Skip to main content
Astronomy

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

6
  • $\begingroup$ Pop-sci theorizing here, but is "exotic matter" actually necessary to balance this equation? If a virtual matter-antimatter pair self-instantiates and the anti-matter particle falls into the black hole while a regular-matter-particle escapes, shouldn't it annihilate a "particle's" (yes, I know black holes are weird™ and black hole particles aren't really a thing, that's why it's in quotes) worth of matter from the black hole, or has the black hole essentially forgot that it's constituent mass used to be composed of matter? $\endgroup$
    – Sidney
    Commented Apr 25, 2019 at 17:38
  • 6
    $\begingroup$ @Sidney antimatter still has positive mass, when a positron meets an electron, we call it annihilation, but the result is not zero, it is two gamma photons of equivalent relativistic mass. $\endgroup$
    – user27815
    Commented Apr 25, 2019 at 17:43
  • $\begingroup$ This answer triggered a thought I couldn't help but share. The concept of an Alcubierre warp drive requires said 'exotic matter', so is it theoretically possible to take advantage of this to jump-start a warp drive? Or is this not the same type of exotic matter / energy? $\endgroup$
    – Kelly S. French
    Commented Apr 25, 2019 at 21:10
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @KellyS.French If you want to harvest some negative energy density stuff, you would be better off playing with flying mirrors and conductive plates (see Casimir effect). It won't work either, but at least you don't need a black hole for it. :) $\endgroup$
    – user27815
    Commented Apr 25, 2019 at 21:47
  • $\begingroup$ Why this should happen as such that the negative whatever it is fall inside? By this picture one would expect an average null effect. $\endgroup$
    – Alchimista
    Commented Apr 26, 2019 at 7:19