Steven Hawking Loses Bet On Black Holes?

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."

Destroying info.

[tomhudson]

seems his idea about them destroying information wasn't quite living up to his expectations

In other words, black holes don't run Windows.

Re:Winning a bet...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, it would be an honor to lose a bet to him.

As long as it isn't a stair climbing bet.

Of course, the second part of the bet requiring ..

[burgburgburg]

Hawking to streak naked through the Cambridge campus while screaming "I know nothing about physics!" might be a bit more problematic.

From the article:

[ideatrack]

"Hawking's black holes, unlike classic black holes, do not have a well-defined event horizon that hides everything within them from the outside world".

I wish he'd called them 'Fry Holes'.

Re:Destroying info.

[lacrymology.com]

"black holes don't run Windows"

I guess I've lost that bet about them being the universe's version of the BSOD... or in other words, the BHOD.

-m

Don't bet on black holes...

[Anonymous Coward]

..the odds get longer the nearer you get to it.

:)

I heard Hawking left his wife some time ago...

[vudufixit]

He rolled away with the nurse that took care of him, or so I heard. On another note, check out www.mchawking.com - apparently he's had a second career as a gangsta rapper. A good 'nine will leave a few black holes in anyone, eh?

Re:Integrity

[Ari_Haviv]

not only that but he "appeared" on Conan O'brian. now that is a man I can respect.

Re:Integrity

[Timesprout]

Yes, he is going to bring a small black hole to the meeting which will consume all the delegates thus destroying them. The now completely destroyed delegates will continue to receive spam so proving that some information about them does still exist. Unfortunately for the delegates though their future legacy is to be considered by our decendants as perverts obsessed with their penis size, women having carnal relations with donkeys and perhaps most bizarrely, a toner cartridge fetish.

old news

[CountJoe]

I heard that this bet was settled a while ago (although, maybe not officially), and it was for a subscription to Playboy, not Encyclopedias.

I remember first reading about this bet in his book "A Brief History of Time" .. although I don't have it handy to confirm the anty of the bet.

Re:But

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know the answer -> 42
but what is the question?

Re:I like their sense of humor

[JamesP]

The duo are expected to present Preskill with an encyclopaedia of his choice "from which information can be recovered at will"."

So... Your encyclopedia has been thrown at the nearest blackhole... Since you proved me wrong, you'll be quite able to recover the information presented in it...

Re:Of course, the second part of the bet requiring

[pjt33]

Indeed - there isn't a Cambridge campus.

Re:how much was the bet?

[Slowtreme]

The usual. One Dollar.

My world is crumbling

[Anonymous Coward]

Steven Hawking fallible.

Bush wrong on the weapons of mass destruction.

I don't know who to believe in anymore.

Oh...

[DecayCell]

So it is safe to store my data in a black hole?
Great!

So if black holes are lossless

[Qzukk]

How long before we use them to compress CD rips?

I think mp3 has finally met its match!

Why I read Slashdot

[bhima]

This article is prime example of why I read Slashdot: I read the article, I knew about the bet and found it interesting. Within *minutes* of this article being posted all of the ideas I had when reading it have been posted:

Steve Hawkins is an interesting and cool guy (Actually so is Kip Thorne)

I wish I could tell my grandkids I won a bet against Steven Hawkins (or for that matter lost it)

I wonder if the encyclopedias will be on CD?

I like the sense of humor of these guys.

What a reputation! To be granted time to speak, without prior notice as to topic and specific content.

Wasn't he on Conan?

42

It's scary so many people think like me!

No I will not comment on donkeys or toner cartridges!

Re:Of course, the second part of the bet requiring

[Bugster]

Not too big, but cold enough in winter to give extra meaning to the phrase "vanishing black hole".

Re:WTF?

[trevinofunk]

Or "the Hawkman" for those of us down with his rap albums

John Titor

[arudloff]

Did John Titor [johntitor.com] submit these? ;)

Re:The goods?

[SEWilco]

The prize should be a CD of Encarta, whose information will be destroyed after a few MS Windows updates.

Re:Winning a bet...

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn Hedgers!

