Science
Black holes aren't black — Hawking showed they slowly leak radiation and evaporate
Hawking combined quantum theory with general relativity to show black holes aren't perfectly black - quantum fluctuations near the event horizon let particle pairs form, with one escaping as radiation while the black hole loses mass. Over unimaginable timescales, this means every black hole eventually evaporates entirely. It reshaped how physicists think about gravity, information, and the universe's fate.