Super Massive Black Hole

Friedler hated when his phone rang at this time of night. It could only spell trouble, either somebody had gone and died or there was a problem at his lab. Friedler swung himself out of bed , paused to slip on his ‘Physicists do it experimentally’ dressing gown and waddled downstairs.

“Professor, you aren’t going to believe this”

Friedler recognised the voice as belonging to Karl, the boy was one of his less gifted lab rats . Friedler wondered what on earth had possessed him to call at this hour.

“I ran your calculations into the accelerator, it worked, we created a singularity”

Friedler swallowed his irritation at the boys use of the word ‘we’. The calculations were his and he had no intention of sharing the credit he was due.

“How long before it destabilised?”

“That’s the problem professor, it didn’t”

What was he talking about? If it was true and the singularity was stable the possibilities were enormous. The chance to study a black hole up close, the advances he would make! Friedler began to mentally compose his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

“Professor is there somebody we should call? The singularity’s growing, doubling in size every 57.4 seconds, what do we do?”

“That’s impossible, put Jelovic on the phone”

“I can’t professor, he got sucked into the singularity”

Friedler wondered whether this might be a Karl’s idea of a practical joke. The scream which came next disabused him of that notion. Then silence.

Friedler made a start to grab his keys. Then he stopped. If the boy had been correct about the rate of expansion, the singularity would already have swallowed most of the planet before he reached the freeway.

“Well, Schrodinger” Friedler said turning to his cat “looks like the stupid boy just destroyed the solar system”