13/11/2025
Stephen Hawking's groundbreaking discovery of Hawking radiation in 1974 came about through a thought experiment that combined two major, yet seemingly incompatible, theories: Einstein’s general relativity and quantum mechanics.
For a long time, black holes were considered perfect cosmic traps that consumed everything, even light, with no escape. However, Hawking pondered what would happen to quantum particles near the edge of a black hole, at its event horizon—the point beyond which nothing can return.
Drawing on the principles of quantum field theory, he realized that space is never truly empty. Instead, it is constantly fluctuating, producing pairs of particles and antiparticles that briefly pop in and out of existence. Near a black hole, the immense gravitational pull could separate these particle pairs, with one falling into the black hole while the other escapes into space. To an observer far away, this process would appear as radiation being emitted by the black hole.
This radiation, now known as Hawking radiation, means that black holes aren’t eternal after all—they can gradually lose mass and energy, eventually evaporating over time. Hawking’s insight reshaped our understanding of the universe, showing that even the most mysterious, inescapable places in space are not truly silent—they reveal the deep, hidden workings of quantum nature.