Besides, what does he have to lose. An encyclopedia? Jesus, who uses those nowadays anyway?

Re:But

[Cat_Byte]

-> 42

wow...a negative is greater than 42? Its more complex than I thought!

Re:Winning a bet...

[Anonymous Coward]

Q. How many Disabled People's Rights Activists does it take to change a light bulb?

A. It's not the light bulb that needs changing -- it's the rest of Society's attitude that needs changing.

I've spotted a mistake of his

[hype10]

He would certainly be under intense scrutiny. In fact, when reading his book (The Universe in a Nutshell) I spotted a mistake that I've never seen mentioned. Unfortunately it was just a missing space between two words. I was still quite proud though...

Re:WTF?

[schemanista]

I think he wants us to call him "H-Diddy" now.

Re:Winning a bet...

[untaken_name]

Jesus, who uses those nowadays anyway?

Wow. If He answers your question, could you tell me what His /. id is? I have some questions for Him too...if you get His email addy, that'd work too.

Re:Not all he's cracked up to be...

[untaken_name]

Shame on you, basing your opinions on anecdotal hearsay evidence from your SO! What kind of dumbass are you? Don't you know that on /. it's proper to formulate your opinions based on Internet-posted hearsay and anecdotal evidence! Tsk, tsk!

Re:Hawking is a bad gambler.

[HFXPro]

The original bet was for a subscription to Playboy. It was to Penthouse and Kip Thorne's wife was none to happy about it.

Re:Or...

[untaken_name]

umm. Your post would have made a greater impact had you chosen a different method of setting the word 'taught' apart. You see, the connotation when one puts quotation marks around a word spelled incorrectly in a previous post is that one is making fun of the previous poster by quoting the misspelled word. You have placed the corrected word in quotes, which is confusing since the word 'taught' does not appear in the post you are replying to. You should either have used "tought" or taught to make a better impact. The way you did it makes you appear to believe 'taught' to be incorrect. Your message is spot on but your delivery was a bit off. I'm not intending any offense by this, but you may, of course, feel free to take some.

I wonder...

[JofCoRe]

Will he be releasing a new rap song [mchawking.com] relating to this new revalation? :)

Re:Integrity

[suffe]

Well said. I know that if I had come up with an advanced theory such as this I'd never reveal it. Much better to keep it to myself and not lose the $10 encyclopedia.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Winning a bet...

[MasTRE]

> Winning a bet against Hawking would be something to tell the grandchildren about.

Hey, kids - when I was your age, I used to bet people in wheelchairs who couldn't even speak unassisted and take their money away.

Re:Integrity

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of it this way: if you know, for example, that you will NEVER have a sex life and that you will NEVER go through the traditional dating/marriage male/female dynamic, how does that change you life?

I think most Slashdot posters learned to deal with that a long time ago...

That cheap bastard !!!

[shachart]

The about-turn might cost Hawking, a physicist at the University of Cambridge, an encyclopaedia because of a bet he made in 1997

hawking:~> wget -r http://wikipedia.org | tar czf - | mail [e-mail]

Wonder if he will change the name

[SnowPunk98]

I call it a hawking hole.

Re:Integrity

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Applied Cryogenics, 2000

Fry: So then my chair tilted backwards and I almost fell into this freezer thingy.
Hawking: I call it a "Hawking Chamber."
Fry: Instead of falling in and getting frozen, I missed and wanged my head.
Gore: Well it's obvious what should have happened. That wang to the head should have killed you.
Fry: Uh what?
Nichols: Let's finish the job.
Gore: No wait! There must be a peaceful -
[Nichols pushes Fry over]
Hawking: Hold him down.
Deep Blue: Check.
[Hawking runs Fry over with his wheelchair]
Fry: Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!

Anybody else flash on the poker game?

[sgtrock]

You know the one I mean: Data, Hawking, Einstein and Newton? It's been so long since I've seen it I don't remember the dialogue, but as I recall Hawking teased Einstein about how chance does play a role in life? :)

Futurama quote

[Viking Coder]

Nichelle Nichols: "It's about that rip in space-time that you saw!"
Stephen Hawking: "I call it a Hawking Hole."
Fry: "No fair! I saw it first!"
Stephen Hawking: "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?"

