Hawking radiation is a theoretical prediction made by physicist Stephen Hawking that suggests black holes can emit radiation due to quantum effects near their event horizons. This process occurs when virtual particle-antiparticle pairs are generated in the vacuum of space, and one of the particles falls into the black hole while the other escapes, leading to a gradual loss of mass for the black hole. This phenomenon connects black hole thermodynamics with quantum mechanics, challenging the notion that nothing can escape a black hole's gravitational pull.
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