What If You Tried to Swallow a Whole Cloud? (2024)

This leaves us with one more question: What kind of soup is this, anyway?

If Amelia fills the solar system with broth, and there are planets floating in it, is it planet soup? If there are already noodles in the soup, does it become planet-and-noodle soup, or are the planets more like croutons? If you make a noodle soup, then someone sprinkles some rocks and dirt in it, is it really noodle-and-dirt soup, or is it just noodle soup that got dirty? Does the presence of the sun make this star soup?

The internet loves arguing about soup categorization. Luckily, physics can settle the debate in this particular case. It’s believed that black holes don’t retain the characteristics of the matter that goes into them. Physicists call this the “no-hair theorem,” because it says that black holes don’t have any distinguishing traits or defining characteristics. Other than a handful of simple variables like mass, spin, and electric charge, all black holes are identical.

In other words, it doesn’t matter what kind of ingredients you put into a black hole soup. The recipe always turns out the same in the end.

Clouds are made of water, which is edible. Or drinkable, I guess. Potable? I’ve never been sure where the line between eating and drinking is.