Could a small black hole be controlled?

Question

I find a small black hole floating in space. It's very small, say 0.001 femtometer diameter.  But it weighs about 300 thousand tonnes. It is also quite hot at about 400 trillion degrees and altogether it radiates about 4000 Terawatts of power. Apparently it will take about 70 years to evaporate.
[ ref. https://space.geometrian.com/calcs/black-hole-params.php ]
I plan on maintaining the black hole's power-level and position using four cannons arranged in a tetrahedron around it. I'll put them a few kilometers away and protect them from the radiation. It seems like shooting a few cannon balls every day should do the trick?

cmaster - reinstate monica · Accepted Answer

The smallest atom we know is about 1 Ångström = 0.1 nanometer ($1cdot 10^{-10}m$) in scale, a proton's size is a bit less than 2 femtometers ($2cdot 10^{-15}m$). I.e. your canons are extremely hard put to even hit the black hole.
Then, there is the problem of the Hawking radiation coming out of the black hole. 4 Petawatts ($4cdot 10^{15}W$) coming out of a 1 attometer ($1cdot 10^{-18}m$) is an insane amount of flux. So, if you shoot protons at your black hole, all they will hit is the radiation that's coming out of the black hole, and be deflected by it.

Bottom line: It's plain impossible to feed such a black hole. All you can do is run away from it. Far, far away. Board a spaceship and put at least star between yourself and the black hole. Because if you are still around when it evaporates, you'll evaporate as well.

Could a small black hole be controlled?

One Answer

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question