Question about singularity power sources

Junghalli · Post by **Junghalli** » 2006-03-03 09:24pm

Where do they generally plan to get the singularity? Obviously the plan isn't to lasso a small black hole, because it would have to be so small that most of its mass is continuously leaving it as Hawking radiation. What is the usual proposed method of generating an artificial singularity?

Cos Dashit · Post by **Cos Dashit** » 2006-03-03 09:33pm

Didn't they make a small non-rotating black hole, umm, I believe last summer? I think I read about it in Scientific Weekly; couldn't they get their singularity from that?

Junghalli · Post by **Junghalli** » 2006-03-03 10:44pm

Cos Dashit wrote:Didn't they make a small non-rotating black hole, umm, I believe last summer? I think I read about it in Scientific Weekly; couldn't they get their singularity from that?

Would you be referring to this?
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 003_pg6_13 Interesting article. Although to actually use it for power you'd have to make the black-hole semi-stable, otherwise you'd be putting more energy into the atom smasher than you'd be getting out of the AS.

Sriad · Post by **Sriad** » 2006-03-03 11:10pm

There are three ways you can (if you're a sufficiently advanced culture) harvest power using a black hole:

1: tiny black hole, throw matter in, Hawking Radiation (energy) comes out.

2: Stellar Black Hole: when stars collapse into black holes, they preserve their angular momentum, so many BH's are spinning FAST. If you charge one of these puppies and toss a magnetic ring...thingy around it, you can use it like a generator.

3: Black hole of modest size again: When matter falls into a black hole along normal routes, it gets very hot for reasons which would take a couple paragraphs to explain, but have to do with gravatational potential energy, the small size of black holes, and friction. Anyway, it gets hot to the tune of 40ish% of the matter's rest mass being converted to energy; the x-rays released during this are how we spot black holes. Throw some matter at a BH, collect the energy, presto.

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2006-03-04 05:42am

Sriad wrote:3: Black hole of modest size again: When matter falls into a black hole along normal routes, it gets very hot for reasons which would take a couple paragraphs to explain, but have to do with gravatational potential energy, the small size of black holes, and friction. Anyway, it gets hot to the tune of 40ish% of the matter's rest mass being converted to energy; the x-rays released during this are how we spot black holes. Throw some matter at a BH, collect the energy, presto.

Short version: accretion radiation. IIRC there's also the one about passing matter/light through the outer region of a spinning black hole. I'm sure people have thought up lots of such strange schemes, but for some reason google is being stubborn.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2006-03-05 12:51am

Well, if you're advanced enough to manufacture a small black hole in the first place (which is discussed in Adrian Berry's The Iron Sun), one possibility is to feed a steady stream of matter (any substance will do) to offset its decay rate and thereby maintain the black hole's size and mass as a constant while harvesting its energy —either in the form of electromagnetic force or edge-decay radiation.