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Stephen Hawking Suggests Black Holes Are Possible Portals To Another Universe (scienceworldreport.com) 230

An anonymous reader shares an article on Science World Report: Stephen Hawking, in a recent lecture held at the Harvard University, claimed that black holes could be portals to a parallel universe. The celebrated physicist spoke at length about black holes and suggested that they neither store materials absorbed by them nor physical information about the object that created them. Known as the information paradox, the theory goes against the scientific rule that information on a system belonging to a particular time can be used to understand its state at a different time. Over the years, it has been speculated that black holes do not retain information about the stars from which they are formed, except storing their electrical charge, angular momentum and mass. According to Hawking, as per that theory, it was believed that identical black holes might be formed by an infinite quantity of matter configurations. However, quantum mechanics has signaled the opposite by revealing that black holes could only be formed by particles with explicit wavelengths. If the characteristics of the bodies that create black holes are not deprived, then they include a lot of information that is not revealed to the outside world, according to the physicist. "For more than 200 years, we have believed in the science of determinism, that is that the laws of science determine the evolution of the universe" Stephen Hawking said. If information was lost in black holes, we wouldn't be able to predict the future because the black hole could emit any collection of particles."This is in contrast to some of Hawking's earlier views. In 2014, for instance, Hawking suggested that black holes don't exist, at least not like we think.
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Stephen Hawking Suggests Black Holes Are Possible Portals To Another Universe

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  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought quantum theory killed that 100 years ago so whats the problem?

    • by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Monday April 25, 2016 @10:16AM (#51982815)
      The problem is undetermined.
    • by Flavianoep ( 1404029 ) on Monday April 25, 2016 @11:04AM (#51983187)
      No, it was not determinism that quantum theory killed. Under Heisenberg's incorrectly named "principle of uncertainty," the exact position and momentum of a physical system cannot be measured a at the same time, but that doesn't mean they are undetermined, just that we cannot measure both of them at the same time. The term for it is Unschärferelation, that roughly translates as "unsharpness relationship", but due to Slashdot's lack of support of Unicode at the time, it was not possible to keep that in the original German, so the translation "principle of uncertainty" was adopted [source [edge.org]].
  • Not quite logical (Score:5, Interesting)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Monday April 25, 2016 @10:06AM (#51982741)
    If the mass completely leaves the universe for another universe, why would the gravity be left behind? Also we still can't retrieve the information about the matter that entered without leaving this universe. Also, black holes from other universes should perhaps then spew random massive particles into our universe somewhere and we wouldn't be able to use its vector to determine where it came from AND it would start interacting with matter in our universe which would mess with the back-tracking of information on movement. So much for information preservation.
    • Re:Not quite logical (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Monday April 25, 2016 @10:17AM (#51982821) Homepage

      "If the mass completely leaves the universe for another universe, why would the gravity be left behind?"

      I wondered something similar when they kept saying the singularity in a black hole has zero size. Well something with no dimentions doesn't exist so how can it still have a gravitational field? Unless because time is so slowed inside a black hole relative to outside that from an outside observers point of view the singularity essentially never forms.

    • by Maritz ( 1829006 )

      Also we still can't retrieve the information about the matter that entered without leaving this universe.

      This is exactly the stuff that Hawking was contradicted on by Juan Maldacena, Lenny Susskind and so on. You can get that information back out, you just have to wait for the black hole to dissolve. That won't happen much until the ambient temperature of the universe drops lower than that of the black hole, and even then it's slow. Something like ten to the hundred years for a stellar-sized black hole to disappear completely.

      But what those guys demonstrated is that the hawking radiation carries the informatio

  • by martiniturbide ( 1203660 ) on Monday April 25, 2016 @10:08AM (#51982759) Homepage Journal
    I knew I hear this idea before :) It is like we need a reboot of it with an overhauled V.I.N.CENT. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    • by Sloppy ( 14984 )

      I haven't seen that movie since I was a little kid (and I liked it!), and now I'm afraid to (because I probably won't like it). Dare I?

      • by rfengr ( 910026 )
        Ditto. Re-watched it after 36 years with my 6 YO recently, and he liked it. It was OK. The only thing I remembered as a kid was Maximillian killing the guy with the saw blade; not as dramatic the second time around.
        • Look this reference from Wikipedia "In 2014, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson deemed the film to be the least scientifically accurate movie of all time." Neil knows about physics but not about sales... a new movie reboot has potential :)
          • I'm no stranger to science, but this is still one of my favorite movies. I suppose that I tend to watch movies with the eye of a child and not that of a critic though.

