Fact-Checking on “Black Hole Evaporation”
1 min readMay 28, 2017
Thankfully, Ethan duly notes that black holes with masses at the planetary-mass level and above effectively do not evaporate on relevant time scales, even if one accepts Hawking’s theoretical speculations. Moreover, speculators also seem to forget that these objects will accrete matter from interstellar and intergalactic space, albeit slowly, and would thus compensate for any putative “loss” due to “Hawking radiation”.
- There is no observational evidence for “black hole evaporation”. If you think there is, go and search the scientific literature. You will not find any credible empirical evidence. Just wishful thinking.
- The putative “Hawking radiation” has never been observed and verified. It is pure speculation, albeit so oft-repeated that people have virtually absolute faith in it.
In science it is crucial not to mistake untested theoretical speculations for empirically-supported scientific knowledge, no matter how many people repeat the liturgy.