- Events in the largest film franchise of all time,
the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
have been building to one show down.
The Avengers versus Thanos, a mad, purple titan,
who's seeking to wield the infinity stones.
These stones apparently contain vast cosmic power.
But why?
What's inside them that could defeat a team of superheroes?
@DouchebagOfTheWeek asks,
"What happens if an infinity stone shatters?"
Well, Douchebag,
it's his name,
that entirely depends on what's inside the infinity stones.
The comic books have a lot of different answers for that,
so let's stick with what's inside the gems, or stones,
in the MCU specifically.
Since Iron Man, in 2008, we've seen five out of the six
infinity stones that Thanos needs.
Inside the tesseract,
inside the orb from Guardians Of The Galaxy,
inside the parasitic ether from Thor: The Dark World,
inside Loki's scepter,
now inside the Vision's head,
and inside Dr Strange's eye of agamotto.
Now, according to Guardians Of The Galaxy's, The Collector,
the infinity stones are really singularities.
Regions of space-time where physics seemingly breaks down,
that existed before the universe did.
These singularities were then forced into ingots,
which give their owners immense cosmic power.
"Ah, beautiful."
So it stands to reason
that if you were holding an infinity stone,
you would be holding a spherical hole in space-time,
with infinity at it's center,
all in the palm of your hand.
It seems far fetched even for a superhero movie.
But it's not impossible to hold a singularity in your hand
if what you're really holding, is a black hole.
This is the earth.
It has a mass of around six trillion trillion kilograms,
and a radius of a little over six thousand kilometers.
Because of it's mass and size,
objects hoping to escape its gravitational pull,
must be traveling at least 11 kilometers per second.
But if you give earth more surface gravity
by squeezing all of its mass down into this exact radius,
then it hits its Schwarzschild Radius,
named after physicist Karl Schwarzschild,
or where the escape velocity of an object is greater
than the speed of light.
This defines a black hole.
A three dimensional hole in space-time,
that nothing, not even light, can escape.
To squeeze an object down to it's Schwarzschild Radius,
it's internal pressure must be overcome by gravity.
Sort of like when a dying stars internal temperature
can no longer push outwards
against the gravity of it's own mass.
When that happens, there's a gravitational collapse,
into a singular point,
with not coordinates in this universe.
Think about that for a second.
It's a gravitational singularity.
A point in space where gravity is so strong
that the equations that we know in physics
start popping out infinity as the answer.
Black holes inside the infinity stones
would explain their singularities.
So now we have to figure out if one could fit in your hand,
and whether or not we could get energy from it.
Oh.
We tend to think of black holes as giant galaxy eaters,
we have one at the center of our Milky Way galaxy,
but they don't have to be that big.
At least not mathematically.
If I took just ten times the earths mass,
not a lot in cosmic terms,
and shrunk it down to this exact size,
it would become a black hole with a singularity inside.
But more importantly, this black hole
would be emitting a lot of energy.
Do yow know why Stephen Hawking is famous?
It's because he theorized that black holes can die.
In 1974, Stephen Hawking, along with some other scientists,
calculated that a black hole
should emit radiation in proportion to its mass,
its surface gravity, and its area.
They imagined this
by thinking about the event horizon of a black hole,
the point of no return.
According to quantum mechanics,
particle-antiparticle pairs can pop right on this boundary,
but only one will fall into nothingness
and the other will escape.
Because of this exchange,
a black hole must be losing energy, and therefore mass.
This points to a finite lifespan for all black holes.
Black holes can just (pop) evaporate.
This Hawking Radiation
is proportional to a black holes mass.
So as it evaporates and gets less and less massive,
its emitting more and more radiation,
in the form of gamma rays, and light, and other particles.
When a black hole eventually evaporates down to the size
where it could fit inside an infinity stone,
or better yet, down to subatomic size,
it's converting enormous mass into enormous energy.
In 1974 Dr Hawking also calculated
that the very end of a black holes life
it is erupting with the same kind of energy
that the meteor that killed the dinosaurs had.
All in a tenth of a second.
Miniature black holes really could be
the source of the infinity stones power.
So what's really inside the infinity stones?
Tiny, black, holes.
Not only would they fit inside the stones themselves,
they have singularities inside them,
just like The Collector says,
and when unleashed, if they were at the end of their lives,
they would emit the kind of energy
that would vaporize enemies.
Not only that, but scientists now believe
that during the formation of the universe,
these kind of miniature black holes could have existed.
I think we got it all to check out.
So, call me Marvel, because science.
Call me.
(techno music)
Thank you so much for watching.
Make sure to follow me on twitter, @Sci_Phile
to suggest ideas for future episodes,
and on Instagram under the same handle,
where I'm posting mini episodes of Because Science.
I'm hosting the new Myth Busters show as well,
so check that out Saturdays on science channel.
I think we did a pretty good job.
I know that you may be skeptical, being Myth Busters fans,
I'm a fan too, but we did some pretty damn cool stuff.
That it involves exploding water heaters.
And a very special thanks to Marvel Puzzle Quest
for sponsoring today's episode.
If you like Marvel and match three games,
check out Marvel Puzzle Quest,
available now on Apple and Android devices.
Recruit your favorite Marvel heroes and villains
to battle your friends and compete in tournaments.
The latest update features Riri Williams, aka Iron Heart,
the genius teenager who reverse engineers Iron Mans suit.
Thanks Marvel Puzzle Quest.
For most of my life,
I thought that black holes were literally black holes,
just holes in the fabric of space-time.
And I think I blame that
on most popular science conceptions,
they always show you that it's like a hole in the ground
that Wile E. Coyote could fall into, but it's not.
A black hole is a hole in every direction.
Which is a sphere.
If you look at a sphere from any angle,
it looks like a flat circle.
So black holes are spherical holes.
And when you get near them, every direction is down.
Any direction that you look at a black hole from is down,
because that's where it's trying to pull you.
And because you can't escape from a black hole,
it would be your last down, your last direction.