The play with the fire - Possible destruction of earth in 2007 through mini-black hole?

Originally posted by Xenophobe
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What I don't understand: Since the particle pair is created outside of the event horizon, I would think that the pair's mass is completely unrelated to the mass of the black hole itself. Additionally, since one particle of the pair falls into the black hole, I would think that this would lead to an increase in the mass of the black hole..

That was my first thought too when I read it. It is somehow non simple logic.
I 'imagine' that the the particle that escapes, escapes with a big velocity that close to lightspeed that the required kinetic energy is larger than the mass of the particle that fall into the black hole an the energy is dragged from the black hole.
But don't know if this is somehow a 'valid' picture..

Originally posted by Xenophobe
Does anyone understand Hawking's theory well enough to explain to me the mechanism involved in the transfer of energy from within the event horizon, to a quantum fluctuation outside of the event horizon?

Not me.. that's mystical to me too and I guess is something really only can happen in the quantum world ..like the tunneling.

I for myself also wonder a little if hawkings calculation of a life time (never saw the formula) is correct enough if you aplay it on mini-black-holes. (in consideration of it's small event horizon and the probabily of the vacum flucturation)



[edit on 9-6-2006 by g210]