I see, hear, and read about black holes and their consumption power often. They grow as they consume. Eventually, as they keep growing and consuming, wouldn’t they combine and continue the process until they become so large as to devour everything in existence?
In: Physics
Doubtful, there is a finite amount of matter in the universe so they can only get so big. And the universe is expanding so the likelihood of all of them somehow coming together is probably nil.
The universe though is vast, and wouldn’t really care about some microscopic pinprick of gravity doing something in a forgotten corner as the black holes slowly evaporate.
The distance between things in the universe is mind-bogglingly vast and those distances are increasing as far as we know, and so no single black hole will consume everything.
This time lapse video covers theories of the distant future and the fate of black holes, though I’m not sure a 5yo is ready for the existential dread that ensues watching it.
My question has always been – if the universe is constantly growing, will the black hole eventually outgrow the universe? Or will it be a constant growing / eating away
They can’t really do that as the universe expands. They’ll be too far to merge.
They don’t suck everything in like a vacuum. If a black hole the mass of the sun was placed in the sun’s place, we wouldn’t see a gravitational difference. The planets would just move as normal, except freezing solid with the lack of sun.
Thank you so much for all your informative and thought out answers! I appreciate everyone taking the time to answer this question and the associated discussions. You’ve given me a lot to think about and even more to research!
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