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Can a black hole be microscopic?

2006-11-02 00:40:24 · 2 answers · asked by goring 6 in Science & Mathematics Physics

2 answers

It depends what you mean by small and volume.

If by small you mean mass, then for a black hole to form spontaneously by gravitational collapse it requires a minimum of around 6 solar masses (6 times the mass of our sun). In principle you could forcibly compress matter to form a smaller black hole, but in practice it is not clear how - or whether - you could do this.

Volume is more complex. If you mean the volume contained by the Schwarzchild radius (or event horizon) then this can be very large indeed - many times the volume of our solar system for the black hole belived to be at the centre of the galaxy.

If you mean the volume of the collapsed matter, then this is zero, because a black hole is a singularity.

2006-11-02 01:47:30 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1 0

In some theories, a black hole has no volume, and that would make it smaller than a proton.

Mathematically, even as small a mass as an electron, could be a black hole, if it was compressed enough.

However, you also have to conside the event horizon, which is where time stops outside the black hole, which would always be much larger than the black hole itself.

2006-11-02 01:23:52 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

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