unless and until they get very small in which case the Hawking radiation (HR) would "climb" up the EM spectrum into visible light and all the way to gamma ray frequencies. There is also the "escape" of pairs of real particles taking their energy from the magnetic field. Similar to HR but a different process.

Aki

so Hawking radiation is basically composed of the particles that fell into the blackhole?

selfAdjoint

No. Hawking radiation is created outside the black hole (outside its "event horizon", the sphere from which nothing can escape that surrounds the singularity). Basically it is composed of quantum virtual particles which have aquired enough energy from the stressed spacetime near the black hole to become real. Since the release of the stress by this production reduces the black hole's gravity, it has in effect reduced the black hole's mass.

Aki

so if there was enough of those particles radiating out, eventually the black hole's mass would become zero?

Chronos

Yes, but it takes a very long time.

Billy T

If you have time and inclination, please take a look at the arguments I have been making in the thread "First Stars - how big- Black Holes now." Your text above is a perfect example of what I call "empty words" or "feel good" words that do not really explain the mechanistic process anymore than "Morphine makes you sleepy because it contains a narcoleptic agent" does.

I case of BH mass loss, two entirely different sets of empty words exist:
(1) The BH has swallowed so much entropy that it's event horizon, EH, is very very hot and radiating mainly gamma rays - this is why it is losing mass.
(2) The production of virtual particle near the EH occasionally has one swallowed and one escaping to live much longer that the uncertainty principle permits a violation of the conservation of energy. - this is why it is losing mass.

Neither "explanation" addresses the real mystery: In both explanations, the causal effect (gamma or VP escape) occurs outside the EH and the mass loss is at the point singularity. How does this "spooky" (Einstine's term) action at a distance occur?

I also have a lesser quibble with your post. I do not think the "stress," what ever that is, creates the VPs. The Casimir effect, measured in the lab, and quantum theory show that VP pairs are easily and copiously produced without any need for a BH near by. The function of the BH hole (in "empty word," set 2) is that its gradient attracts one member of the VP pair more strongly than the other and tends to separate them, permittting only one to be captured by the BH. The gradient at the EH of a small BH is much stronger than at the EH of a large one. - This is why only small BHs "evaporate" at any significant rate.

Many people have assumed that I am challenging the fact that small BHs evaporate (I do not) when I challenge the "empty word" about how they do so. Some have even use the word "crackpot" - I in turn am amazed so many people swallow these "feel good" words with so little thought, especially because two entirely different sets of these "empty words" are offered as the"explanation.

Are you not the least bit troubled by two different "explanations," neither of which says anything about the mechanism of how something outside of the EH produces a change at the point singularity? Have people forgotten how to think independently and now are capable of only paroting back the "explanations" they are given?

How does "release of stress" reduce mass? Is not your "stress" just a gravity gradient? If yes, is it not just field near a mass by another name - very much like "Narcoleptic" is another name for "sleepy"? No offense intended. I only want some "feel good" words that are explanitory and certainly not circular words that are just renaming of the same effect.

Labguy

Different thread so I'm not breaking my promise to not post again on the other one. There is no sense in you visiting PF since you refute any explanations that include what you call "feel good words". But, how is any sane PF member to ever post a reply without knowing what you will or will not call "feel good words"? Anything we could post you could deny just by saying that we used "feel good" words, so any post would, by definition, be self-conflicting.

How about "atom" or "Nucleus" or "Event Horizon" or "Gravity" or "Einstein" (which you misspelled)? Are these "feel good words" if their use doesn't fit or agree with some point you have in mind??. You have too often mentioned Virtual Particles and the Casimir effect in one, single context as to make it obvious that you are totally unaware of the fact that "vacuum fluctuations" (feel good?) are only one of at least four ways that VPs are produced in the "real universe" (feel good?). There is no way that I will spell them out for you because your response is all too easy to predict..

The ony accurate thing I have seen from you comes from your own site where you state:
Now THAT "feels good"!

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ....

Billy T

I am not refuting any widely accepted physics. I would appreciate your indication of which of the two different "explanations" of why black holes do evaporate is more satisfying to you. (gamma rays or VP particles escaping as cause.)

