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Black Holes Don't Trap Information Forever
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri May 16, 2008 12:11 AM
from the duh-it-wants-to-be-free dept.
from the duh-it-wants-to-be-free dept.
sciencehabit writes "New calculations suggest that black holes are not a one-way street. Anything that falls into them may eventually come out. The findings lend important support to quantum gravity, but fly in the face of Einsteinian relativity. They also support Stephen Hawking's reluctant admission that information couldn't be destroyed by black holes. Penn State researcher Ahbay Ashtekar was quoted saying, 'Once we realized that the notion of space-time as a continuum is only an approximation of reality, it became clear to us that singularities are merely artifacts of our insistence that space-time should be described as a continuum.' Let the physics infighting begin."
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Steven Hawking Loses Bet On Black Holes? 477 comments
st1d writes "Looks like Steven Hawking might have to pay up on an old bet regarding black holes - seems his idea about them destroying information wasn't quite living up to his expectations: 'The about-turn might cost Hawking, a physicist at the University of Cambridge, an encyclopaedia because of a bet he made in 1997. More importantly, it might solve one of the long-standing puzzles in modern physics.' He's due to make a formal announcement July 21."
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Oh great... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Funny)
That was along my line of thought when seeing the title, except in reverse. I was thinking this was going to be a great way to store long-term backups.
Parent
pretty continua (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:pretty continua (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
More diabolical than that (Score:5, Funny)
The quantum unit of information is a "ficton".
The rest of the jokes write themselves.
Parent
No (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the binary quantum unit of information is a bit. A ficton is several orders of magnitude "smaller" than that. A bit can be true or false. A light that's on or off. A ficton is a value that represents the smallest possible division of "possibly true". The universe is not binary at a very fine scale. Things fade in and out of frame with increasing and decreasing probability in the present moment. It's only when the arrow of entropy has passed and the frame is set that a thing was or was not, from our point of view.
Parent
Re:More diabolical than that (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:pretty continua (Score:5, Insightful)
This too will be shown to just be an approximation which doesn't actually reflect how the universe works.
That's all physics is in the end.
Parent
Re:pretty continua (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:pretty continua (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Known for years (Score:5, Funny)
Come out again?! (Score:5, Interesting)
just can't wait (Score:5, Funny)
But does that mean... (Score:5, Funny)
LHC (Score:5, Funny)
Yet another approximation of reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Will the real reality please reveal itself!
At last! Someone seeks my work! (Score:5, Funny)
Maxwell then went on to explain Ether as a medium through which light traveled in 1878, later being disproved in 1881 by Michelson, and laying the groundwork for the discovery of quantum monkeys though the discovery of constant velocity light.
This was established as mathematically sound in Einstein's theory of special relativity in 1905. General relativity, which explained gravitational effects on light and particles/waves moving fractionally close to the speed of light, was finally established in 1915 by Hilbert and Einstein, surprisingly without mention of quantum monkeys, despite all indications.
Because of this work, as well as the basics of quantum mechanics established by Einstein, various scientists were able to find the six quarks: Up, Down, Top, Bottom, Charmed and Strange, the last (top) only having been confirmed in a laboratory in 1995. Strangely, however, none of the various experiments which identified quarks also identified quantum monkeys, which would have been readily observable through their quantum-picking-fleas-off-other-quantum-monkey gatherings.
The first of these discoveries, in the early 1960s made possible a formalization of a unified model in 1970-73 of four fundamental forces, three of which can be unified mathematically under one theory and with particles that are at least indirectly observable (electromagnetic, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear), and a fourth which doesn't quite fit (gravity). Despite these obvious problems, no one started looking at the quantum banana-eating by quantum monkeys as a possible unifying factor.
To establish a unified theory including gravity, scientists are currently using strings, rather than monkeys, as a unifying element. However, the majority of these theories are neither testable nor useful for the advancement of mankind. None of them so much as mention quantum poo, or postulate that quantum monkeys could have thrown it.
To this day, the world waits for scientists start to seek out the quantum monkeys that have so long waited for proper credit to be given to them for unifying quantum forces. So we wait still, a working unified theory still out of our grasp.
Parent
Re:Yet another approximation of reality (Score:5, Funny)
Here ya go [nasa.gov]
Parent
Go back? (Score:5, Funny)
Einstein's Letter (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like God is a little grumpy about Einstein's letter coming out.
Re:Black holes - not hairy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
CHUCK NORRIS (Score:5, Funny)
and the event horizon of Chuck Norris is infinity.
Parent
Re:ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
...eciton dluow enoyna
Parent
Re:ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Damn (Score:5, Funny)
No, its worthless because you signed the patent application "Anonymous Coward".
Parent