Black holes are fascinating objects because they are so odd. Some spew out matter and energy at intervals. All of them produce tremendous gravity waves. What they don’t do is emit or reflect light waves.
Conundrum, how does it spew matter and gravity waves but not light waves?
There are many theories by many very smart people. I’ll leave that for the time being because I have some fascinating speculation brought on by a conversation with one of my thirteen year old grandsons who is definitely much brighter than I am. He already beats me at chess most of the time. I break even with his parents’ generation.
He wondered – what would happen if you shot protons into a black hole?
First, let’s stipulate that black holes rotate, some very quickly.
Second, black holes are massive and protons are, to put it mildly, exceedingly
small.
Third, accelerating anything to the speed of light increases the mass.
Therefore, if you shoot a proton (more likely a stream of them), at a black hole,
the effect depends on whether the stream hits in alignment with the axis of rotation, contra the axis or into the north or south poles and so aligns with the axis of black hole itself.
Case No.1 – The protons align with spin as they impact the black hole. Imparting this large amount of mass may speed up rotation of even an enormous object like this. It may be analogized to hitting a spinning bike tire with a wooden paddle. It should speed it up. What happens then? It should eventually have the effect of causing the black hole to lose cohesion and fly apart. Or are the gravity waves stronger?
Maybe.
Case No. 2 – The proton stream impacts contrary to spin. This should act as a brake. Does the black hole come apart as it slows or emit stronger gravity waves since its energy is no longer spent in spin? Or are the waves weaker?
Case No. 3 – Proton stream cones in directly along axis which directly fuels the core of the black hole. I can’t even guess other than that the results should spectacular.
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