The idea is to take a sufficiently small quantum black hole (make one or find one) and store it inside a buckyball (Buckminsterfullerene, C60, C72, etc). You can latch onto the buckyball to keep it in one place, and use some field energy (magnetism?) to keep the black hole near centre of the buckyball.

Now that you have a captive quantum black hole, slowly drop matter into it (that can pass through the holes in the bonds of the buckyball) at the same rate it is evaporating...and poof! Efficient matter-energy conversion cheap cheap cheap! (cheap enough to make one to go on the back of your Delorian)
-- cameron, Oct 14 2001

Penning traps http://www.physik.u...h/g_fak/penning.htm
how to hold a charged particle without touching it [wiml, Oct 14 2001]

Electromagnetic layers http://www.sciencen..._disc2/00000045.htm
Heterogenous electromagnetic layers can function interdependently. [reensure, Oct 14 2001]

problem: how do you arrange the field to keep the black hole in place? there's a theorem which states that no arrangement of magnets (or, I think, charges) can produce a potential well in empty space; you'd need some sort of active feedback (meaning, nanotech). [addendum: I'm remembering Earnshaw's theorem, here. Apparently you can get around it by using diamagnetic materials somehow. So perhaps this isn't an unsolvable problem.] [addendum 2: or you can use electric *and* magnetic fields, as in a Penning trap, see link.]

problem 2: how do you keep the BH from losing its charge? It will radiate its charge even faster than it will radiate its mass. Once it's uncharged, it will fall out of the bucky-blackhole-trap.

I've read of schemes to do essentially what you suggest but with antimatter instead of black holes. An anti-ion could be confined in a buckyball or crystal structure in such a way that it wouldn't annihilate (not instantly, at least). But AM confinement is only useful for energy storage, not energy production/conversion like BH confinement would be.

On the other hand, you might be able to use a slightly larger BH and, say, micron-scale machinery etched onto a chip to feed it and keep in in place, and power your DeLorian with that.
-- wiml, Oct 14 2001


PS, if I have a DeLorean powered by black-hole-mediated matter-energy conversion, why would I need a bridge?
-- wiml, Oct 14 2001


Things that implode! What a novel idea!
-- A Farrago Of Calumnies, Oct 15 2001


You'd have to do the maths bit to make sure, but I think if your black hole put out enough Hawking radiation to be noticeable it would blow the Buckyball to Buckybits. I could be wrong, but as PeterSealy wisely notes small mistakes would make big explosions.
-- Dog Ed, Oct 15 2001


Buckballs amn't magnetic. It'd be just as easy to keep the black hole in place by itself.

Boned for being wildly unrealistic, even for th .5Bakery...
-- StarChaser, Oct 15 2001



random, halfbakery