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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.
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)
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)
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
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.
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.