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Can a black hole power a spaceship? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey or heey. Have you ever wanted to go visit
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: another star or even a far away galaxy? Totally? I
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: mean wouldn't, although you know, it kind of depends on
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: what the accommodations are over there, Like are we going
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to be camping on a rock basically for the rest
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of my life? Or isn't going to be a beautiful place. Well,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to get pictures in advance. If
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: you're the first human to ever land on this surface.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: There aren't any Airbnb reviews yet. You can't trust YEP
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: to do everything for you. But I guess the problem
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: is how would we even get there? Isn't it really
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: hard to go to another star or galaxy? It is
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: really hard, which means we have to be really creative
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and sometimes looking unexpected places for sources of inspiration and
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: power than in a fusion use the energy trapped in
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: bad punts. Well what if I told you you could
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: actually make use of a black hole? But I thought
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: black holes were just like traps that trapped you there forever.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, they can actually be useful. You might get
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: nervous when we talk about black holes in a positive light,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: but they do have a possible practical applications. I am
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: more handmade cartoonists and the creator of PhD comments. Hi.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I'm paid by
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: the Big black Hole corporate consortium to talk positively about
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: black holes wherever I can. Really, you've switched to black
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: hole PR now or astronomical PR. That's right, I'm funded
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: by Big black Hole. You went from physics research to
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: public relations PR. No, but I like black holes. I'm
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: definitely pro black hole. I mean, I'm not pro the
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Earth getting sucked into one or you and your loved
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: ones being killed by one, but I'm fascinated by them,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: and I would love to study one and to create one,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and of course do it all very safely. Yet would
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you visit one? I would visit a black hole if
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: it was big enough that you could come close to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the event horizon without being torn apart by the tidal forces.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: So yeah, are you starting a tour company to the
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: center of the galaxy? And I am definitely anti black hole,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: But in this universe it's hard to tell sometimes what
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: could be useful or what could be something that will
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: kill you instantly. So welcome to our podcast. Daniel and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of My Heart Radio
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: in which we examine everything in the universe, from the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: tiny to the massive, from the dangerous to the cozy,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and we talk about whether it could help us answer
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: our questions, whether it could take us on a journey
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: to the stars, or whether it just helps us zoom
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: in and understand the universe at the smallest, most microscopic level. Yeah,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: we like to talk about all the possible ways out
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: there that we could maybe visit or travel to other
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: places in our galaxy or in the universe, because it
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: seems like it's all out they're waiting for us to
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: go visit and study. That's right. I feel like we
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: are in the early days of the human age of exploration,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: where we learn about what our galaxy looks like and
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: what's out there and who is out there. But so
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: far it's still sort of shrouded in mystery for us.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: And if we could only get out there, if we
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: could send people or probes or something, we could learn
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: so much about what's out there in the universe and
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: how things work. Yeah, I feel like we're almost like
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: stuck in a deserted island in the middle of the ocean.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: You know, like there's such a huge gap between us
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and maybe other things, and we don't even know if
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: we can make it out there, or what would happen
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: if we went out there. That it's kind of preventing
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: us from spreading out into the cosmos. It is, and
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: it's frustrating to know that that knowledge is just sitting
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: out there waiting for us. Alien civilizations or not, crazy
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: planets or not. Whatever is out there, it's just waiting
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: for us, literally sitting there, waiting for us to come
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: and check it out and learn things about the universe.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: And whenever there's like a bare year between us and deep,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: powerful cosmic knowledge about the universe, it just drives me crazy.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I just want to pierce through it or around it,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: or whatever preposition you need to use. But I want
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: to get that knowledge, and I want us to understand
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: how the universe works. Doesn't make you want to be
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: an engineer, Daniel, so you could actually make something useful.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: It makes me want to be a physicist so I
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: could have a clever idea which I could then pass
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: to the engineers who would make something useful. I see,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: there are limits to your curiosities. What you're saying there's
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: limits to my practical ability to build something, but no
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: limits to my imagination. All right, Well, it is a
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: very big problem to get to other stars, into other galaxies.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And we've talked about in the program before about different
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: ways to power our spaceship out into the cosmos, because
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to bring all the fuel with you
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: that you'll need to get to somewhere far away. Yeah,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: you need to build a really big ship if you're
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: gonna bring a lot of people and you're going to
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: keep them safe from cosmic radiation, and then you need
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: to bring some source of fuel to get you there.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: So people have been struggling with this question for decades,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: for maybe even longer than that. And there's some crazy
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: ideas out there. We've talked before about instead of just
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: building a ship, move the whole Solar system by building
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: a stellar engine, something that would turn our star into
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: an engine. Yeah, and so on the episode today, we'll
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: be talking about another crazy idea that physicists are toy with,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: thinking about and spitballing about. And this one involves black holes.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: All the craziest, most fun ideas involved black holes. It's
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: about as crazy as you can get I guess in
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: this universe. So today on the program, we'll be asking
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the question could a black hole power a starship? Wow?
