Famous Hawking Black Hole Bet Resolved? 500
Mick Ohrberg writes "In 1997 the three cosmologists Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne and John Preskill made a famous bet as to whether information that enters a black hole ceases to exist -- that is, whether the interior of a black hole is changed at all by the characteristics of particles that enter it. It now looks like Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne may owe John Preskill a set of encyclopedias of his choice, since physicists at Ohio State University 'have derived an extensive set of equations that strongly suggest that the information continues to exist -- bound up in a giant tangle of strings that fills a black hole from its core to its surface.'"
Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: encyclopaediae (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess so, but only if wiki is what Preskill chose.
Re:Is it me (Score:5, Insightful)
Tracing origins... (Score:5, Insightful)
That means a black hole can be traced back to its original conditions, and information survives.
But, if the information about the origins is contained in the strings inside the black hole, that information is inside the event horizon, and can not be observed by anything outside the event horizon. Maybe the information survives, but there's no way to get at it... Unless I'm missing something here? Cosmologists?
-T
Re:Is it me (Score:4, Insightful)
To me, it makes more sense that the real workings of the universe would be incredibly simple rather than complex. Not sure why, it just seems to make sense
Re:Is it me (Score:4, Insightful)
Science normally deals with things that we observe, and scientists try to find out the whys and the hows. Once in a while, though there are things that are sometimes theoretically identified before, and it may be a while before such things are actually observed.
S
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Insightful)
KFG
Re:Is it me (Score:5, Insightful)
When we achieve enough proficiency in our understanding to make accurate predictions, and validate them with observations, then publish them, have them scrutinized publicly and repeated, we're making vast improvements to the knowledge humanity holds. The fact that we're in so esoteric topics for new things at the moment just goes to show how valid this system is; we've built a cohesive worldview in physics down to the quantum level. There, mysteries abound, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't be there.
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:0, Insightful)
It will sound as stupid to anyone with experience as the archetypical "your mom" and "your dad" debating computers sounds to your ears.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Additionally, people's names are conventional rather than scientific, but their legal usage has necessitated their meticulous recording. While it can't be proven, it can be verified beyond a reasonable doubt that the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge is Stephen Hawking.
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Insightful)
But its always nice to figure out how you fooled yourself
It depends on what "ceases to exist" means.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it exists on the other side of the event horizon, but I thought string theory tells us that things like event horizons shield the universe from singularities and other discontinuities. The information cannot be retreived, therefore, from the point of view of the universe, it has ceased to exist.
What's the difference, really, between destroyed information and irretrievable information?
Re:Of course (Score:2, Insightful)
As I said, it does not even make sense to apply the information paradox to the real world (i.e. testing it experimentally). It is a well-defined mathematical statement formulated in a (generalized) quantum theory of gravity. There is no assumption in Mathur's proof concerning about what real black holes are described by.
But in fact, there is much more which can be said. Although the language he uses is string theory, some statements (like the crucial one) are more general than that. Once you assume that quantum gravity exists (without which there is no information paradox at all...), you find some "invariant" statements which are independent of the formalism. It is like the solution of the quadratic equation is independent of the actual formula used to express it.
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:2, Insightful)
If you're going to get all Hollywood and refer to him by his first name, you could at least take the trouble to spell it properly.
Re:Is it me (Score:5, Insightful)
On the surface this might all seem like philosophical banter... but that's just what the news prints. What is behind this is tons of chalkboards and computers full of equations that fit modern theory.
Remember, we don't HAVE a theory of everything yet... i'ts not like everything is perfect, and scientists are trying to make things up to look smart.. there is a point where our current equations don't add up, don't make sense.. and that's where these guys are working now.
superstrings, quantum gravity, etc.. these aren't whimsical sci-fi dreams.. they are where science is currently trying to figure things out.
Re:Is it me (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:2, Insightful)
I do not think this is a satisfactory explanation.
First, virtual pairs are created due to Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (Et>=h/4pi variant) even in absence of any gravitational field.
Second, if a virtual pair can rob black hole temporarily, what mechanism prevents it doing so permanently creating a real p -p pair?
'String theory' is misnamed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: encyclopaediae (Score:4, Insightful)
> As far as accuracy - that will come with time.
My faith in that is starting to slip. I recently ventured out into some pages I hadn't previously been watching, and found several pages whose history shows that they have a k00k "squatter" who watches the page and insists on sticking his idiocy back in no matter how many people come along and correct it, whingeing all the while that everyone else is pursuing some dishonest agenda.
Re:Some questions from a non-physicist (Score:2, Insightful)
2. Gravity. An explosion cannot push matter at or faster than lightspeed. I guess, in theory, the center of a blackhole could explode continuously, but we'd never know because nothing would ever exit the event horizon.
3. I have no idea. Hell of an interesting question, though, and one that I bet there's some debate about amongst physicists - basically, you're asking is it possible to transmit information faster than light (being that FTL is the necessary condition for energy/mass escape of a black hole). This one is way beyond my handwavy quantumness.
Re:Hawking radiation (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason is that it is difficult enough to get funding for a complex experiment at the best of times. If you try to get funding to perform a complex experiment that someone else has already performed, you are a lot less likely to be successful.
So although the theory is that scientific experiments are always directly replicated, in most cases scientists don't have the will (why go where someone has gone before) or the funds to do so.
Re: status of string theory (Score:1, Insightful)