I did not know that re: background radiation temp, though of course it makes sense from an equilibrium standpoint now that you point it out. Thanks for that
When virtual particle/antiparticle pairs appear near the event horizon of a black hole, it is possible for one to be consumed and the other not, so that the particles can't re-annihilate, and one particle radiates out into space. The mass to, uh, de-virtualize the particle that did not cross the event horizon comes from the mass of the black hole via some mechanism I don't actually know much about (I don't know if there are models on that or not.) For very small black holes, this can actually cause them to evaporate, because the ratio of surface area to volume is so comparatively high
[/spoiler] surrealnumber5
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