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: That's crazy? What what does that even mean? Well, first
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: of all, it's stemmed me through like where did this
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: idea come from that? Did you wake up with it
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: one morning? Or is this something that's actually being discussed
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: at like physics conferences? Oh? Man, I wish I could
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: take credit for this idea, but no, this idea, like
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: many great creative ideas in science, came from science fiction.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: This was first written about by Arthur C. Clark in
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: a short story he wrote called Imperial Earth. Wow, so
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: a long time ago, quite a while ago. Yeah, it's
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: a fairly old idea. And then since Hawking revolutionized our
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: understanding of black holes, and in the last ten or
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: fifteen years we've made some progress in quantum gravity. People
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: have started sitting down, like doing the calculations and figuring
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: out like, couldn't you do this? Is this possible? Is
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: there a fundamental physics reason that says no? Or could
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: we just pass it off to the engineers to figure
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: it out? Didn't Arthur C. Clark sort of foresee, another
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: huge thing, wasn't it the Internet or something like that.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that he and other science fiction writers foresaw
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of what's real. The cool thing is that
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: they also foresaw a lot of stuff that didn't happen. Right,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: So I see, you don't really pay attention to the denominator.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Just like spew a bunch of crazy predictions, and if
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: you hit a few, then you know, you become famous
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: for foreseeing the future. Your visionary right, even if your
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: hit rate is low. That's right. I got a room
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: full of monkeys predicting the future. One of them is
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: a genius, because I make real a genius for having
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the monkeys or but anyways, it's a crazy idea. So
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the idea is to use a black hole to power
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: your starship. And so we'll get into the diesel because
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of questions about this crazy idea.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: But first we were wondering how many people out there
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I thought this was a good idea, or I had
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: heard of this idea. So Daniel went out there and
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: asked to the Internet if they knew the answer to
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: this question. That's right, And we're always looking for volunteers,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: people who are interested in speculating baselessly on questions. We
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: asked them for future episodes, so if you'd like to participate,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: please write to us two questions at Daniel and Jorge
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: dot com. So think about it for a second. If
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: someone asked you if you thought you could use a
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: black hole to power a starship, what would you as?
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: There here's what people had to say. If he wants
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: you to use an actual like black hole as an
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: engine to propel yourself around, I don't think that would
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: work because surely for a normal engine you need something
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: that applies a force in the opposite direction that you're moving,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: so that the resulting force pushes you to where you
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: want to go. But surely a black hole would just
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: suck everything in. Well that would be cool, yes, I well,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: probably theoretically can be done. I don't know in how
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: much time can this be put in practic cern For sure,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: it's working on it, of course, because they usually want
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: to start trek the next generation. I think you could
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: use it in part for a spaceship that's designed for
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: faster than light travel. It's the idea of compressing the
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: space in front of you and expanding it behind you
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: is a primary engine. I don't think so you can
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: definitely use a stellar stationary black hole to propel your
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: ship in an arbitrary direction. You just calibrate a trajectory
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: so that you avoid falling in and avoid being destroyed
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: by tidal forces, and have the black holes link shot
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: you to an arbitrary direction. I think that you cannot
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: use the black hole as a spaceship engine because you
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: everything New York gets sucked in, so it can suck
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: in bits of your spaceship blue by little, depending on
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: its size. I'm sure that a space draft can use
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: a black hool as an as an engine. I'm trying
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: to think, how would you use the energy from the
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: black hole? Alright, Well, we got about as many different
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: answers as people answering the question. Yeah, well it seems
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: like people think it's cool. It's a cool idea, but
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: there was some skepticism like how would that even work?
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And there are lots of different ideas here about how
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: it could work, like could you use it to make
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: a warp drive by compressing spased run of you? Very
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: cool idea, or just like the gravitational assist right using
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: as a slingshot, or people thinking that certain is currently
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: working on a black hole drive are you. I can
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: either confirm nor deny that. Do you have a room
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: full of monkeys working on it? There at certain one
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: of my monkeys is working on it. I bet you do. Look, monkeys,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: just don't press this button. I'll be back in an hour.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I have to do a podcast. Well, these are pretty
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: good monkeys if they can understand instructions like that, Danny. Yeah,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: they come from the best universities. So it's kind of
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: a crazy idea, and people seem to think it was
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: maybe possible, And you're right, there are many different ways
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: that you could attack this, Like you could use the
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: black hole itself, like as a gateway. Isn't that a possibility? Oh?
