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."

Integrity

[Stephen R Hall]

It shows the character of the man - not only is he prepared to admit he was wrong, but will present detailed scientific proof of why he was wrong.

Hooorah!

[TreadOnUS]

For a scientist of his stature to admint he was wrong is a credit to the man and the profession. Especially since he went and did the additional leg work (no pun) to validate the theory himself.

Castles in the sky

[Anonymous Coward]

We are a long way from "proving" anything about black holes. All we are doing is producing theories that don't conflict too badly with the observed evidence. We're in the same position as 'scientists' in the middle ages describing planetary motion. They had a theory that accurately predicted the motion of the planets but that didn't mean that they understood the underlying process (ie. that the sun was the center of the solar system).

Re:Hooorah!

[BlackHawk-666]

That's probably *why* he is admitting he is wrong. It's not to humble himself and say "I goofed" but to put forth a new theory that he has worked on. This stuff is all so theoretical in any case that I expect him to need to buy two sets of encyclopaedias, just for the bulk discount so he can save some cash next time he is wrong ;->

Re:The man's got the Rep

[ponxx]

I think there are a few people of this stature in any field, just most of them are not as much in the public eye as Hawking.

I can think of any number of scientists in fields I'm vaguely familiar with that would be granted time to speak at a conference at short notice without much proof of what they are going to say.

However, *what* they say will still be up to intense scrutiny. There's nothing like proving an eminent scientist wrong or disproving an accepted theory to advance ones career in science...

Anyway, it's the same anywhere in society. If you have a good reputation, people will at least listen to you. They won't necessary agree, but they will be willing to listen...

Re:Hooorah!

[TreadOnUS]

This is the stuff good science is made of. Science advances when you move past being wrong and discover what's behind it.

I only wish I was better at it ;-)

Re:Dupe

[ctid]

This is not a dupe! The story from March was a group of scientists at Ohio State University which disputed Hawking's position. This story is about Hawking himself giving a paper at a conference in Ireland, where he will presumably give his latest views on the topic.

I'm a little surprised that the parent poster got moderated up for this. It's not "informative" (IMO of course) to just call something a dupe without checking.

Hawking is a bad gambler.

[Inominate]

He already lost a bet related to the existance of black holes. Now this. No surprise.

He may be a genius, but I wouldn't want to be with him at a casino.

Re:More proof

[SEWilco]

We know a hell of a lot about how the Universe works

Does more water vapor in the air produce thin clouds or tall thick ones? There is a lot we don't know.

Re:The man's got the Rep

[JohnFluxx]

What are you on about? His reputation, in this case, is allowing him to speak at conferences without prior peer review. Speak. That's it.
It's not like it's going to be accepted as the 'currently known correct view' without peer review. It's just a talk.

Who is this Steven Hawking fellow?

[Senjutsu]

And does he have any relation to Stephen Hawking [wikipedia.org]?

Re:Integrity

[EMH_Mark3]

Nice theory but you forgot that SPAM can't carry any useful information, much like wave interference patterns :)

Re:Integrity

[timalewis]

I think you could perhaps attribute his attitude more to the fact that he is a Cambridge academic and less to the fact that he is in a wheelchair.

Re:More proof

[Richthofen80]

How horribly wrong. To say we know 'nothing' about the universe is just false. We know TONS about it, especially the most important parts that directly affect us, such as Newtonian Physics. We know enough to escape orbit from our planet. The rest we can learn along the way.

I really hate it when people, standing on the shoulders of giants, have the nerve to say we know nothing. please speak for yourself.

Re:Hooorah!

[Scarblac]

That's maybe a bit of a oversimplification of what a theory is. To the best of my knowledge theories will never promote to law. Sure it happened for newton, though it shouldn't have.

Exactly. It doesn't matter whether it's called Foo's Law, Bar's Rule of Bla's Theory. Science deals with theories, period.

Apparently, kids learn in US schools that Theories are less "proven" than Laws, etc. That's rather unfortunate, it's nonsense. It leads to non-arguments like "But evolution is just a theory!". Duh. So is the idea that gravity exists...

(Sorry, pet peeve)

Re:Hawking is a bad gambler.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? Do you know how much tail he has gotten? Talk about overcoming adversity. I'd hang out with Stephen Hawking. He is dope.

Re:Integrity

[SunPin]

Amigo, I'm sorry to hear about the horrible experiences you've had with the disabled. Since you experienced them in a work capacity, I can only suspect that it was a hospital or social services setting. Unfortunately, *nobody* is mentally well adjusted in those environments. Perhaps you should try spending time around a university or socially progressive areas like South Florida, Southern California, Berkeley, Madison, etc.

Everybody knows some really bad apples. In college, I knew a guy that pretty much represented everything you wrote. He was a demented fuckup. I remember hearing other disabled kids grumbling stuff like, "as long as that asshat exists, he's going to make things harder on everybody [who is disabled]."

Hawking is remarkable because of the severity of his disease. I can't imagine living in pain or without my wood but I know what the wheelchair is like and I know guys with the pain/wood issues that are happily married with children and paying their taxes every year.

It's always annoying to see somebody use "always" or "never". At /., that's usually a tipoff to a troll. I understand what you wrote and how those ideas may have evolved. You have the right to keep them despite anything I or anybody else presents to the contrary. The only thing I ask is that you leave a wider door open for the possibility that you could be entirely wrong.

