Hawking Gracefully, Formally Loses Black Hole Bet

Liora writes "Today at the 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation in Dublin, Cambridge University professor Stephen Hawking said in his talk titled The Information Paradox for Black Holes that he was wrong about the formation of an event horizon in a black hole, and that matter is not destroyed in a way defying subatomic theory, as he had previously believed. According to the talk's short, "the way the information gets out seems to be that a true event horizon never forms, just an apparent horizon." A New York Times story and a Wired story are available, both apparently based on Reuters information." (This is the formal announcement promised last week.)

Comments

how many....didn't he already....what the.....

[d474]

I've been hearing about this for like 4 days now... Is Slashdot turning into a News Black Hole?

Re:how many....didn't he already....what the.....

[Epistax]

"Turning into" implies that it wasn't previously.

Re:how many....didn't he already....what the.....

[mazarin5]

It's just further proof that news cannot be created nor destroyed, just posted again and again.

More info..

[JohnFluxx]

Wired says: The best-selling author of "A Brief History of Time"

I didn't know hawking sold so well ;-)

Anyway, to be on topic - can someone give more technical information on this? Many of us probably have a fairly high understanding of maths and physics, and want more details...

Re:More info..

[Finuvir]

600,000 books sitting unread on pretentious people's coffee tables. That's only rivalled by Ulysses. Well some of them were read but I imagine most people didn't get very far into it.

(Lousy /. making me wait before I post again)

Re:More info..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yah, well I read Ullyses in fifth grade and I finished it twice. I especially liked that part where that guy did that thing. Also I read War and Peace in third grade, and was solving third-order differential equations when I was still a fetus. Now I flip burgers at McDonald's. Your point?

No parallel universes? Bastard!

[straponego]

...that was the best thing I had going for me. It's what got me through the day. What do I have to look forward to now? Nothing, that's what!

Yikes

[dirty]

"The Euclidean path integral over all topologically trivial metrics can be done by time slicing and so is unitary when analytically continued to the Lorentzian. On the other hand, the path integral over all topologically non-trivial metrics is asymptotically independent of the initial state. Thus the total path integral is unitary and information is not lost in the formation and evaporation of black holes. The way the information gets out seems to be that a true event horizon never forms, just an apparent horizon."

That man is way too smart to be a human.

Re:Yikes

[photonrider]

dang! babelfish doesn't have a "genius to english" translation.

Re:Yikes

[EvanED]

That man is way too smart to be a human.

I think it's just conclusive proof he writes his papers with a program similar to the following:

for(i=0 ; i<5000 ; ++i)
{
cout << dictionary[rand() % NUM_WORDS] << " ";
if((p = double(rand())/RANDMAX) < .05)
cout << ". ";
else if (p < .07)
cout << ", ";
}

Re:Yikes

[d_jedi]

All I've got to say is WTF?
Parse error: reader too dumb.

The Euclidean path integral
OK.. I'm with you here, Hawking.. don't see what an integral has to do with black holes, but OK..

over all topologically trivial metrics can be done by time slicing
Slow down.. not sure what's going on here

and so is unitary when analytically continued to the Lorentzian
Gah? Wait.. I think I heard something about this Lorentz guy.. ooh, my brain is starting to hurt!

On the other hand, the path integral over all topologically non-trivial metrics is asymptotically independent of the initial state
Well, isn't that just stating the obvious (OK.. now I'm just trying to sound smart).

Thus the total path integral is unitary and information is not lost in the formation and evaporation of black holes.
OK.. he goes from a math equation to black holes? I don't see the jump.

The way the information gets out seems to be that a true event horizon never forms, just an apparent horizon.
Good enough of an explanation for me! Forget all the rest of the stuff..

Bah.. Need to wait for A Slightly Longer History of Time to be released before I understand this stuff!

He Better Pay....

[Sideshow Coward]

Or else they'll send someone to break his knee caps, or the wheels on his chair.

