Hawking radiation

Hawking radiation is the thermal radiation predicted by Stephen Hawking in 1974 to be emitted by black holes due to quantum effects near the event horizon. The radiation has a blackbody spectrum with temperature inversely proportional to the black hole's mass, meaning smaller black holes are hotter and evaporate faster. Hawking radiation establishes that black holes are not perfectly black but are thermodynamic objects with entropy and temperature. The radiation remains unobserved directly, but its theoretical existence underpins the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy and the broader framework of black hole thermodynamics. The tension between Hawking's semiclassical prediction and the unitary evolution of quantum mechanics is the core of the black hole information paradox.