"A Very 'Complex' Experiment"

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Although our project began with the investigation in the characteristics of a black hole, we began to revisit this area. Dr. Chinmay Patel was keen on investigating the thermodynamics of a black hole. This was fun, because I was also revisiting topics I learned in grade eleven physics as well as grade twelve chemistry! Black holes are one of the few things in space that have a negative specific heat capacity. Specific heat capacity is the energy required to raise the temperature of an object by 1 degree Celcius. Since black holes have a negative specific heat capacity, this would mean that a black hole would need to lose energy to raise their temperature. This works opposite to what we expect in common items such as water (a form of matter that has a positive specific heat capacity). A black hole would need to lose energy in the form of mass to emit energy in the form of hawking radiation. At this point, Dr. Patel was able to come with a spectacular idea of burning candles. He proposed that by adding energy to candles, we can demonstrates what happens when you take energy away from a black hole. In theory, a larger black hole would take longer to lose its mass and evaporate. By performing this experiment, we found that the larger candle did in fact take longer to burn. Therefore, we proved this theory by performing a very “complicated” experiment.

#Mohammed