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Famous Hawking Black Hole Bet Resolved?

Posted by simoniker on from the brittanica-please dept.

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.'"

5 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. status of string theory by microbox · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is there any hard evidence that string theory is correct?

    I'd be holding onto my bet a little longer I think=)

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  2. Almost - wrong bet though by Raul654 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hawking has made several bets. You are thinking of his naked singularities bet (A naked singularity is a black-hole without event horizons) Hawking bet Roger Penrose(?) a subscription to Penthouse (I think) that they could not exist. He lost.

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  3. Re:Hawking radiation by SeanTobin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The thing about black holes emiting radiation is that they don't actually emit any radiation. Anything that enters the event horizon is gone - for good. It doesn't come back ever, even as black body radiation.

    The way theorists get around this is through virtual particles. Assume that virtual particle pairs are blinking in and out of existance all the time, but are never noticed because before they become 'real' particles they destroy each other (think particle/anti particle). The fun part comes when the particles appear on opposite sides of an event horizon. One gets sucked into the black hole, and the other becomes a full-fledged particle with a small chance of escapeing. Because the escapeing particle was never in the event horizon to begin with, it can contain no information from within the black hole.

    Now, how the black hole doesn't gain mass from the anti-particle I'm not quite sure... I'll leave that up to all the ./ theoretical physisists.

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  4. Mathur's tests by trip11 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I've actually had Mathur for classes as I'm an undergraduate at Ohio state in physics. His tests really are not all that brutal as he is both an amazingly smart man and a good teacher. He has this dry humor that you have to pay attention to to get. Amusing quips include:

    "It will be a big piece of fun" (talking about deriving equations)

    "thats a rather large force" (after mentioning that the force to pull two pieces of a capacitor apart could lift the city of columbus)

    If you get a chance to meet him, don't pass it up. He's a great guy

  5. Re:Hawking radiation by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Careful there. A simple-minded Newtonian derivation gives the correct Schwartschild radius for a black hole, despite having two deep physical flaws and relying on completely inapplicable physics. For that matter, two words: "Bode's Law."