Gedanken experiments on nearly extremal black holes and the third law

A gedanken experiment in which a black hole is pushed to spin at its maximal rate by tossing into it a test body is considered. After demonstrating that this is kinematically possible for a test body made of reasonable matter, we focus on its implications for black hole thermodynamics and the apparent violation of the third law (unattainability of the extremal black hole). We argue that this is not an actual violation, due to subtleties in the absorption process of the test body by the black hole, which are not captured by the purely kinematic considerations. © 2010 The American Physical Society.