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I suppose if a black hole is just like a
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: doorway to a wormhole connected to a white hole somewhere
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: else in space, then yeah, I suppose you could use
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: that as a way to get through the universe. I
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: love that this question and has inspired so much creative thinking.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: But nobody who answered these questions hit on what is
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: actually the idea that's being considered in the community for
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: how a black hole could power a starship. Nobody had
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: read Arthur's c Clark. I guess or all of his
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: collected works. No, none of those folks are up on
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: the latest there. All right, well let's jump right into Daniel.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: How would you even use a black hole to power
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: your starship? And if it's powered by a black hole,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: do you have to call it a black hole ship?
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I'll leave it to you to name the eventual ship
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: once we build it. But the idea is that a
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: black hole actually satisfies a lot of the requirements you
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: need for fueling a starship. It's very very dense, and
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: so it's a great way to store energy, and it's
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: very efficient because it turns that energy into radiation. Remember,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: many people think about black holes as a fold in space,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: a place where nothing can escape, not even light. But
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: black holes are not actually totally black. They radiate a
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: very small amount of radiation, and they're turning essentially their
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: own mass into radiation. And the basic idea of the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: black hole starship is to take advantage of that, the
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: black hole turning its mass into radiation and using that
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: radiation to provide thrust for a starship. Oh I see,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: all right, So a pro idea for using black holes
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: as fuel is that one. It's first of all, you
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: said it's very dense. I guess it is very dense
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: in that you can crame a lot into it but
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: not require like a big chamber to hold it. What
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: do you mean precisely? I mean it doesn't get more
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: dense than a black hole. Anything else you get to
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: that same density is just going to turn into a
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: black hole. So the black hole is by definition the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: most dense storage of energy. So I guess, like if
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: you had to pack a star that would be pretty
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: hard because you need a big container. Yes, exactly, exactly,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: And that's the other advantage about black holes is that
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: they contain themselves. What are the common alternatives for using
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: a starship? Is like antimatter? What if you store antimatter
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: in your starship and use matter antimatter reactions to provide
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the energy, Right, that seems like a better idea. Yeah, well,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: the problem is antimatter is really hard to store. It's
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: very reactive. It could blow up your ship. Black hole
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: store themselves. They contain themselves, They are their own bottle,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: and so they really have an advantage there over antimatter. Oh,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I see what you're saying, Like, it doesn't have anything
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: like dangerous that could get out. I mean as long
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: as you don't slip and fall into the black hole,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: you're pretty safe, right, that seems kind of We'll just
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: put up a sign, you know. I'm sure we'll put
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: a sign. People will sign a waiver. They'll be fine.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Those yellow cones or prop up things. Which is like
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: a stick figure falling into a black hole, that would
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: be the warning. We'll let you draw the sign. Yeah,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: exactly where a helmet. And the basic problem that you're
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: trying to solve by using a black hole is efficient
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: conversion of fuel into thrust because as a lot of
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the other more common methods of accelerating the starship are
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: just very inefficient, like fusion or fission. They're wonderful, but
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: they don't capture most of the mass in your fuel
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: and turn it into energy. There's a very low efficiency there,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: and so you end up bringing a huge amount of
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: fuel and then more fuel to carry that fuel, and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: more fuel to carry that fuel. So you want a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: source of energy that's very, very efficient in converting its
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: mass into your thrust. And that's where black holes really
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: can't be beaten. Like literally, you can't beat them. There's
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: nothing hit him with a stick. It just eats up
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: the stick. That's right. And there's another really fascinating feature
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: about black holes that makes them well suited to being
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: a source of energy for a starship. There's a lot
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: of details to get right to get your black hole
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: to power your starship. Well, let's get into that, and
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: also a lot of these details about how you would
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: make a black hole power your starship. But first let's
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: take a quick break. All right, we're talking about the
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: idea of using a black hole to power your starship
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: to get to another galaxy or another star, or maybe
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: to another galaxy cluster even and so, Daniel, the idea
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: is that I would somehow bottle a black hole and
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: then bring it with me. You're saying, the first advantage
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: is that it's really compact, meaning like I could keep
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: it in my pocket even. Yeah, the kind of black
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: hole we're talking about that would power a reasonable flight
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: would have a radius, you know, less than ten to
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: the eighteen meters. It would be really really small. Oh wow,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: would be like a microscopic Yeah, microscopic. And you wouldn't
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: even need to bottle it. Remember, black holes are their
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: own bottles, so you don't really need to put it
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: in anything. You could just have the raw black hole bear. Well,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I guess that's my first question about this idea is like,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: how would you even carry it around? Like does it
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: sit on something? Does it you just let it flow
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: next to you. I'd even like bring it with you. Well,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: you don't bring it with you. It brings you with it, right,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: that's the idea. It's like you're hitching a ride. You're
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: hitching a ride on a black hole exactly. And so
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: how do you turn a black hole into an engine?
