Hawking radiation and how it causes black holes to evaporate
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Everything in the universe has a temperature. Black holes have a temperature. Empty space itself has a temperature. Smaller black holes are hotter than larger black holes.
Temperature always flows from hot to cold. Therefore, if a black hole is hotter than the space around it, it must transfer heat by radiating something. That “something” is Hawking radiation. Because radiation is energy and energy is mass, the black hole emitting radiation must lose mass.
If black holes didn’t do this, it would be possible to break some of the universe’s physical laws by throwing specific things into black holes.
This is a grossly oversimplified explanation of black hole thermodynamics, but that’s my best ELI5.
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