Stephen Hawking was a genius who caused a sensation in the worlds of physics and astronomy, especially in the theory of black holes. One of his theses waited nearly half a century for confirmation. Unfortunately, the world itself did not live to see this moment. And it was ahead of its time.
M87 black hole with a visible magnetic field.Source: NASA
Black hole It is quite a specific phenomenon. it’s a space-time regionNothing can be left because of gravity. Every time it falls into a black hole, it will never get out of there again. The boundary of no return or the region around a black hole is called event horizon.
The name of this phenomenon comes from the fact that it absorbs light even and does not reflect or emit anything. It’s in astronomy or in thermodynamics all black body. The first image of a black hole Taken by Horizon Telescope on April 10, 2019, while the image was taken in March 2021 detect its magnetic field.
Hawking’s theory must have waited a long time
Since a black hole will behave in the same way with everything that happens there, it was created The information paradox. This phenomenon will interact with the ship as well as with the light or individual atoms of some elements.
In 1974, Stephen Hawking came up with a possible solution to the information paradox. He drew attention to the event horizon and its special structure, which after all must contain some information. 3 years ago, however, he developed the theory dt. On the surface of black holes, which we will return to later.
Getty Images Stephen Hawking.Source: Getty Images, picture: Bruno Vincent
Hawking assumed that A black hole is always located alongside the event horizon and must emit minimal lightIt is, as it were, a carrier of the information flowing in it. Moreover, this light can theoretically guide objects outside the field of a black hole. We call it Hawking radiation.
Jacob Bekenstein He noted that if Hawking radiation really existed, then black holes would obey the laws of thermodynamics. Briefly – Light is waves and energy, and if so, it is accompanied by temperature. Here we come to the thermodynamics of black holes, which can be considered a separate field of physics.
Black hole thermodynamics and Hawking’s theory
The second law of thermodynamics says, quite simply, that all phenomena in nature (which contain a sufficient number of molecules) go in one direction, which is irreversible. Therefore, all phenomena that occur in nature are irreversible.
Examples are liquids – the warm liquid in the glass will always be on top by itself and the cold liquid at the bottom – never the other way around. Gases too – if we open the valve on the compressed air canister, it will never return on its own. Caption – Warm tea automatically gives off heat energy, and warms the cup, and not the other way around.
The principle described above applies to black holes in a simple way. The event horizon always surrounds a black hole and is colder than a black hole. We call it Hawking temperature. The larger the black hole, the colder the Hawking temperature.
The second law of black hole thermodynamics says so When black holes join, entropy increases. In other words, if two black holes merge, the resulting black hole must be larger than the previous two. it’s a black hole surface theoryOriginally announced by Hawking in 1971, it opposed Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, which made such behavior impossible.
Hawking’s theory confirmed 47 years later
Only at this stage of knowledge can we move away from theorizing and move on to practice. Scientists finally confirmed the claim that black holes surfaced on June 9, 2021. Responsible for the research: Maximiliano Essie, Will M Farr, Matthew Giselle, Mark A. Shell And the Saul A. Tyukolsky.
The researchers took a closer look astronomical event GW150914. It is the first observation of ripples in spacetime caused by gravitational waves, supporting the theory of black hole merging. In this case we are dealing with two black holes: The first was 29 solar masses, and the second was 36.
Thanks to a new method for analyzing gravitational waves that originated in the event, it was possible to calculate the event horizon region of individual black holes participating in the merger. The mass of the final black hole is 62 solar masses, but Its total area has grown relative to the original individual black holes.
Regardless of the fact that The result of the calculations reaches 97 percent. honesty, it is still not enough to admit that you are globally certain. The presented study is the first of its kind to be done, but the method can be used to verify other black hole mergers, which in the future may lead to a global confirmation of Hawking’s theory as correct.
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