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: All right? Remember that black holes radiate or they shoot
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: off this hawking radiation, and this is theoretical. Still nobody's
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: ever actually seen hawking radiation, but they shoot off hawking radiation.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: And the fascinating things that this happens more for small
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: black holes, like really big black holes from stars or
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: supermassive black holes hardly radiate at all. But the theory
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: is that as black holes get smaller, they radiate even more.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Like how much more like like it's shining, like it's
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: like a small black hole would actually be bright, Yes,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: it would be bright. It would be dangerous. You would
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: have to wear protection. The kind of black hole we're
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: talking about when it's like, you know about a billion kilograms.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: This is like two times the mass of the Empire
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: State building. This thing would really a hundred and sixty
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: petal whites of energy, two thousand times the worldwide energy
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: consumption every year. Okay, so let's walk through this scenario.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: So I take two Empire State buildings and I somehow
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: compressed them into a black hole, which would be about
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: ten to the minus eighteen meters. I like, how you're
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: making this like an internet recipe sugar cookies or black
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: hole dry. I'm an engineer. I gotta I gotta know
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the instructions here. So I take the two Empire State's building,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I compressed them into tents of the minus meters and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: now have a black hole. It's really tiny. It's like
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: a basically a pinpoint. It's basically a pin point. And
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: we can talk later about more practical ways to actually
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: make these black holes and involves enormous space lasers, but
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: that's basically the recipe. Get that much amount of energy
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: into that small or radius and you have a black hole.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: And black holes that are that small. That's very small
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: for a black hole. You know, black holes out in
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: the universe are measured in units of the mass of
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: the Sun. This is a tiny, tiny, little black hole,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: and so it radiates a lot, a lot more than
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: any black hole that's out there sort of scattered around
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: the universe. A synthetic black hole on a human scale
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: would radiate a lot more than natural black holes. Oh,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I see, so a small black hole is actually and
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: not black, it's really shiny. Yeah. The smaller the black hole,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: the more radiated because the amount of things radiate depend
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: on their temperature. And this is something that Stephen Hawking
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: discovered that black holes have a temperature, and everything in
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the universe that has a temperature gives off radiation. It's
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: called black body radiation. Everything glows, even black holes, because
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: they have a temperature, and the temperature the black hole
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: is connected to its mass, and as its mask it's smaller,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: it's temperature goes up. And there's some complicated arguments there
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: about entropying quantum mechanics that we shouldn't get into. But
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: smaller black holes have higher temperatures and so they radiate more,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: and so it's a sort of a runaway process like
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: it radiates more or like surface area or like total
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: like it's hard to imagine that a you know, like
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: the supermassive black hole in the middle of the galaxy
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: would be radiating less than a little tiny empire state
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: building black hole. It's definitely more per mass, like per
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: unit mass of the black hole, but I think it's
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: also an absolute levels more. I mean, these little black
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: holes they radiate more, and then they lose mass because
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: they have radiated that mass away, and then they radiate
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: even more, so it becomes a runaway effect. And the
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: last few moments of the life of one of these
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: black holes they're extraordinarily bright. Wow. All right, So it
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: has something to do with, I don't know, some sort
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: of weird relationship inside of the black hole that did.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: The less mass you have, the more it radiates. Yes, precisely.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: And that's why this works because you don't have to
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: build a black hole the size of the Sun. You
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: can build one that's pretty small and it will be
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: pretty bright. So it's a great way to store that
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: energy and then have that energy be released over time.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: All right, So I just compressed to empire state buildings.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I created a black hole, and I guess I did
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: it in space? Where my did I do it here
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: on Earth? Better? Do that in space, please, sir? Yes? Absolutely. Okay,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: don't do this in your backyard. And I have this
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: in space, and what does it do? Does it get
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: attracted to the Earth when it also kind of like
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: act as if I had to empire state buildings out
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: in orbit. Yeah, it would, and so you could have
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: it in orbit around the Earth. Right, You can have
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: anything in orbit around the Earth, a black hole, anything else.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: It has a strong gravity to it, but it's not
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: like actively sucking in the Earth. So it can be
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: in a stable orbit around the Earth. And then you
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: build your spaceship around the black hole. But I think
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: I have to keep feeding it, right, because it's radiating
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and so it's shrinking at the same time. You don't
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: have to keep feeding it, though, that's an option. You
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: can just sort of build your spaceship around it and
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: then use it up and by the time you get
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: to your destination, it will have evaporated into nothing. Oh,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I see, so it takes years and years for it
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: to evaporate. That's right. A two empire state building black
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: hole will evaporate in about three or four years. All right.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I guess my question is like how do you hold it,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: or like how do you move it? Or how do
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you nudget because wouldn't anything that it touches gets sucked
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: into the black hole. Well, remember that black holes have
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: strong gravity, but they're not like actively sucking stuff. Right.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: You can be in a stable configuration near a black
