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Famous Hawking Black Hole Bet Resolved?
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.'"
The gears turn slowly in processing that article, and I'm left with a question someone smarter than me ought to know - what is a string? What would one look like or how could one be described?
String theory is just what it says on the tin - a theory. And this new theory is exactly that too - a theory. So a theory based upon a theory looks rather shaky to me... not even the Aardvark tome in sight yet.
And who cares? Does the fact that the information continues to exist in a black hole make my life any better or worse? How does it affect me and my family?
Does it affect my paycheck at the end of the week? Does it cure my grandfather's cancer? Does it stop my next-door neighbor from beating his girlfriend up? Does it help me figure out what's wrong with my car? Will it solve our dependance on petroleum based fuels? Will it remove the chemical pollutants from the atmosphere and seal the hole in the ozone layer?
I can appreciate these very intelligent people are thinking about very heady subjects, but why not solve problems here on earth that effect us mere mortals every day.