black holes and revelations I guess but as a muse plug aside the very nature of
these cosmic anomalies is the stuff of hypothetical legend because it's no
secret that we humans are equal parts in treat and equal parts terrified by the
reality bending mechanics of what black holes are what they could be and what
they're going to do because if we're correct at the end of all things
only black holes will remain but until then as the question is so often raised
can we do anything to combat the eater of worlds the singularity the black hole
or do we just have to close our eyes avoid their gaze and hope that they will
just fizzle out on their own let's find out hello Internet what's going on and
once again welcome back for most inquisitive channel on YouTube life's
biggest questions as per usual probably listen money flowing voice Jack Finch as
today recur she asked the question can a black hole be destroyed booklet
that scene gets me every time but for the urine tox uthat clip was from Danny
Boyle's 2007 science fiction work of art sunshine starring the remarkable Killian
Murphy as a physicist whose mission is to literally blow up the Sun
with a nuke and I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure that sounds like a
quick-fire way to get yourself the particular cosmic constructing question
of this video now obviously that's a pretty loose connection and that's also
not how it works but hey this is a hypothetical of science and as far as
science fiction goes sunshine is a phenomenal film but at least it's our
first and most important point when addressing this question can a black
hole be destroyed what you see as Suns ooh so famously said if you know the
enemy and know yourself you need not fear the result of a hundred battles or
as Zack de la Rocha also more succinctly said know your enemy dun dun dun dun dun
so then it would make sense that if we're wanting to address the question of
finally putting an end to a black hole we must more importantly need to
understand how and why they are created the whole process first begins with a
pretty special star one that deals to the Chandrasekhar limit a star that has
a minimum mass of one point six times the mass of our Sun as this star reaches
the end of its life and thus begins to run out of the hydrogen and helium fuel
which it uses to power itself the gravity which holds it together
gradually takes over entirely and it shrinks to such a tiny size and as it
crosses its predefined Schwarzschild radius there we have a newly formed
black hole obviously there's a lot more to it but as you may have imagined we're
more concerned with how and even if we can destroy these cosmic destroyers
the thing is in several ways the answer to this question is surprisingly mundane
you see a black hole's biggest enemy is itself and in many ways it may be the
only way for it to finally bring about its own demise now listen don't worry
we're going to be taking a stab in the dark at a few potential spacefaring
tactics to take down a black hole but the first and most important void
elephant in the room that we need to address is the fact that each and every
black hole it's pretty much slowly dying already anyway let me introduce you to a
little thing known as Hawking radiation back in 1974 the legendary mind of
British physicist Stephen Hawking harnessed the quantum mechanics of the
science of the very small to Thea that each every black hole gradually
loses its own mass Hawking radiation is based on a well-established phenomenon
called quantum fluctuations of the vacuum essentially Hawking turned his
gaze to the very edge of the black hole the event horizon where particles and
antiparticles continuously create and destroy each other yeah
black holes am i right the thing is though right at the edge of this
occurrence hawking noticed that if these particles and antiparticles are
positioned just right there is a slight possibility that one of the particles
can escape the black hole's gravitational pull whilst its
counterpart falls inward and there we have in essence Hawking radiation a slow
leak that is inevitably reducing the black hole's maths thus leading it to be
destroyed the largest of which will be in about 6 times 10 to the power of 99
years which is that's a long time guys we're talking quadrillions upon
quadrillions of years but don't worry the heat death of the universe will have
already occurred and they'll only be black holes left to witness the utter
abyss of the end of all things ah sorry about that so is that it to the
story of black hole do we just wait for it to destroy itself I mean we wouldn't
be around to witness its demise but hey at least we can rest easy knowing that
it would be destroyed eventually that is I guess hmm well I'm not sure about you
Burt maybe there's another way now if you're an observer of life's biggest
question you'll know that we've hypothetically envisioned all manners of
how to bring about the end of these cosmic destroyers most infamously being
that time where we wondered what would happen if you shot a nuke straight into
it yeah and yeah as you may imagine just like Godzilla himself all of these
battle tactics have only ever served to make them even more angry nukes cosmic
tornadoes lions tigers and bears all of which only serve to strengthen the
combined power of a black hole given the fact that in the singularity energy is
mass and mass is energy and throwing in either of the two simply feeds it like
the terrifying ravenous cosmic mor that it is all right then isn't that case
it's probably time to up the ante let's bring out the big guns with everyone's
favorite anomaly antimatter and as the name suggests antimatter is exactly that
the opposite of regular matter and as we are also taught by mathematics if we add
a positive and a negative together they just cancel each other out right
so why don't we just create our own black hole out of antimatter fire it
into the black hole and then call this whole thing a day
dust off our shoulders and move on to the next cosmic villain well it's not
that easy just ask the folks over at CERN who operate the Large Hadron
Collider a particle accelerator which fires tiny particles against each other
in the F of creating all manners of cosmic entities but the thing is the
cost of creating something out of antimatter is well it's pretty damn
staggering NASA speculates that a single gram of anti hydrogen would cost around
sixty two point five trillion US dollars and that's under the presumption that
scientists had already worked out the math in the effort to smash together
these incredibly expensive anti hydrogen particles in the effort of creating an
antimatter black hole and that's also without addressing the fact that well
under those circumstances we would have created an antimatter black hole on our
own planet and I'm pretty certain I don't need to illustrate just exactly
why that would be a very bad thing you see even if you did manage to safely do
that and then somehow figured a way to catapult an antimatter black hole into a
regular black hole then the result would be an explosion of pure energy it would
be the most perfect weapon of pure energy that theoretical physics can
envision and yeah I hate to break it to you but we just get twice the black hole
e equals MC squared as soon as that explosion occurred all of that energy
would immediately be converted into well more black hole yeah sorry guys but it's
probably best that we just wait this one out Hawking radiation yeah it's our only
hope whether we have it how long as your answers the question can a black hole be
destroyed not really but also yes we just won't be around to see it what do
you guys think do you agree disagree you have any more to add to this particular
biggest question they let us know any intriguing insights you have down in the
comment section below before depart from today's video let's
first take a quick look at some of your more creative comments from the past few
days first up dr. confirm says what if my
socks would stop disappearing when I do laundry
well dr. confirm I mean I'm pretty sure that is a life's biggest question and
it's one that I wouldn't even attempt to answer because me dude is the eternal
question and finally hay-zu's Martinez says short answer existential crisis
yeah you could pretty much apply that to every
single lvq right yeah daily dose of existential crisis well on that
existential note that's we've got time for in today's video to stick around all
the way until the end if you were a fan of this video which is life's biggest
questions in general then please be a dear and hit that thumbs up button as
well as that subscribe and I'll be seeing you in the next one as per usual
I believe this money flowing both shout Finch you've been watching life's
biggest questions and so next time you take it easy