          • by Dahamma ( 304068 )

            Sounds like a rap battle between NgDT [youtube.com] and MC Hawking [youtube.com] is about to go down!

  • by Infiniti2000 ( 1720222 ) on Monday April 25, 2016 @10:13AM (#51982791)
    Going through a black hole will destroy you, much like a sphere of annihilation. This article reminds me of one of my favorite D&D stories. As relayed by another DM of a group of relatively inexperienced (new) players, they had encountered a sphere of annihilation. One player touched it and promptly vaporized into nothingness. One of the remaining party members said, "Oh, it must be a portal! Quick, everyone, jump in!" Four more pops later and the DM had to decide between a TPK or a new adventure in some otherworldly plane.
    • >> TPK or a new adventure in some otherworldly plane

      Always a good time to introduce the Dark Sun campaign, IMHO. That's always played like an outer ring of hell.
      • Yeah, honestly I don't know what he decided to do. But, either Dark Sun or Hollow World are good choices if he went that route.
  • least plausible (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ooloorie ( 4394035 ) on Monday April 25, 2016 @10:18AM (#51982837)

    "Portals to another universe" sounds like the least plausible model of black holes. More plausible are non-singular models in which the matter simply transitions into another state inside the black hole; examples are the gravastar [wikipedia.org] and the dark energy star [wikipedia.org]; there are many other possibilities.

    It also seems odd to me that people would cling to the "information paradox" as if there were some good reason to believe it. If you truly believe that there is a singularity at the center of a black hole, why wouldn't you also believe that it can destroy information? Conversely, if you try to preserve information in a black hole, it seems to me that you are effectively already modeling an object other than a singularity.

    • It also seems odd to me that people would cling to the "information paradox" as if there were some good reason to believe it. If you truly believe that there is a singularity at the center of a black hole, why wouldn't you also believe that it can destroy information? Conversely, if you try to preserve information in a black hole, it seems to me that you are effectively already modeling an object other than a singularity.

      Well, the reason they don't like information being destroyed is because of this thing called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If that information is being destroyed, then the Second Law of Thermodynamics is false, and then we've got to readdress all of physics as one of the foundation premises is wrong. Unless, of course, the black hole goes to another universe, then we are not in a closed system and all is good once again. However, keep in mind that any time that physicist like Hawking say things like "in

      • Yes, you're right that this is linked to the second law of thermodynamics. But in thermodynamics, this law is actually an axiom based on the kinds of macroscopic systems people have observed. And in statistical mechanics, it is a subtle statistical statement about large systems and their evolution over time, concepts that break down for black holes. Finally, invalidating a physical "law" under some extreme conditions usually has little effect on existing physics; we still teach and use classical mechanics

  • by Empiric ( 675968 ) on Monday April 25, 2016 @10:20AM (#51982865)

    "For more than 200 years, we have believed in the science of determinism..."

    Our culture being steeped in Newtonian mechanics (where everything is fundamentally predictable) for a very long time has had a strong psychological influence, even after QM comes along to show that determinism itself is very questionable as a principle.

    Supervenience [wikipedia.org] is a trickier question than most realize, even top-flight physicists.

    • by mbone ( 558574 )

      "For more than 200 years, we have believed in the science of determinism..."

      Our culture being steeped in Newtonian mechanics (where everything is fundamentally predictable) for a very long time has had a strong psychological influence, even after QM comes along to show that determinism itself is very questionable as a principle.

      Supervenience [wikipedia.org] is a trickier question than most realize, even top-flight physicists.

      Hawking is arguing that, in order for quantum mechanics to work, a black hole has to be deterministic (albeit in a way that we could never possibly check).

      Schrodinger's equation is deterministic (unitary). It's measurements that introduce uncertainty, oddly enough by making some things certain.

  • One can possibly fit many (infinite) mathematical models here, no? So I am dubious if this ever gets resolved.

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Actually, new mathematical models create black holes sucking in all manner of discourse and reasoning. What fails to flow out of them are particles of Enlightenment. That's what make them so devious.

  • Now build a stargate to be able to safely use it!

  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Monday April 25, 2016 @10:34AM (#51982971)

    Fry> Don't cry Bender. Nobody really knows what happens in a black hole. It's possible she's still alive in another dimension somewhere. Right, Professor?
    Professor> Oh why yes, absolutely!
    *Professor turns to Zoidberg*
    Professor> Not a chance.
    *Professor mimes being hanged*

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      #blackholesmatter

    • Haha, that quote is exactly what was going through my mind as I read this abstract, too.

