how does Heisenberg's uncertainty principle affect the merger of two black holes of dissimilar mass?
349795
I don't think the Heisenberg uncertainty principle would apply here, but the related Pauli Exclusion Principle might tell you something about how the masses would combine. But I seem to recall that the whole idea of a black hole is that all known mechanisms of preventing continued collapse, including the Pauli Exclusion Principle, are overcome by gravity and so all the mass of the black hole occupies an infinitely small volume. However, the event horizon, which is the distance from the center at which the escape velocity is exactly the speed of light, would get bigger. But that calculation is a simple gravity problem and does not depend on quantum mechanics at all.
78675
The poster before me gave an excellent answer which is that nobody really knows. I just wanted to point you to a very cool experiment about how mass warps space.\n\nAnother very profound question to ask would be why are gravitational mass and inetial mass so nearly (if not exactly) equal?
417240
As two black hole aproach each other they will mutuall atrach each other by virtue of their gravity, just as two stars would do, or two planets would do.  If the encounter is close enough, and the conditions are right they can pair-up as a black hole binary, or alternatively they could have formed that way if they began their lives as two very high mass binary stars.\n\nAs the two black holes orbit each other (and in the case of merging spriral into each other) they will produce gravitational waves.  Much like rolling two pebbles around in a shallow pool will create ripples in the water, two black holes orbiting each other will create ripples in spacetime.\n\nWhen the black holes get close enough to each other they will merge into one, more massive, black hole.  This merger event requires the whole system to take a bit of time to settle down into a new configuration, and should also produce gravitational waves (ripples in spacetime).\n\nWhile the math involved is horendously more complicated, this is, in simple terms, what is going on.  We hope that in the next few years that we will be able to measure these gravitational waves that (according to the General Theory of Relativity) are being produced by such black hole pairs.  These waves are one of the last major predictions of General Relativity that we have not been able to verify yet.
678337
I think you may be referring to Hawking radiation.\n\nVirtual particles come into being all the time but are annihilated before they can be detected by virtual anti-particles.  But close to a black hole with a very steep gravity well what can happen is that one of the particle-antiparticle pair is sucked into the black hole and the other one escapes.  The mass energy of the particle that escapes is taken from the black hole and the black hole gets a little bit lighter.\n\nBecause it is a process that depends on how steep the gravity well is and because smaller black holes have steeper gravity wells the smaller a black hole is the less time it takes to decay away (so a black hole as heavy as a mountain would take billions of years while one as heavy as a star takes way longer).
836034
hmmmm, good question, idk, ive never thought of that... i dont think so because their strong enough that the one that would be sucked into the other would be strong enough to keep itself from getting sucked in... however, that could work the other way too, their strong enough that the one thats sucking it inwould be strong enough to do it, y'know?? but that brings up another question, which black hole is getting sucked in??wouldnt they both be sucking eachother in therfore getting rid of both black holes from ever existing??but then where would they go after they both suck eachother up?? wow, thats mindboggling, anyway, good luck on finding out the answer, i think you found one question that cant be answered.
57666
If two bodies (stars, black holes, anything) get close enough to be gravitationally bound they will develop some sort of orbit in which the two bodies circle each other. \n\n\nEinstein's theory of General Relativity predicts that when two very massive objects(like Black Holes and Neutron Stars) are caught in an orbit like this they will generate Gravitational Waves (Ripples in Space-Time). These Gravitational Waves carry energy away from the orbiting bodies which means that with each successive revolution they get closer to each other. Eventually the orbit gets so small that the two bodies merge. \n\n\nThe merger of two black holes entails a lot of complicated General Relativity and some non-intuitive physics, but theorists use large supercomputers to simulate such events. There are two primary results to these mergers of which we can be sure of: \n\n1. A single, more massive black hole \n\n2. An extremely powerful burst of gravitational waves \n\n\nThere are currently projects like LIGO which will attempt to directly detect the disturbances in space time caused by gravitational waves. They primarily expect to "see" the results of neutron star and black hole binary mergers. \n\n\nThere was also a recent discovery of a black hole merger in a distant galaxy though this was discovered by observing the jet streams caused by the black holes. You should note that those results are still preliminary and unconfirmed.
666237
These are given by Einstein field equations and are unfortunately not so simple as Newton´s equation.\n\nTake a look here:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_equations\n\nor here if you want less math:\nhttp://www.black-holes.org/relativity1.html
794533
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle (developed in an essay published in 1927) provides a quantitative relationship between the uncertainties of the hypothetical infinitely precise measurements of p and x as measured by the sizes of their distributions in the following way: If the particle state is such that the first measurement yields a dispersion of values Δx, then the second measurement will have a distribution of values whose dispersion Δp is at least inversely proportional to Δx. For the limiting case, the constant of proportionality is derivable using commutator arithmetic. It is equal to Planck's constant divided by 4π.\n     This stipulates that the product of the uncertainties in position and momentum is equal to or greater than about 10−35 joule-seconds. Therefore, the product of the uncertainties only becomes significant for regimes where the uncertainty in position or momentum measurements is small. Thus, the uncertainty principle governs the observable nature of atoms and subatomic particles while its effect on measurements in the macroscopic world is negligible and can be usually ignored.\n     The Heisenberg uncertainty relations are a theoretical bound over all measurements. They hold for so-called ideal measurements, sometimes called von Neumann measurements. They hold even more so for non-ideal or Landau measurements.
