Hawking, sometimes described as the most influential theoretical physicist since Einstein’s time, said that black holes cannot be considered “black” and they must emit particles
In the 1970s Stephen Hawking suggested that the black hole flows, slowly dissolving like aspirin in a glass of water. At this point, he managed to overturn the main principle of the universe.
Since Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity in 1915, predicting the existence of black holes, everyone believed that they absorb everything nearby and even light. Then they believed that these were bottomless pits from which matter and energy are not ways to escape.
However, Hawking questioned this idea, stating that black holes are not “black” at all and should emit particles. This became a real headache for physicists. The fact is that Einstein's theory, which passed all the experimental tests, does not explain the behavior of particles in the subatomic “quantum” sphere.
At first, it was considered controversial that Hawking’s theory of black holes could be a possible bridge between the two main physical theories — general relativity theory and quantum mechanics. But for the first time a physical process appeared that linked gravity and quantum mechanics. The mechanism was called the radiation of Hawking, who died on March 14th on Einstein’s birthday. He managed to find out that when the quantum laws of the physics of atoms and elementary particles were applied to black holes, as a result, the latter were supposed to emit radiation.
“Theory of Everything”
If black holes emit radiation, then they must have a temperature. Hawking's most important scientific legacy is the idea that black holes slowly dissolve. However, Hawking radiation created a new problem - “the paradox of information about a black hole.”
If the black hole disappears, then all cosmological information from energy and matter that had previously entered it will disappear. However, physics assures that information can never be lost. For more than 40 years, this idea has forced scientists to argue among themselves.
Many also consider Hawking to be an important popularizer of science, because his book “A Brief History of Time” was sold in huge quantities.
