Speed of light & black holes

About the speed of light and black holes
  • The speed of light squared (c^2) is related to the energy required to create a black hole through Einstein’s famous equation E=mc^2, where E is the energy of a system, m is its mass, and c is the speed of light in a vacuum.
  • This equation shows that there is an equivalence between mass and energy and that a certain amount of energy can be converted into a certain amount of mass, and vice versa.
  • When matter is compressed to a small enough volume, it can create a black hole. The minimum amount of mass required to form a black hole is called the Schwarzschild radius, which is proportional to the mass of the object. The equation for the Schwarzschild radius is:
    • R = 2GM/c^2
    • where R is the Schwarzschild radius, G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the object, and c is the speed of light in a vacuum.
  • From this equation, we can see that the speed of light squared is related to the energy required to create a black hole because the more energy that is compressed into a smaller volume, the greater the mass of the object will be, and the larger the Schwarzschild radius will be. Therefore, the greater the amount of energy required to create a black hole, the larger the value of c^2 will be in the equation for the Schwarzschild radius.