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: hole as long as the tidal forces are not too great.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: So the way you take a black hole, which is
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: just shooting energy out in every direction and turn that
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: into a spaceship is actually the same way that we
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: talked about for turning a star into a spaceship. Is
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: that you capture half of the radiation, like all the
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: radiation on one side you capture in some sort of
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: parabolic mirror and focus at the other direction, so that
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: effectively it's only radiating in one direction. And if it's
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: only radiating in one direction, that's basically thrust. It's like
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: it's shooting particles at one side. And that's how an
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: engine works. It pushes something away, gives off mass and
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: energy in one direction, and so by conservation momentum it
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: will go the other direction. So that's the second critical
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: piece you need the black hole shooting off energy. Then
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: you need this reflector which turns the black hole into
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: an engine, like you put a mirror to one side
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: of it, and then some of them gets reflected into
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the black hole. You put a mirror to one side
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: of the black hole, near the black hole, not in it, right,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: You don't want your engine to get into the black hole.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: If you put a parabolic reflector around the black hole,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: then all of its radiation will get reflected to be
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: in parallel lines and all shooting out in one direction. Right,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: But to the black hole, it's just radiating out in
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: all directions. So what would cause it to move? Well,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: it's reading out in all directions. But now you have
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: this reflector, and the reflector is gravitationally bound to the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: black hole, right, It's being held in place by the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: black holes gravity. So you can think of them like
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: as a system. The black hole plus this reflector are
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: now like one gravitational system, and the two together are
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: only shooting out radiation in one direction, so they have
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to move in the other direct Oh, I see, So
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: you kind of have to put the black hole behind
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: you almost right, Yes, the black holes in the back
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and the reflectors in the front, and then you end
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: up moving in the direction of the reflector like it's
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: pushing you. The black hole is pushing you away, but
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: you're also pulling the black hole with your own gravity. Yes,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: that's a good way to think about it exactly. So
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: you're right, the black hole all it knows is that
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: it's just shooting off radiation in every direction because you've
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: built it into this system with a reflector. The combined
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: system has to move, you know, in whatever direction you
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: were pointing in order to balance the momentum that's coming
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: out the back of the ship. Right, But isn't that
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: a really tricky balance? Like how do you know the
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: black hole is gonna follow you? Do? You have to
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: be as big as two empire state buildings too. You
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: have to build a pretty big ship. But you want
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: to build a pretty big ship anyway, because if you're
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: going for three and a half or four years, you
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: need like a lot of room for you know, canned
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: soup and people, and you have to build a lot
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: of shielding to protect yourself from radiation. So you want
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to build a really big ship. But yes, it is
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: not easy engineering problems, so I do not envy the
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: engineers who have to work on that. But also, but
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: it's isn't it a little bit dangerous? Like how far
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: away would you have to build this reflector, and like
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: if something knocks the ship but in it potentially knock
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: get into the black hole and then with destroyership. Yeah,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: it's not necessarily a stable configuration, you're right, And if
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: something gets too close to the black hole, then the
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: whole thing could just get sucked in. Right, So yeah,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: there are definitely problems to solve. But you know, my
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: department is is this theoretically possible? And then you know,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I put my stamp on it, and then we send
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: it off to you know, safety and configuration and engineering
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: to make it actually work. But so there's definitely some
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: challenges that you just just said, a worry somewhere which is unstable,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Like is this a unstable configuration? What did you mean,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: my dad? Like, I can put the black hole behind me,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: but it's very precarious. Yes, some things in equilibrium are
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: stable so that if you perturb them, they'll naturally go
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: back to the original configuration, right, But some things are unstable,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: and in this case, if the mirror gets too close
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: to the black hole, then it will eventually fall into
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the event horizon the black hole or would be very
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: difficult to take too much energy to move it away. So, right,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: it's pretty tricky. It's like, if you're in orbit around
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the Earth and something knocks you out of orbit, then
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: you're not going to fall back into orbit. You're going
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: to fall into Earth, right, And the same problem happens here.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: So basically you're saying on this trip, nobody can move
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: on the ship. It's like, alright, three and a half years,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: nobody move, or else we're going to fall into this
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: black hole that we made and are bringing with us. Yeah, yeah,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe don't have assault the party right next
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: to the black hole. Yeah, no aerobics classes on this cruise,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: no jumping up and down. It might be a boring trip,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: but hey, it means it's a shorter trip because a
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: black hole could get you up to a significant fraction
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: of the speed of light. Really, if you build this
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: ship and you can use the black hole that we
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: talked about, like two masses of the Empire state building,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: it can give off enough radiation to accelerate a large
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: ship to ten of the speed of light in just
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: twenty days. Wow, and is that a lot ten percent?
