A charged black hole is a black hole that possesses electric charge. Since the electromagnetic repulsion in compressing an electrically charged mass is dramatically greater than the gravitational attraction (by about 40 orders of magnitude), it is not expected that black holes with a significant electric charge will be formed in nature.
A charged black hole is one of four possible types of black holes that could exist in the theory of gravitation called general relativity. Black holes can be characterized by three (and only three) quantities, its
- mass M (called a Schwarzschild black hole if it has no angular momentum and no electric charge),
- angular momentum J (called a Kerr black hole if it has no charge), and
- electric charge Q (charged black hole or Reissner-Nordström black hole if the angular momentum is zero or a Kerr-Newman black hole if it has both angular momentum and electric charge).
A special, mathematically-oriented article describes the Reissner-Nordström metric for a charged, non-rotating black hole.
The solutions of Einstein's field equation for the gravitational field of an electrically charged point mass (with zero angular momentum) in empty space was obtained in 1918 by Hans Reissner and Gunnar Nordström, not long after Karl Schwarzschild found the Schwarzschild metric as a solution for a point mass without electric charge and angular momentum.
Famous quotes containing the words black hole, charged, black and/or hole:
“The shadow of the Venetian blind on the painted wall,
Shadows of the snake-plant and cacti, the plaster animals,
Focus the tragic melancholy of the bright stare
Into nowhere, a hole like the black holes in space.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“God, who gave to him the lyre,
Of all mortals the desire,
For all breathing men’s behoof,
Straitly charged him, “Sit aloof;”
Annexed a warning, poets say,
To the bright premium,—
Ever, when twain together play,
Shall the harp be dumb.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The liberal wing of the feminist movement may have improved the lives of its middle- and upper-class constituency—indeed, 1992 was the Year of the White Middle Class Woman—but since the leadership of this faction of the feminist movement has singled out black men as the meta-enemy of women, these women represent one of the most serious threats to black male well-being since the Klan.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“The anger
that my friends
planted in my heart
when they somehow found
a hole in it
ran off
like an illicit lover
as soon as I saw my man.”
—Hla Stavhana (c. 50 A.D.)