  A different reason for the apparent weakness of the gravitational interaction
is advanced, and its consequences for Hawking evaporation of a Schwarzschild
black hole are investigated. Proceeding from some fundamental thermodynamic
observations, a simple analytical formulation predicts that evaporating black
holes will undergo a type of phase transition resulting in variously long-lived
quantized objects of reasonable sizes, with normal thermodynamic properties and
inherent duality characteristics. Speculations on the implications for particle
physics are explored, and predictions for possible experimental confirmation of
the scenario at LHC are made.