      The comment below by Reaper9889 is correct and thus highlights the fact that one could argue that the black hole goes to another universe but still kills whatever passes through. Nevertheless, this shows the silliness of the whole idea suggested now by Hawking. Any information that might be transferred to another universe would be essentially garbled beyond all recognition such that it would have only a nominal connectio

  • than some over magnetic particle shredder out in space. If nothing can escape the black hole then logic would suggest that you aren't going anywhere but to shreds even if you get close to it. Something that pulls things into it cannot very well send things out of it. There is but one universe and one reality. The wind blows the same whether you are on LSD or not. Your perception of the wind might change but it is still the same wind. I think Hawkings should stick to fucking with Sheldon.
  • Since the escape velocity from a black hole "exceeds" the speed of light, particles arriving at the event horizon have a lot of energy. The energy from these particles is enough for the creation of another universe. The space inside a black hole expands (in a direction orthogonal to our space dimensions) forming the big bang starting that universe.

    • The energy from these particles is enough for the creation of another universe.

      Is it? How much is that in jiggawatts then?

      • at least 1.21 jiggawatts...once you hit the speed of light sailing into a black hole, your going to see some serious shit.
  • I am sure that as we know more we will remove these singularities and find that black holes are actually "black smears", even if that smear has a radius of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. and then maybe all the information is still there. Things maybe simpler than we hope.
  • Go outside. Open your eyes. You have just destroyed a host of quantum information - the quantum measurement process is not unitary.

    Why are we more special than a black hole? Why should we assume that we can cause the wave function to collapse just by looking at the stars at night but that a blackhole cannot do so even when it eats a star whole?

    I am with Penrose on this - it is simplest to assume that quantum systems will in fact no longer evolve unitarily under gravity, e.g.,, in black holes. Information w

  • claimed that black holes could be portals to a parallel universe.

    Portal to a parallel universe in which you no longer exist, or time stops for you, forever; if you are foolish enough to fly into one.

  • The so called information paradox is more likely to be a result of people fooling themselves than any strange happenings requiring exotic explanations involving other universes. An open box is always the low hanging explanation that conveniently explains away everything you don't understand.

  • ...it is a portal to Another Universe called "Death" :)
  • Then are black holes just portals to a different server?
  • unfortunately the common or garden tens of stellar mass black holes have too much gravitational gradient (tides) to be used

    You would need to have a galaxy centre super massive black hole (millions or billions stellar mass) thats not feeding at the time

  • His theory is so full of holes that he has to say it's not a bug, but a feature. :-)
  • Seriously, if these are portal to others, then there has to be portals from others to here. Where are they?
    • Hawking suggests as quoted here [wikipedia.org] that a black hole IS a white hole. The "portal from others to here" is the black hole, that's what the Hawking radiation actually is...the deconstructed matter from another Universe entering ours. "black holes and white holes are the same object. The Hawking radiation from an ordinary black hole is then identified with the white-hole emission"
      • Why do we need alternate explanations for Hawking Radiation? We've never even observed the stuff, we just think it exists based on our theoretical understanding of black holes. If we don't think it's created the same way now, who says it needs to exist at all?

        Also our previous understand of Hawking Radiation had it decreasing with the size of the black hole. With this change it seems the opposite would be true.

  • It's an imaginary universe simulated in his mind.
  • OK Professor Falcon -I mean Hawking, please be the first to test your theory.

    Relatively few people, myself included, really want to be the first to jump in black hole to see if you are right.

  • Since one of the key points of science is that there isn't a special point for your observations (for example the Earth isn't a special case) then we should be seeing information entering our universe from other ones. So what does this information look like after it passes through a black hole and how does it appear to the other universe? If we could look for that then it would be a good test for the theory. Or does the information just pass into a corresponding black hole in the other universe and isn't ab

  • Or he may be on to something. At this stage in a typical career of a great physicist, both things are possible. Hawking has always been a great creative thinker in his area of expertise, what he currently claims is not out of character and may well be valid. Outside if his area of expertise, he is a hack, see his uninformed rantings about AI for example. Also not untypical for this development stage of a great physicist. But what really matters is what other physicists think about his statements about physi

    • "But what really matters is what other physicists think about his statements about physical things."

        What really matters is if his theory is a better model of reality than another theory. Reality doesn't care if your theory has a consensus of respected people.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        So you want to do science without people involved? That does not actually work in reality ...

        Sure, if there were a way to do it this way, i.e. to have some impersonal and reliable way to test whether a statement about physics is true, that would be preferable. But no such mechanism exists.

        • Your knowledge of the history of science is rather flawed, quite a few giants in the field worked alone for years and achieved great things.

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