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EPISODE · Oct 20, 2026 · 13 MIN

The Unruh Effect

from PBS Space Time · host PBS

Viewers like you help make PBS (Thank you 😃) . Support your local PBS Member Station here: https://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACEUploaded 04-04-18Worried about black holes? Consider this: Every time you accelerate - you generate an event horizon behind you. The more you accelerate away from it the closer it gets. Don’t worry, it can never catch up to you, but the Unruh radiation it generates sure can.You can further support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetimeGet your own Space Time t­-shirt at http://bit.ly/1QlzoBiTweet at us! @pbsspacetimeFacebook: facebook.com/pbsspacetimeEmail us! pbsspacetime [at] gmail [dot] comComment on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/pbsspacetimeHelp translate our videos!https://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?tab=2&c=UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7gPrevious Episode:The Andromeda-Milky Way Collisionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P1xKh_kZFUAround the same time that Stephen Hawking was demonstrating the existence of the black hole radiation that would bear his name, three other researchers, Stephen Fulling, Paul Davis, and William Unruh, were looking at an effect that now seems eerily similar. They were independently studying how the nature of quantum fields appears to change depending on whether or not an observer is accelerating. They found that simple act of acceleration cuts off your causal access to a region of the universe. It creates a type of event horizon. As we saw in our episode on horizon radiation, the presence of horizons distorts the quantum vacuum in a way that can create particles. Hosted by Matt O'DowdWritten by Graeme Gossel and Matt O'DowdProduced by Rusty WardGraphics by Grayson BlackmonAssistant Editing and Sound Design by Mike Petrow and Linda HuangMade by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com)Classical analogue of the Unruh effectLeonhardt, Griniasty, Wildeman, Fort, and Finkhttps://arxiv.org/abs/1709.02200Special thanks to our Patreon Big Bang, Quasar and Hypernova Supporters: Big BangCoolAsCatsDavid NicklasFaisal SaudAnton LifshitsJoey RednerQuasarTambe BarsbayMayank M. MehrotaMars YenturMark RosenthalDean FuquaRoman PinchukColeslawPurdieHypernovaEdmund FokschanerMatthew O’ConnorEugene LawsonBarry HatfieldMartha HuntJoseph SalomoneChuck ZegarJordan YoungRatfeastJohn HofmannCraig PetersonThanks to our Patreon Gamma Ray Burst Supporters: James HughesFabian OlesenKris FernetJane MeyersJames FlowersGreg AllenTJMadisonDenys IvanovNick VirtueAlexey EromenkoNicholas RoseScott GossettMark VasilePatrick MurraySultan AlkhulaifiAlex SetoMichal-Peanut KarmiErik SteinKevin WarneJJ BagnellJ RejcAvi GoldfingerJohn PettitFlorian StinglmayrBenoit Pagé-GuitardNathan LenizBrandon LabonteDavid CraneGreg Weiss Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Oct 20, 2026

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The Unruh Effect

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