I also would appreciate some words about how something outside the EH, causes a reduction in mass at the point singularity of the BH. (This seems to be action at a distance with no stated mechanism - Einstein's "spooky" - sorry if my dyslexic scrambled "ein" into "ine" in last typing of his name.)

IMHO, it is reasonable to ask which of the different "explanations" is to be preferred and how the "action at a distance" is achieved. If you will answer these two concerns, I will stop calling the current words you and others have offered "feel good words."

Asking such questions does not make one a "crackpot." BTW I do not recognize the quote you gave as mine. Can you give the thread and post from which your are quoting? I think you must have miss read me or it was related to perception, not physics.

I might be properly be called a "crackpot" in the area of cognition, but not in physics. I do disagree with almost all cognitive scientists (Despite spending a year as guest scholar in Johns Hopkins U's cognitive science department.) The first post to philosophy thread "What Price Free Will" gives three independent proofs that the standard theory of how perception of 3D world is achieved from the 2D image on our retinas is simply wrong - but that does not prove my alternative ideas are correct.

To me, one must dispute widely accepted theory to be a crackpot, hence in physics I am not one, as I dispute nothing that is widely accepted in physics, including the evaporation of BHs. Surely one can ask questions and express a desire for a more a mechanistic understanding. I have even admitted that the loss of mass from a BH may be something, like quantum entanglement, that no human is ever going to really feel like it is understandable. (my "feel good") I am quite prepared to accept this about mass loss from BHs, as I have about quantum entanglement, but not willing to accept two different "explanations" as to why BHs evaporate, nor do I like (any more than Einstein did) action at a distance. I would much prefer to admit that this is a part of physics that humans must accept without pretending to have any set of words that explain the predictions that fall out of the math. To have two entirely different sets of "explanatory" words is embarrassing.

Phobos

Billy T - You are welcome to ask for (or offer) clarifications on any point, but please keep the discussion on-topic. I prefer not to see a debate about semantics or rehashing previous debates in every topic. Your first post in this topic includes rebuttles to statements not made in this topic.

If you prefer to see PhD level discussions on every point, then you can find some of that here at PF (or at least links to external sources), but there's nothing wrong with offering a simple explanation to a simple questions. When someone is first learning about topic, you don't necessarily start them off at the most complicated level. "Feel good words" may be short hand for a lot of complicated mathematics.

SpaceTiger

Just a quick point in case there's any confusion. Most black holes we see are visible because of radiation from matter falling into them, not from Hawking radiation. Whether or not you include the accretion disk in the "black hole" is a matter of semantics, but you should know that we sometimes detect them by observing other matter radiating near the event horizon.

s3nn0c

No. Time of evaporation depends on BH mass.

SpaceTiger

It does, but I think he was referring to the observed black holes. They're well above the evaporation limit.

Billy T

Despite what I have said against "feel good" words, I tend to agree with you PROVIDED that when "explanations," that are not actually true are offered, it is made clear that it is just a convenient way to think about a more complex subject. I, for example, have no objection to Faraday's suggestion that magnetic field lines are a convenient aid to thought, if one also states that they do not actually exist. etc. Their cutting thru conductors is an aid in predicting when a current will be induced in a closed circuit (or a voltage difference will exist between the ends of an open circuit conductor) in both transformers and generators. The image of field lines concentration near the poles also helps understand why the Earth's magnetic field is stronger and nearly vertical at the N an S magnetic poles, or why electrons are trapped in the ionosphere, or why lighting strikes on the other side of the Earth can make static in your radio etc.

Einstein said it well (not exact quote): "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not more so."

turbo

Is there an evaporation limit? It is my understanding that black holes of any mass can lose mass through Hawking radiation as long as they are not accreting more mass than they are losing through the evaporative process.

Of course, it may be that there is molecular hydrogen and other hard-to-see stuff in much of "empty" space and a large black hole will always be able to accrete more mass than it can lose through Hawking radiation... Does anybody have links to good papers on this?