(And then here's the MP3 [gotfuturama.com] of this great quote.)

Uncertainty and Stiffness

[ajs318]

Imagine a very long, stiff rod. Now when you push, pull or twist one end, the other end must also move. But it can never take less time to transmit this movement than the time it would take a photon to reach the other end, otherwise information would be travelling faster than light, which is Not Allowed. (*)

Think of it as being like a load of tennis balls in a drainpipe: you stick one in your end, the next one squashes a bit, then moves a bit and recovers its shape, squashing the next one a bit, and so on. The molecules are not bonded to each other with absolute rigidity. And there is a quantum limit to how stiff matter could ever be.

Which fits right in with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, somehow or other. At least, it did when I was conducting experiments outside of the realms of physics and more into the domains of chemistry ..... and botany .....


* OK, two particles which always have opposite spin, blah blah blah, one in your lab, one in a spaceship several gigametres away, you expend an obscene amount of energy reversing the spin on yours, and the spin on the far one reverses at the exact same time. But so what? You can't use the phenomenon to impart any useful information to the other party. You already knew that the spins would always be opposite.

Tasteless, but true...

[RareHeintz]

When I was in college, some friends and I (all physics majors) were having a bull session about whether or when someone would cough up a Grand Unified Theory. It was eventually agreed that it would depend largely on when the good Dr. Hawking died.

At the time, I don't think any of us thought he would still be around at this late date. Anyway, glad to see he's still kicking (so to speak) and doing new work.

OK,
- B

Re:Winning a bet...

[DeXtroMe]

And I'll bet that, by the fact you spew insults without using your name, that you're a ball-bag licking pickle-puffer. Here's your sign, asshat. Hahahah... too classic coming from an AC

Re:Winning a bet...

[untaken_name]

I believe it is. You see, all you must do is examine the number closely.
2559
2 + 5 = 7
9 -2 = 7
take the 2 we subtracted from the 9, add it to the other 5, you get 7.
that means His real id is 777.
it all makes sense now.

Re:Anybody else flash on the poker game?

[Wampus Aurelius]

I believe Einstein said to Hawking, "The Uncertainty Principle won't help you now. All the quantum fluctuations in the universe won't change the cards in your hand."

And Hawking showed his hand, which was 4 aces, and said, "Wrong again, Albert."

now if he could just resolve some other issues

[nusratt]

"the black hole becomes a giant tangle of strings"

like the tangle of strings that prevents my paychecks from escaping the black hole of the Treasury department . . .
or the tangle of strings that prevents my civil liberties from escaping the black hole of John Ashcroft . . .
or the tangle of strings that prevents my time from escaping the black hole of slashdot . . .

Re:Winning a bet...

[Dogtanian]

As long as it isn't a stair climbing bet.

Ha ha ha.... you've made the same mistake that the Doctor made when running up a staircase to escape from the Daleks (Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks).

Yep; levitation technology. I heard that Hawking got it roundabout the same time he got his hands on the Daleks' laser-gun technology.

In fact, I heard he's getting plastic surgery to look more like Davros [kaldorcity.com].

Re:Not all he's cracked up to be...

[d474]

Actually, this is little known: Years ago Hawking was a closet computer scientist. He developed what at the time was rumored to be a form of AI. His goal was to teach the AI theoretical physics in order to assist him in his declining physical abilities to research. As he lost his faculties the AI computer was equipped with a voice synthesizer. He's actually been brain dead for about 14 years - all his "latest work" is being done by this AI.

Well, at least, that's what this Postal Service employee told me down at the local pub. Cliff is usually right on about these things....

Re:Winning a bet...

[Gleapsite]

I'll take that bet. One encyclopedia and one bible sound good?

I found Jesus here...

[zoloto]

http://slashdot.org/~jesus [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/~stephenhawking [slashdot.org]

what do ya'll think now?

Re:Not all he's cracked up to be...

[mausmalone]

He is also good at taking credit for work that is not his own.

I call it a Hawking hole.

Not really a mistake...

[medscaper]

Unfortunately it was just a missing space between two words.

No, he really meant "therapist".