Re: >H Black hole atoms

[Phil <flick@populus.net>]

Transhuman Mailing List

> On 11 Jan 2000, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> 
> > I don't know if these beasties are likely, but they certainly sound
> > like a gimmick from a Robert Forward novel. If they could exist, then
> > they might be an useful tool for femtoscale engineering. 
> 
> Two immediate applications.
> 
> First, they are the perfect catalyst for converting photons to matter.  A
> sufficiently charged singularity will have bound states whose binding
> energy is greater than twice the bound particle's mass energy.  If that
> bound state is unoccupied, then a virtual pair near the singularity can
> become real, its mass paid for by the appropriately charged member of the
> pair falling into the bound state.  Hitting this bound particle with the
> appropriate gamma photon will vacate the bound state, allowing another
> particle pair to become real.

Pretending for a moment that I understand this...
Would this require a "naked singularity", one not shielded from the
rest of the universe by an event horizon?
Which, according to Roger Penrose, shouldn't exist.

Phil

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