What Happens When a Black Hole Dies

This issue only compounded in the mid-1970s when Hawking took the principles of quantum physics and applied them to the edge of black holes.

- Robert Lea

IN WHAT IS ARGUABLY HIS MOST SIGNIFICANT contribution to science, Stephen Hawking suggested that black holes can leak a form of radiation that causes them to gradually ebb away and die in a massive explosive event.

This "Hawking radiation" causes a problem at the intersection of general relativity and quantum physics-the former being the best description we have of gravity and the universe on a cosmic scale, while the latter is the model of physics that governs the very small.

Physicists have been working to solve the paradox for nearly 50 years, but we may finally be on the verge of a solution, thanks to a review published in August in the journal Europhysics Letters.