• Question: In the future could black holes ever be used as a weapon?

    Asked by waffles to Amy, Grant, Martin, Shawn, Usman on 9 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Grant Kennedy

      Grant Kennedy answered on 9 Mar 2013:

      Maybe, though to do it would be REALLY hard. Like if you wanted to throw a black hole that you found in space at a planet inhabited by people you didn’t like for some reason it would take a HUGE amount of energy to move it, like way more than is contained in the Solar System.

      Maybe we’ll be able to make black holes in the future, though that would be a pretty dangerous business since you’d have to have a way of containing them and keeping track of where they are!

    • Photo: Usman Kayani

      Usman Kayani answered on 9 Mar 2013:

      Assuming we haven’t perished through some other disaster, a highly advanced civilization may one day be able to create micro-black holes or perhaps even be able to play around with stellar black holes, this kind of a civilization is known as a type-2 civilization and they are able to control the energy from stars and can travel anywhere in the universe; basically stuff you’ve seen from science fiction. But the energies required to ever use a black hole as a practical weapon would be greater than the sun or anything in our solar system.

      At the moment we are still a type-0 civilization and it is very unlikely as there are many practical and technical issues and there are still gaps in our knowledge in fully understanding a black hole. But one day (in the far far future), who knows!

    • Photo: Martin Archer

      Martin Archer answered on 10 Mar 2013:

      If you believe science fiction then maybe. It’s surprising how many things science fiction from the past have actually been able to predict from mobile phones to landing on the moon. I think the really cool thing about science is by understanding how the Universe works just for knowledge’s sake we can further down the line advance the human race through technology. For instance, back in the 30s a group of scientists wanted to understand the ways atoms worked and came up with quantum theory. They could never have known it would lead to PCs, smartphones etc. but without that work they wouldn’t exist! So you never know what the impact of science will be.

    • Photo: Shawn Domagal-Goldman

      Shawn Domagal-Goldman answered on 12 Mar 2013:

      Woah, waffles! I’ve never even thought of that before!!

      I think the others are right. This could – MAYBE – one day be possible. But it would be very, very, very, very hard to do it. And it would be super-dangerous because whoever was using them would probably get sucked up by the black hole themselves!

      Here’s the flip side to that coin. If a civilization was advanced enough so they *could* use them as a weapon, they could probably also use them in more helpful ways…. maybe as an energy source, for example.

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