711640
Sorry to Sun of Samsa.  I meant to give you a thumbs up!  The Black Hole Singularity is infinitely small (infinite density and ZERO volume).  The effects of the hole can be miles or light years across!
901382
You have this slightly wrong. The correct formula is:\n\nS=Akc^3/(4 hbar G)\n\nThis is a statement on the entropy of black holes. k is Boltzmann's constant, c is the speed of light, hbar is plank's constant divided by 2 pi, G is Newton's gravitational constant and A is the surface area of the black hole's event horizon.\n\nNotice that this means that the entropy of a black hole is proportional to the surface area of it's event horizon, rather than the volume it encloses as would normally be expected.
448057
There are many theories regarding this subject. One being that there are "white holes" opposite the black holes, in other universes, or other parts of this one out of which the matter shoots.  But the most likely is that it gets added to the mass of the black hole, making it even more massive and dense.  So in essence it doesn't "go" anywhere, it crosses the event horizon, becomes squished and spaghettified by the immense gravity and simply becomes part of the black hole.\n-Duo
320050
I came across the Heisenberg Principle when doing some light reading ("A Brief History of Time" - SH)and thought that it would be a great joke, if I should ever need a defense of a speeding ticket.\nBut I'll simply use it here, instead, as I'm sick of waiting for that opportunity to arise ;)\n"In another uncertainty principle joke, a quantum physicist is stopped on the highway by a police officer who asks "Do you know how fast you were going, sir?", to which the physicist responds, "No, but I know exactly where I am!"."
627291
Nothing.  A warhead would have no effect, since it would be fryed, melted, crushed, and sucked into the black hole.  It wouldnt even make it past 10 feet before all of that happenes to it from a black hole.
812789
As a result of the black hole information paradox, a black hole actually destroys quantum information about any particles that cross its event horizon, which violates the scientific tenet that information cannot be destroyed.  A consequence of this is that black holes are identical except for their respective masses, electrical charges and angular velocities; no other characteristics of a black hole can be measured.
503003
I think you asked a very good question. I would like to see someone answer this question correctly as well.\n\nBut just to give you my understanding, which is this: force mediating particles are NOT real particles. They are considered to be virtual particles and thus may not be subject to the same rules as real particles.\n\nThe answer given before me can NOT be true, because the amount of leaking radiation due to the Uncertainty Principle is miniscule. There simply would not be enough gavitons escaping the blackhole and make its presence felt.\n\nJust to give you some numbers:\n\nFor a black hole of one solar mass (about 2x10^30 kg), we get an evaporation time of 10^67 years — much longer than the current age of the universe.\n\nBut even for a black hole of 10^11 kg, the evaporation time is about 3 billion years.\n\nThe power, or engergy output per unit time, in the Hawking radiation from a solar mass black hole turns out to be a minuscule 10−28 watts. Blackholes are black for a reason!!!\n\nOk, here is a definition of virtual particles take directly from Wikipedia:\n\nIn physics, a virtual particle is a particle-like abstraction used in some models of quantum field theory. Virtual particles exhibit some of the phenomena that real particles do such as conservation of charge. Nevertheless they are unobservable by their very definition, and furthermore do not respect some of the most fundamental laws associated with physical particles.\n\nSo force mediators don't obey the same rules as real particles!!!\n\nBy the way, Quantum Field Theory is NOT compatible with General Relativity (our current theory of gravity). Therefore, you are currently trying to reconcile quantum field theory concepts (like force mediators) with extreme gravity (i.e. blackholes), which is a task that the best theoritical physicsts of our time are still struggling with. Superstring Theory and Quantum Gravity are the two top contenders to combine quantum mechanics with G.R. to provide a coherent theory of all forces.\n\nI think we need to consult one of them for the answer.
274107
Fine answers so far, indeed.\nQuantum mechanics is a very complicated field of physics and even a Godfather like Richard Feynman said that people who claim to understand it really understand it not at all.\nBasic problem is that experimental research below a certain dimension inevitably fails because of Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: "The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known." Meaning that we, using waves of certain lenghts to be able to look at the world of subatomic particles, influence them. So we cannot determine both a particle's position AND momentum with pinpoint precision. Thus, in quantum mechanics, the principle of possibilities replaces hard Yes-No-facts. This leads to very confusing studying that often results in escapes into pure mathematics. For example, the dualistic nature of light (which seems to be both matter and wave) can only be described by quantum mechanics.\nAs time and space came into existence only with the beginning of the universe, the question what occurred "before" (being a chronological term, belonging to the principle of time) is irrelevant.
179214
The two black holes will eventually merge, producing gravity waves which we should be able to observe in the near future with planned spaceborne technology like the laser interferometer NASA plans to watch.  In fact, they might have already launched it; I don't keep up with all the projects.\n\n\nSee "Two supermassive black holes found in same galaxy" at the link below.