An international research team, led by Victoria Professor of Mathematics Matt Visser, is elaborating on the theory of Hawking Radiation in a fascinating line of research on Black Holes.
Stephen Hawking’s theory, constructed in 1973, stated that over trillions of years, black holes become smaller via a loss of particle radiation. In the final two or three seconds of their existence hundreds of tonnes of particle matter turns itself into energy, leading to an explosion far larger than that of any nuclear weapon.
Although no astronomer has ever seen such an explosion, Visser and his team believe that the effect is far more common than originally thought.
“We now believe there are a number of theoretically plausible objects in the universe that emit Hawking Radiation,” he stated.
Visser’s research has largely focused on the explosion period, and he believes that huge progress has been made in understanding this phenomenon.
“Our work has helped us to probe that period more closely and we have produced calculations that work down to the last few millionths of a second. However, a lot of unanswered questions remain.”
As if sensing our alarm at the possible ramifications for our planet, Visser finished by verifying that a Black Hole arriving in our solar system at the time of explosion was “very, very unlikely.”