UserFriendly

[Anonymous Coward]

Userfriendly.org had a funny take on the payment of this bet.

My theory...

[Anonymous Coward]

Send someone in on a string. Give it a good hard tug.

If they come out ok - black holes are cool and can spit out matter.

If they come out mangled, or you're left with a frayed end on said string, black holes are not cool and best stayed away from...

Well... Duh

[SkaterGeek]

Well... Obviously he's going to loose gracefully. Its not like he can get up and start yelling at the other guy. His chair probably doesn't even have an "Angry" voice

Note to all you freshman physics students

[Anonymous Coward]

See this paragraph,

"Thus the total path integral is unitary and information is not lost in the formation and evaporation of black holes. The way the information gets out seems to be that a true event horizon never forms, just an apparent horizon."

The above paragraph is what's known in the physics trade as hand waving.
Remember it well. It will get you out of a jam every time.

Obligatory Futurma episode quotation

[iamdrscience]

Fry: Hey! Stephen Hawking! Aren't you that physicist who invented gravity?
Hawking: Sure. Why not?
Fry: Let me ask you something. Has anyone ever discovered a hole in nothing with monsters in it? [Hawking's eyes widen in horror.] 'Cause if I'm the first, I want them to call it a "Fry Hole."

Later:

Fry: So what do you nerds want?
Nichols: It's about that rip in space-time that you saw.
Hawking: I call it a "Hawking Hole."
Fry: No fair! I saw it first!
Hawking: Who is The Journal Of Quantum Physics going to believe?

Interesting note: Apparently Stephen Hawking did provide his voice for that episode.

Aww crap!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

So now all those aliens that got sucked into black holes in the seventies will be back in future Startrek etc episodes.

Matter can escape!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh damn, that means there's gonna be a sequel to Event Horizon... :o(

For the grammatically challenged

[Hypharse]

From the speech synopsis:

The Euclidean path integral over all topologically trivial metrics can be done by time slicing and so is unitary when analytically continued to the Lorentzian. On the other hand, the path integral over all topologically non-trivial metrics is asymptotically independent of the initial state. Thus the total path integral is unitary and information is not lost in the formation and evaporation of black holes. The way the information gets out seems to be that a true event horizon never forms, just an apparent horizon.

For those grammatically declined I'll explain it to you with an analogy. It's like when you were in high school and used mirrors to peek around the corner into the girl's locker room. The naked chick in the mirror is the APPARANT horizon. The naked chick that kicks the testes back inside your body shortly after DOES NOT EXIST.

Also, just for laughs (ok...hopefully for mod points too, I admit) Hawking is also a freaking awesome DJ and serial killer on the side. All my Shootin's be driveby's

Wu's site has other cool stuff to see too. (not a plug, just want to give credit to where the song is downloaded from)

I still believe his original theory is true!!!

[sixpacker]

since my job has disappeared inside a black hole
and I still don't see any trace of it.

Re:Baloney!

[Louis Savain]

No matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney!

Amen Brother! It's all a con game. Hawking and the rest of his Star Strek and time travel fanatics have been bulshitting the world with their time warps and wormholes for a long time. I wonder when someone is going to expose those con artists for good.

Re:Fails to give wheelchair ride?

[Finuvir]

Pleased to serve. What's your disability? I have jokes about all of them.

Hmmm...

[Roland of Gilead]

...so I imagine that once the event horizon in my clothes dryer collapses I will get back all of my missing socks? ;)

MC Hawking's breif history of rhyme

[ModernGeek]

Trailer is right here Site: www.mchawking.com

Re:Good for Hawking

[zerocool^]

I don't know about Charisma, but that guy must have a crazy high INT.

A Brief History of the Internet (comic)

[Snaggy]

Hope you enJoy our Hawking comic... A Brief History of the Internet. :)

and be sure and do the JoyPoll, we've added a bonus Al Gore cameo. :-)

Re:Cricket vs Baseball

[enforcer999]

Hawking is great and I am sort of disappointed that he found himself wrong. Why? