How to Make Black Holes (Both Regular and Supermassive)

We've learned about the lifetime of stars, and we saw that very high mass stars will leave behind a black hole when they die. What else can we say about black holes? Is there any other way to make a black hole besides waiting for a huge star to die? Let's learn all about these mysterious things!

Check out "Is This Wi-Fi Organic?", my book on disarming pseudoscience!

[ArfatXeon]

This is probably the most underrated channels on YouTube. I have only recently started watching your videos and I can already say that you deserve at least a million subs.

[dweezilbop]

I’ve been binge watching your cosmology series and my 5 year old daughter has shown an interest. She particularly likes the music.

[phillipeldridge-smith]

Dave, learning about Hawking Radiation and the death of black holes is the first time that I’ve joyously exclaimed “that is f**king amazing!” out loud to myself on my own in a loooong time. I learn a lot from you by watching all of your videos, but THIS little titbit of science is absolutely fascinating, and I’m off to go learn more.

Thank you for the years of brilliant science communication. One of my favourite channels on YouTube.

[ClemensAlive]

Ant Man was close to becoming a black hole!

[juliakroeger]

Hahah, as a german I loved the Schwarz(s)''child'' radius pronunciation

[bens.]

Dave, you know what makes these videos so good and entertaining? You! You sound so excited to be teaching! 😃

[wsjoiram]

Your explanations about ALL the subjects you cover are amazing. Nobody else is covering key subjects and cross-refering them as methodically and systematically as you. Please, keep it up and thanks. :)

[somerandom]

Due to a German spelling error in this video, this comment section now belongs to the BRD.
Thank you for your Compliance.

[ItalianOrlando]

I've watched a lot of these videos on black holes. I find them absolutely intriguing. But I learned more about them in this 9 minute video than I ever knew before.

[luker]

7:56 Why does it have to be the negative of the pair that falls in? isn't there an equal chance that the positive one falls in, thus increasing the mass?

[professorlegacy]

"We can't take actual photographs of black holes."
29 yr old female computer scientist: "Hold my beer..."

[rigrentals]

Amazing video. I learned things I didn't even know could happen with black holes. Space is the place.

[debunkosaurus]

Great video. One minor error. You said the rockets and shuttles we send up have reached escape velocity. They haven't. If they had, they wouldn't orbit; they would leave.

[Raz.C]

Addendum, re 2:07
It's wrong to say "To make it into space, you need to reach [insert escape velocity or any other velocity here]" You don't need to reach escape velocity to make it into space. As long as your velocity is not zero and you have the energy to continue your motion, you can make it to space at ANY velocity. You can make it into space with a high altitude weather balloon and a velocity of 1 Km/ h. Escape velocity is instead, the velocity- unassisted by acceleration- needed to escape the gravity well of a body, such that the gravity of the body can no longer bring you back to its surface. Or to put it another way, escape velocity is when the curve described by your vector becomes flatter than the curvature of space around the planetary body in question. You need to reach escape velocity if you want to no longer be gravitationally bound to the body in question. However, you can both 'make it into space' AND be 'gravitationally bound to a planetary body' at the same time. That's why the moon is still with us in orbit.


Anyway, no disrespect to Prof. Dave. I'm certain he's already well aware of this and either made a simple mistake or was trying to explain it in simplistic/ layman's terms. There's quite a bit of technical stuff that goes into this (constant acceleration, or constant velocity and 0 acceleration? Hohmann transfer, or direct [which is currently impossible, due to the energy requirements] vector, etc...), so I can understand if Prof. Dave wanted to simplify things to avoid a lengthy tangent...

[v_trapz]

your videos make me smile lol.

thanks for what your doing its helping me so much in my classes and it's really nice to watch. keep up the good work

[pkqogdr]

2:15 you say that every shuttle that has made it to space achieved escape velocity, but that's not true: they achieved orbital velocity which allows them to not fall back down while still being gravitationally bound. Also, no shuttle or manned vehicle has ever reached escape velocity yet (but the appolo missions came very close)

[steinadler]

Hi Dave,

it is called "Schwarzschild" not "Schwarzchild" and you pronounce the second part similar to "shield".
Literally "Schwarzschild" means black shield, a typically German Jewish name.

[Blubb]

*Schwarzschild
You’re missing an S throughout the entire video.

[AntonioFGagliardiLugo]

By far one of the best videos I've seen in Youtube about Black holes. Thank you so much !!!

[umbraxenon]

2:38
No, because you cannot divide by zero.
The escape velocity would *approach* infinity, but it would not *be* infinity, as the answer of dividing any number by 0 only tends towards infinity. It *is* not infinity.