We’ve heard enough terrifying things about black holes, so why not add one more frightening theory to the pile? Along with anchoring galaxies and spaghettifying hapless Red Dwarf crew members, black holes could be used to create the biggest explosion possible by humans.
In the video above, Kurzgesagt outlines how a sufficiently advanced civilisation could extract energy from a black hole. It wouldn’t be easy, cheap or safe, but the science is there.
And if you can get energy from a black hole… well, you can guess where this is going:
There’s an even better way to get energy from a black hole and oddly enough, it builds the biggest bomb any living the could ever hope to build: the black hole bomb.
What’s a black hole bomb exactly? Well, much like you’d build a Dyson sphere around a star to harness its energy, you could theoretically construct a giant mirror ball to contain a black hole.
Then, you’d remove part of the mirror, shoot electromagnetic waves inside and let them bounce around for a while. Combined with the rotational power of the black hole, you’d eventually get quite a bang:
A supermassive black hole would release as much energy as a supernova, making the bomb the largest explosion any living being could ever release.
The good news is, it doesn’t have to explode — you could use it as an near-endless source of power. Just remove a part of the mirror from time to time and harness the energy of the bouncing wave.
Dibs not having that job.
[YouTube]