Not too sharp on my astrophysics! Just wondering, if a black hole is considered to be in a state of high or low entropy?
If you consider the maximum entropy state, with all energy uniformly distributed over a vast space, and compare it too a black hole, which is a huge amount of energy stored in a tiny space they appear to be polar opposites, which would make you come to the conclusion that a black hole is low entropy.
If you were to take a star as a closed system and watch it collapse into a black hole, surely it would stay as a black hole. If a black hole was considered a low entropy state, then it would seem to violate the second law? Unless it is possible for a black hole to "un-collapse" itself?
I am aware of Hawking radiation. Which means that a black hole can actually spew out matter. Would it be possible for it to spew out enough to destabilise it, and "de-collapse" it?
As far as I know hawking radiation works as such: (correct me if I'm wrong)
Near the "threshold of no return" of a black hole a matter/antimatter particle pair comes into existence. Normally these particles would instantly annihilate each other, but in this circumstance, one of the particles is caught by the gravity of the black hole, but the other manages to escape.
Which of the particles escapes? The particle or anti particle? And why? Surely both are under the influence of the massive gravity?
Imagining that a Big Crunch were to happen (which it seems it won't) then it would seem that it also would violate the second law, as it would presumably start off as the forming of many black holes? If this was so, surely a black hole is indeed high entropy?
The Big Bang singularity was obviously low entropy. What fundamental difference is there between this singularity and a singularity in a black hole? My only explanation is that even though the Big Bang singularity contained a huge amount of matter in a tiny space, that tiny space was in fact ALL space.
How would (in theory) the Big Crunch singularity differ from the Big Bang singularity? How does this difference ensure that the second law is not broken?
Could the Big Crunch singularity become unstable and also set off another Big Bang? To the best of my knowledge this is impossible, but could someone clarify....and why?
Anyway, hopefully you'll be able to answer my questions. Any recommendations for a good book for on astrophysics? I'm am reasonably well read on classical physics, relativity and quantum physics. This is my final frontier.
*groan*
I haven't yet worked up the guts to dive into A Brief History Of Time!
