this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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Science Memes

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top 19 comments
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[–] tomiant@piefed.social 52 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I understand just enough of this joke to chuckle.

[–] adb@lemmy.ml 33 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Have you no shame, flexing all that knowledge in front of us ignorant peons?

I had to google Hawking bits and then fell into a black h…

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 55 points 5 days ago (3 children)

It's really an astrophysics joke disguised as a computer science joke. Hawking radiation is the term for radiation that escapes a black hole. /dev/null is kinda analogous to—at least the pop culture conception of—a black hole.

[–] deHaga@feddit.uk 9 points 5 days ago

I thought it was an Epstein files joke

[–] niktemadur@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

But in this context, it's about the loss of information, getting scrambled inside a black hole and then VERY slowly radiating back into space as gibberish.
It's a point where thermodynamics, entropy, Relativity and the quantum realm create a paradox - classical physics states that information supposedly cannot be destroyed... and yet in this extreme environment, it IS destroyed.

[–] adb@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 days ago

Awesome, thanks!!

[–] rockerface@lemmy.cafe 21 points 5 days ago
[–] Asweet@piefed.ca 19 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This is even funnier considering the question of if hawking radiation allows information to leave a black hole or not

[–] MotoAsh@piefed.social 4 points 5 days ago (4 children)

It's even funnier given that the universe is still too warm for black holes to start evaporating. Meaning, it will be billions upon billions of years before any Hawking radiation could exist in order to be observed.

[–] birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

I mean, what if you cooled down an area sufficently enough, and created a black hole in there? Though that'd require impossible levels of unobtainium and hopium.

[–] Klear@quokk.au 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Aren't small black holes supposed to emit a shitton of it?

There may be a process, natural or artificial, for creating these.

[–] MotoAsh@piefed.social 0 points 5 days ago

Yea, the pressure increases as the black hole shrinks until tiny ones disappear in a massive explosion.

I do not know how the forces change over scale, though. For all I know, it 'could' be that early small black holes could've evaporated, but the early universe was also a lot hotter than now, making that point where they 'can' evaporate a lot smaller, too.

There is also the question of how homogenous the universe 'actually' is which throws a wrench into the maths as to whether it was possible. So even if the norm says no, there 'might' be a chance some less dense region saw a time where black holes could evaporate.

[–] teft@piefed.social 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Since you seem to want to downvote me instead of go read an article to learn how wrong you are, here is the simple wikipedia page on hawking radiation:

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

Nothing about heat of the universe because that isn't a factor in Hawking radiation. You can go read the full page if you like but that also doesn't mention heat of the universe.

Maybe don't post so authoritatively on something you aren't sure about. Spreading misinformation isn't a good thing.

[–] MotoAsh@piefed.social 0 points 5 days ago

They still don't evaporate because of the heat of the universe.

Maybe don't be a dumbass quoting things you don't underatand if you want to be listened to.

[–] teft@piefed.social 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

That's not how hawking radiation works. It has nothing to do with the heat of the universe.

Basically some particle/anti-particle pairs will always form near the event horizon. Sometimes half of the pair fall inwards while the other particle escapes the black hole. The escaping ones are lost mass for the black hole. This happens for all sized black holes at all times just that for small black holes it happens really quickly but bigger black holes it happens incredibly slowly.

It will takes trillions of years to evaporate any stellar sized black hole to nothing but all black holes evaporate all the time.

[–] bryndos@fedia.io 5 points 5 days ago

Can i do: dd if=/dev/null of=/ ?

[–] bobtimus_prime@feddit.org 3 points 5 days ago

Optimistic to still even have a skeleton :D

[–] maccentric@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That iMac isn’t even plugged in

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

This is probably generated.