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: What is that per second? It's a lot of meters
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: per second and at that speed you could get to
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the nearby star in like forty years instead of five
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: years or five thousand years. And you also could do
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: it without depleting the energy resources of the entire planet.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: All Right, well, I still think it's a crazy idea, Daniel.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: But let's get into whether it could actually work and
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: if we could actually build one. But first let's take
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: another quick break. All right, Daniel, you found something useful
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: to do with black holes, and that is to power
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: your starship to a nearby star or galaxy. And it theoretically,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: it sounds like it could work, but it feels kind
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: of practically dangerous, like you know, you can put it
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: in the bag and it's pushing you, but if something happens,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: it could also destroy. And that's a pretty good summary.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: And you know, I'm not asking you to invest or
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: to buy a ticket on the black hole starship. I'm
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: just asking you to examine with me whether or not
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: this is theoretically possible. Because things that seemed I thought
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: you were pro prol black hole, which is why we're
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: talking about this. But I totally recognize that a lot
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: of problems to solve. But you know, today's impossible problem
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: is tomorrow's app Written by Middle schoolers. So let's leave
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: these open problems out there and maybe one of our
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: listeners will be inspired and think of a solution. Right, Okay,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: so you're saying it can maybe accelerate a large ship
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: up to ten percent of the speed of light in
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: twenty days, which means we would get to the nearest
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: star you said in forty years. Yeah, the nearest stars
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: are like four light years away, and so if you
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: go at ten percent of the speed of light, you
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: could get there in forty years, which means you could
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: step on this ship and you actually step off of it.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: You could visit those stars and not just your kids
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: or your grandkids, your great great grandkids who are mad
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: at you for having relegated them to being born in space,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: but you could actually get there yourself. But you said
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the black hole itself would only last three and a
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: half years. Yes, the black hole itself would last three
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: and a half years, but it only needs to last
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: long enough to accelerate you, and you know, then you're
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: up to the right speed. You know, there are other
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: questions about like deceleration and how do you stop. Yes, well,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I guess maybe this is one one thing I'm curious
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: about is can you feed the black hole? Like, can
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: you supply with more energy as you're going? No, you
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: certainly can. Two solutions they're one is start with a
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: bigger black hole and then halfway through the trip, flip
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: the reflector around if you think that's a safe procedure,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: so that now the black hole is decelerating you, so
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: that by the time you get to your destination you're
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: at a reasonable speed. You don't fly through the system
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: at a zillion miles an hour. And the other thing
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: you can do is, as you say you can feed
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: the black hole, you can like gather interstellar gas and
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: micro meteorites and all that stuff and just sort of
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: like directed into the black hole. Because the cool thing
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: is everything is fuel for a black hole, right, even
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: bad punts, even bananas. Banana now that would just slip
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: on by. But I mean, is that the work math workout?
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Like can I bring another empire state building with me?
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Or does that take away them from the excelaration. The
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: way that you build the synthetic black hole that you
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: need to power this drive is not by bringing all
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: that mass, because we don't know how to take that
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: mass and compact it into a black hole size object.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: That's not something we know how to do. Instead, the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: best ideas for how to build a synthetic black hole
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: of the right size involved just essentially dumping energy into
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: a point in space using massive lasers. All right, now
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: we're getting more exciting here. So step us through how
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: would we actually make a black hole? Like, can we
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: make a black hole? As I guess you make black
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: holes at a large hadrant collider, but you don't keep
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: them around. Well, we don't know if we've made black
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: holes at the large hadron collider. We're trying to. We're
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: hoping to see one. We've never spotted one before. But
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the idea is that to make a black hole, you
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: don't just need a huge amount of mass. What you
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: really need is high energy density. Any kind of energy
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: will curve space. Einstein's general relativity told us that matter
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: curve space, but also anything with energy in it. And
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: so what you need to do is just pour a
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: whole huge pile of energy into a small part of space.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: And you can do that by focusing a bunch of
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: lasers on the same place. Oh, I see, you can
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: make a black hole, but just pure energy, just pure energy. Yeah,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: And so you build a huge laser, a lot of
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: huge laser and you focus them on the same place,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: and in principle, you pour enough energy into that dot,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: it will turn into a black hole. It will capture
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: all that energy story gravitationally and then gradually release it,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: which is what you need. Wait, what do he means?
