What becomes of black holes??

[Carl]

Although infintesimaly small the gravitational power of a black hole pulls in all surrounding matter. Does this increase its mass or is additional mass anhialated. If the mass increases and the balck hole gets bigger could the black hole eventualy have enough matter, pressure and heat to ignite in the same way a star can??

Regards
Carl

[skwinty]

Current thinking says that black holes evaporate through Hawking radiation.
The gravitational field is not small either as it prevents light from escaping the black hole.
So, what goes in eventually comes out. Whether or not information is preserved in this process is still a subject of controversy.

Either way the ramifications are important as either the preservation of information of classical physics or unitarity of quantum theory must give way.:thumbsup:

[dannat]

great topic , i would like to think the additional mass is obliterated, nu sure what kind of dark ? something would emerge.