questions about the cosmos

[DaShi]

Someone message KH to let him know that Ben is lecturing us a blackholes. He should at least find it amusing.

[The Mad Monk]

I thought I read somewhere that a black hole will explode if it loses enough mass (at which point it ceases to be a black hole), but a google search for "exploding black hole" only pulled up bull**** results.

It doesn't explode per se, but as it gets smaller and it's surface area increases relative to mass, the Hawking radiation effects (and resulting mass loss) gain speed. Eventually the "hole" should become very bright and hot as it sheds energy with ever increasing speed, until it reaches a mass of a few kilograms (really, I'm not sure how close this is) and a diameter measured in angstroms, and..."pops".

When an alien race uses singularities for power in SciFi, this is probably the kind of singularity meant.