It's the scientific thing to do, as Hawking eloquently demonstrates. Furthermore, the disabled know what they are up against. There's no need to make things harder by putting observations from a limited pool of experience into the net. Peace.

Re:Integrity

[magefile]

Only partially true. While it is important to consider whether someone's pain or method of communication is influencing how they behave, it's no excuse. I myself have a severe physical disability, and while I'm not in constant pain, I have had problems with ongoing pain in the past. I meet occasionally with others who have the same disability as I do (it's extremely rare; perhaps less than 10,000 in the world) and it's very frustrating that only two or three of us seem to have normal lives (public high school; college; career; marriage), and the rest are largely dependent on their parents.

As far as marriage and sex life, I disagree. While a disability can change the dating experience, dating does happen, marriage is always a possibility (Hawking, for example, has been married twice), and sex is not usually limited by disability. Intimacy is not so strictly defined as you might think.

It all boils down to: is the disabled person in question well-adjusted or not?

I can't believe it...

[theendlessnow]

He's going to potentially lose a bet on the makeup of something we don't even know exists as stated?!!

What ever happened to science? We truly live in an age where science fiction has become accepted as reality. Beam me up, Scotty!!

Re:Winning a bet...

[Fizzog]

The thing about time travel is that if it is *ever* going to be possible then it has already happened in the future.

And if so then there would be time travellers all over the place right now.

Which of course always makes me think about Repo Man...

Re:Winning a bet...

[d474]

I've considered that line of logic that if time travel is possible it is *always* possible. It follows that since time and space are interwoven then time travel would require the ability to also travel *everywhere*. In other words, to have the ability to travel anywhere in time is the ability to travel everywhere in space.

Now, using that as a premise, shouldn't the earth resemble the seedy spaceport bar in Mos Eisley, Tattoine?

Re:Which laws?

[JPMH]

Black holes radiate (no pun intended) a black-body spectrum, which is a spectrum of maximal entropy. This had been proven several different ways by the mid-seventies. If black holes destroyed information, which radiation, containing no information, would be the end of the story.

Um, no.

Maximal entropy = maximum number of corresponding microstates. The universe is in just one of those microstates, not any of the others, so in selecting that microstate the Hawking radiation does actually represent an real flow of information.

If this is enough to guarantee that the Second Law of thermodynamics is obeyed, as the previous poster suggested, ie that

Entropy rate of the Hawking radiation + change in entropy of the black hole > all the entropy of particles falling into the black hole

then there's no really fundamental reason why the whole thing shouldn't be compatible with a more fine-detailed, deterministic quantum description for the whole process.

Can anyone here confirm that second-law inequality ?

Re:Which laws?

[Y2]

If black holes destroyed information, [Hawking/black-body] radiation, containing no information, would be the end of the story.

Um, no.

Maximal entropy = maximum number of corresponding microstates. The universe is in just one of those microstates, not any of the others, so in selecting that microstate the Hawking radiation does actually represent an real flow of information.

Classically, every system can always be viewed as being in one microstate. Then there is no such thing as entropy. Obviously, that would be a confused and useless view.

For a given amount of energy radiated, a black body spectrum represents the great possible entropy. I'm not sure whether you have confused yourself, or one of us has confused the other and we actually are in agreement. (I'm reasonably certain I have not confused myself!)

If this is enough to guarantee that the Second Law of thermodynamics is obeyed, as the previous poster suggested, ie that

Entropy rate of the Hawking radiation + change in entropy of the black hole > all the entropy of particles falling into the black hole

then there's no really fundamental reason why the whole thing shouldn't be compatible with a more fine-detailed, deterministic quantum description for the whole process.

Except for that unitarity problem (and the superfluous word "rate" and the fact that it's greater than or equal, because the incoming energy may also be black-body), this is correct. And assigning to the black hole an entropy equal to 1/4 its surface area (times enough c's, G's, k's and h-bar's to make the units work out) makes the formula correct.

Re:Particles escaping black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Black holes cannot break apart; that's the upshot of the "area theorem" that Hawking proved. Anything colliding with a black hole just makes a bigger black hole. The only way a black hole can shrink is via Hawking radiation, but that can't cause the event horizon to split into two horizons.

Re:Question about black hole formation

[Anonymous Coward]

From my perspective, the collapse proceeds ever more slowly. Although it never stops collapsing, I don't believe I would observe it actually turn into a black hole in a finite amount of time.

The black hole does form in finite time, but you're right that you'll never observe it to form in finite time, because light from the formation of the event horizon never reaches you, by definition. You'll see the collapse proceeding slower and slower, but it will never look as if it finishes (although it really does). At least classically; quantum mechanically, there is a (rather short) finite time after which no more light will reach you, because only a finite number of photons can be emitted.

From the point of view of someone standing on the surface of the object, the reverse happens -- time in the universe outside seems to accelerate, to the point where the universe ends before the black hole is created.

Not true. An observer who falls into the hole never sees the end of the universe (assuming the universe ends). See this FAQ [ucr.edu] (which also addresses your previous question).

In short, yes, black holes really form; it's just that you can't tell whether one has fully formed yet. (You could theoretically infer whether it has -- depending on your choice of surfaces of simultaneity, of course -- but that's not a direct experimental measurement.)