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: So you can make a black hole just by pointing
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: lasers together. Yes, nobody's ever done it. We haven't ever
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: seen this, but the math tells us. The theory tells us.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: General relativity says that you get enough energy density in
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: one spot, it will turn into a black and that
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: includes laser light. And lasers are actually great because photons
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: have no problem being close to each other. Like the
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: reason you can't take the Empire State building and turn
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: into a black hole is that that matter resists being
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: squeezed down right, there are chemical bonds there. But photons,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: they are the kind of particle we call bosons that
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: are very happy to be right on top of each
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: other and all doing the same thing. And there's no
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: photon photon repulsion, and so you can pile as many
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: photons as you want. They will not resist. Then wouldn't
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: it take a lot of energy to power your lasers,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: like could you wouldn't that take me all the energy
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: on Earth just to make a mini black hole. It
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: would take a lot of energy to make this black hole,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: but it's much more energy efficient than for example, antimatter creation.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Ant a matter is something we can make and it's
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: a good way to convert mass into energy, but making
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: antimatter is very, very inefficient, whereas making a black hole
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: is much more efficient because all the energy goes into
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: the black hole. So yes, it's a huge energy consumption.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Anytime you want to accelerate something up to the speed
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: of light that's very massive, it's going to take a
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: lot of energy. But it's much more efficient to turn
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: lasers into a black hole than to build antimatter, which
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: is very difficult to do. And so the idea is
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: that then you just point lasers like at a point
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: or at each other, or just the laser itself would
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: create the black hole. And you need a bunch of
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: lasers altogether focused on a point. And people have done
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: some calculations to think like well, how much would you need,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: how much energy would you need? And it's about like
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: point one second of all the energy coming out of
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: the sun, like the sun you know, really it's a
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: lot of energy. And you know, if you get like
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: a tenth of a second of all the solar energy,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: that's about as much as you need to build this
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: synthetic black hole we were talking about. You can't capture
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: the whole Sun. But you know, people did other calculations.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: If you build like a lot of solar panels, you know,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: something like a few hundred kilometer sized solar panels in
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: circular orbit around the Sun, then it takes about a
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: year to get enough energy to power these lasers to
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: build the synthetic black hole. Oh I see, so you
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: would have to store all that energy for a year
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: and then release it at once. Yes, exactly, so big
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: batteries from Tesla Ellen, get on that. No, don't get
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: on that doing in space Wait, wait until you have
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: a space station. Yeah. And there's you know, lots of
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: other practical problems with building a black hole starship that
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: we sort of just you know, waved our hands over all. Right, Yes,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: what are those problems? Well, number one is that black
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: holes don't just shoot off photons that can be easily
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: reflected by like a nice mirror. And we talked about
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: how you have to redirect the radiation of half of
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: the black all the other direction. If you want to
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: move anywhere, that works great if the black hole is
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: giving off photons, because we know how to bounce those
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: off a mirror. But black holes are very democratic. The
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: reason Hawking radiation exists is that you have random particles
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: coming out of the vacuum. So those could be photons,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: they could be top corks, they could be Higgs bosons,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: they could be electrons. Oh, they're spewing out all kinds
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: of stuff, all kinds of stuff. Yeah, and some of
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: those things are hard or impossible to reflect. Oh, so
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: you don't even know if you could reflect all of
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: that energy. You're pretty sure you can't reflect all of it.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: And so there's some ideas that, like you could reflect
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: part of it, and the rest of it you could
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: try to absorb and then capture in terms of heat
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: and use that somehow, either funnel it back into the
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: black hole or use it to power you know, an
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: ion beam or something like that. But it gets pretty
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: tricky because this is very intense radiation and anything you
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: build nearby that can't reflect the radiation is going to
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: absorb it and get really hot and probably melt. Can
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: it spew out antimatter? It will. It will absolutely spew
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: out equal amounts of matter and antimatter, so that it
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: might even destroy your ship just from what it it's radiating. Yeah,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: that is a concern. Actually a small concern is that
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: it's spewing out antimatter, which would and I lead your space. Yeah.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I don't think this idea is you know, consumer ready yet,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: but the bones of it are there, you know. Oh man, Yeah,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: the black holes antimatter. That's right. Because the Hawking radiation
