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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.'"
This all works on the assumption that you accept string theory in the first place. While string theory may be the darling of astro physicists at the moment, it remains far from proven. If I were Haking, I'd defer payment for a while.
"Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne may owe John Preskill a set of encyclopedias of his choice"
I guess so, but only if wiki is what Preskill chose.
Maybe the real workings of the universe can't be explained with everyday experiences. After all, quantum stuff and relativity has little bering on hunting, communicating and making little ones, and that's what our brains were designed to do.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
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
Maybe the real workings of the universe can't be explained with everyday experiences. After all, quantum stuff and relativity has little bering on hunting, communicating and making little ones, and that's what our brains were designed to do. :)
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
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
I am a layman when it comes to physics, but let me put in my layman's two cents in...
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
My experience is that that sort of coincidence is suggestive, in other words you've gotten something right, but determining just what that something is is often a)problematic, and b)not always what you thought it was at first.
KFG
I don't understand this at all. Our everyday experiences are simply products of the "real workings" of the universe. You may think Newtonian physics suffices for what you need, but your "little ones" wouldn't be able to dream of being an astronaut, science professor, astronomer, or a myriad of other things without these other new-fangled theories.
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.
And then there are the times when you get lucky and get the right answer for the wrong reason... which is, I suppose, why we have peer review!
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, / Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. ("Ulysses", Tennyson)
Oh, I can't wait to read the Slashdotters trying to debate black hole phenomena with no education save some physics courses in high school.
It will sound as stupid to anyone with experience as the archetypical "your mom" and "your dad" debating computers sounds to your ears.
In my mathematical experience, coincidence usually means you have used circular logic/calculations somewhere. In effect proving your foundation.
:)
But its always nice to figure out how you fooled yourself
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?
--- Ban humanity.
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.
Part of the problem is the language used to describe these things.. the general approximations they make only really make sense if you understand a lot more background..
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.
Newtonian physics is quite adequate for becoming an astronaut (it got people to the moon), a science professor or an astronomer. Seem syou don't understand newton to well...
> 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.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
1. Tunneling - because to escape a black hole requires exceeding the speed of light. The reason Hawking radiation can get away with it is because one particle in the pair is created just outside the event horizon and gets a kick outward from the annihilation of its partner.
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.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Actually a lot of complex experiments (unless they come up with something totally unexpected like Cold Fusion) - are not reproduced.
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.
A model, no matter how useful, is not necessarily reality! For example, General Relativity is a fantastically good model of gravitation, but has singularities. Anyone who thinks such singularities are 'real' is confusing maths with the real thing. As far as we know the Universe doesn't 'do math', its just a thing we fit our equations to. If our equations go infinite or singular, that is simply a problem with our equations. With string theory, we get useful answers by pretending that the fundamental units of matter are strings, but that is merely a calculating device. If you assume the strings were real, you would have to wonder what they are made of... phlogiston? Rubber? Then you have to figure out how they can experience tension. Tension is a force. Forces exist between some particles and are are carried by other particles. What are the carriers of the string tension force?