Stephen Hawking Black Holes

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Stephen Hawking is often regarded as one of the greatest minds in theoretical science. His advances have no doubt made a lasting impression on the science world. Which brings up the question, what exactly has Hawking's work done for modern science? Hawking's main contributions to cosmology and the world were in the study of black holes (Melissa 14). To better understand these great contributions you must first understand what a black hole is. Black holes are portions of space-time where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape. Physicist surmise that a black hole is formed when a star three times the size of the sun burns off all the nuclear fuel in it (Melissa 14), also known as the end of its life, and collapses under its own weight ("Stephen Hawking Makes"). The holes gravity pulls all matter and objects into a tiny space, in fact, the term 'black hole' comes from the simple fact that even light can't escape its great gravitational field (Melissa 15). This was the theory until Hawking realized entropy could be applied to the study if black holes. Entropy is simply the amount of disorder in a system (Melissa 16). According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, if something has an entropy, it must have a temperature (Melissa 17). When an object has a temperature it emits radiation, but nothing was supposed to come out of a black hole. This was a contradiction that excited Hawking to the point where he couldn't sleep at night. (Melissa 17). His next move was to set off devising a means by which a black hole could have a temperature and radiate heat. Struggling with this problem for three years believing that black holes could not emit anything until the end of 1973 when he discovered a mechanism allowing black holes to emit particles of radiation relying upon quantum mechanics, a branch of physics describing the odd ways of subatomic
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