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: is random, it creates pairs of particles and antiparticles, and
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: sometimes the particles fall into the black hole, and sometimes
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: the antiparticles do. That's one of the really cool things
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: about black holes is that they radiate all the particles,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: and so it's actually kind of a cool way to ask, like, well,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: what particles are there? We'll just make a black hole
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and have it radiate everything that there is. It's sort
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: of like the world's best particle collider. But I guess
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: if it's being out antimatter, then I mean, if some
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: of that touches you, then you're you're dead. Yes, if
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: some of that touches you, then you know, I recommend
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: you go immediately to the met deck or whatever it
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: is on this ship, which just when did it explode
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: on you or something? Well, if an individual particle eventimatter
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: hits you, it's not a big deal. You know, like
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: bananas emit anti matter. They're emitting positrons all the time,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: but they don't hurt you, just a very small amount
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: of energy. But they could cause cancer. But we're talking
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: about a black hole emitting a lot of radiation. A
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: significant fraction of that would be radiation that you can't
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: easily absorb and reflect like photons, and some of it
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: would be antimatter. So yeah, there are big technical issues
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: they're remaining how to handle all this radiation. It's crazy.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: A black hole is too bright maybe to be a
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: starship drive? Could you just use a smaller one, Like
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: with a smaller one help a smaller one would help perhaps,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: but then it might not have enough power. So this
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: sort of a sweet spot there. You need to be
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: big enough to provide power to drive your ship and
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: to last long enough, because the smaller black hole is
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the shorterest lifespan. Just so, there is actually like a
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: literature on this idea, like there are papers out there Yeah,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I've read some papers in the last few days about
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: making black hole starships and whether it's reasonable. And in
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: addition to all the practical questions that you asked and
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: all the reasonable concerns you how about whether this thing
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: would survive, there are also fundamental physics questions about whether
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: this would work. Because you know, we're talking about Hawking
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: radiation that nobody's frankly ever seen in real life, and
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: we're relying on a sort of semi classical understanding of
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: black holes because we don't have a good theory for
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: what's going on inside black holes of quantum gravity. We
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: can't really explain what's going on inside black holes, and
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: we can't really explain whether they're radiating, and we've never
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: validated Hawking's predictions about how much they're radiating. So a
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: lot of whether or not this is possible depends on
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: a quantum understanding of gravity that we just don't have yet. Wow,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: all right, well, it sounds like a good idea to you.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Something we don't understand and may potentially kill is to
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: power a starship. We'll just ask for volunteers and we'll
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: have a really long waiver. I'm sure a lot of
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: people on the internet would sign up. I would think
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: about it for a moment. I'd be like, Wow, I
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: get to see an alien world and they get to
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: ride in a spaceship with a black hole. That sounds
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. You would sign up, you who never want
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: to leave your house. Well, I said, I would think
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: about it, and I would entertain it for a moment.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't actually sign up, but you know, I
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: might post it on Twitter and encourage you might think
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: about it for point one second. Solar energy All right, Well,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: it sounds like a pretty cool idea, and it's kind
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: of interesting, I guess to think about, you know, using
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: something like a black hole, which I think in popular
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: culture just has you know, death and destruction associated with it,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: to use it for actually something useful. Yeah, and it
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: shows you how we should be creative. We should think
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: this thing which seems crazy and dangerous, maybe we can
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: put it into work, although maybe not too creative, or like,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: let's just double check these calculations before we start selling tickets.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Maybe do it a little bit ways out into the
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: solar system when you try it out. Yeah, and we'll
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: try it with hamsters first, or those monkeys you have
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: in your lab no comment. Well, we hope you enjoyed
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: that and that it made you think a little bit
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: about black holes and how maybe they could somehow get
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: us out to see other black holes. And even if
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: this isn't the idea which cracks open this decades long
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: problem of how to get us to alien stars, I
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: have confidence that humans will one day figure this out.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: We'll come up with a crazy idea that even Jorney
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: thinks sounds safe, and it'll get us to those star systems,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: and we will learn the answers to these crazy questions
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: we've been asking basically since we've been asking questions. Thanks
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: for joining us, see you next time. Thanks for listening,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained. The universe is
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: a pretty auction of I heart Radio. Or more podcast
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.