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Although black holes were theoretically postulated in the 1920s, they remained outside the domain of observational astronomy until the 1970s.
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The nature of light has been a subject of inquiry since antiquity. In the seventeenth century, Isaac Newton performed experiments with lenses and prisms and was able to demonstrate that white light consists of the individual colors of the rainbow combined together. Newton explained his optics findings in terms of a "corpuscular" view of light, in which light was composed of streams of extremely tiny particles traveling at high speeds according to Newton's laws of motion.
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Light plays a significant role in regulating the growth and development of plants. In addition to providing energy for photosynthesis, light provides other important cues to regulate a range of developmental and physiological responses in plants.
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Light rays enter the eye through the cornea, a transparent dome-shaped tissue that is the eye's outermost layer. The cornea bends or refracts, light rays traveling to the pupil. The shape of the cornea determines how much of the light is bent and whether the image will be focused correctly on the retina at the back of the eye. Once the light has passed through both refraction layers, it converges into a single focal point onto a small area. This is where photoreceptors start transforming...
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Low-Cost Cryo-Light Microscopy Stage Fabrication for Correlated Light/Electron Microscopy
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Light Black Holes from Light.

Don N Page1

  • 1University of Alberta, Department of Physics, 4-183 CCIS, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E1, Canada.

Physical Review Letters
|January 20, 2026
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Black hole formation from light is unlikely under adiabatic conditions due to quantum dissipation. However, rapid energy influx, like colliding light pulses, could theoretically create black holes, even near Planck scale.

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Area of Science:

  • Theoretical Physics
  • Quantum Field Theory
  • Astrophysics

Background:

  • Previous research suggested quantum dissipative effects, like vacuum polarization and the Schwinger effect, prevent black hole formation from light.
  • These studies often assumed an adiabatic influx of electromagnetic energy, limiting the scope of black hole formation scenarios.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the possibility of black hole formation from light, considering scenarios beyond adiabatic energy influx.
  • To re-evaluate the impact of quantum dissipative effects under different energy influx conditions.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of theoretical processes involving rapidly changing influxes of electromagnetic energy.
  • Consideration of idealized scenarios, such as the collision of approximately plane-wave light pulses.

Main Results:

  • Agrees that adiabatic energy influx makes black hole formation from light highly implausible due to quantum dissipation.
  • Demonstrates that rapidly changing energy influxes can theoretically lead to black hole formation across a wide range of sizes, down to the Planck length.
  • Identifies specific theoretical processes, like colliding light pulses, as potential mechanisms for forming such black holes.

Conclusions:

  • While realistic scenarios with adiabatic energy influx preclude light-induced black hole formation, non-adiabatic processes offer theoretical pathways.
  • Quantum dissipation does not universally prevent black hole formation from light; the rate of energy influx is a critical factor.
  • Idealized theoretical models suggest the possibility of creating micro black holes from photons under specific, albeit likely non-natural, conditions.