: There is no law that says entropy in an open system cannot decrease only that that an isolated system will evolve to it's : maximum entropy. The earth's entropy has significantly decreased since it first started to form but only at the entropy expense : of the sun. Hawking radiation is so infinitesimal for any BH of any size whatsoever that it would be something like 10 to the 60 : years before it would evaporate.

S.S. must mean 10 to 60 billion years. Nevertheless, the black hole ultimately evaporates and seemingly eliminates all the entropy it ever had. Since it is not a closed system, we must presume that it is radiated away- the Hawking radiation. Yet according to Hawkings original analysis, this radiation is due to creation events at the event horizon where one quantum escapes and the other is absorbed. So the entropy that is radiated away , if it indeed is, must come from the vacuum that provided for the creation event. Therefore, I maintain that the black hole must create order. Afterall, the relationship that entropy equals a quarter of the event horizon surface area is actually an upper bound. The actual black hole entropy could be much less.

• Well, I'll try one more time. - SS - August 19, 1999 - 01:11 UTC