Exploding holes
From Mr HM. Thornton Sir: In rating Stephen Hawking much lower down the scale than Einstein or Newton (Who's afraid of Stephen Hawking?', 10 June), Robert Matthews asserts that, despite most scientists suspecting that Hawking is right in claiming that black holes eventually explode, there is not a shred of evidence that they do so.
As I recall, Hawking said not only that black holes eventually explode, but also that the universe is now old enough that we should expect some of them to be exploding now. He also said that the explosions would produce huge amounts of gamma rays.
Over the past few years articles in various journals about astronomy have noted that large outbursts of gamma rays have been detected, which they call, I think, gamma ray bursts. Their origin was said to be a mystery.
Is this perhaps the 'shred of evidence' that Robert Matthews says has not been found?
JIM Thornton
kinondoni@home.com
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