[Chipper]

so much for the law of conservation of matter huh!

[abandon]

so much for the law of conservation of matter huh!

Do you mean matter-energy, since matter is being destroyed all the time in nuclear power plants.

As I understand it, when two virtual particles (they always come in pairs, go figure) come into existence on the event horizon of a black hole, with one of the particles on the inside of the event horizon and the other one on the outside, the one on the inside can get sucked into the black hole before the two virutal particles can anhilate one another. The one on the outside of the even horizon can escape the black hole.

Since the universe is now two particles more massive, the black hole balances the equation by giving up two particles worth of mass (thus, it gained one and lost two). Over time and countless events like this, the black hole loses mass and evaporates while the free virtual particles look like radiation streaming from the black hole.

I think Stephen Hawking was the first to make this hypothesis and the radiation that streams from the black hole is "Hawking radiation."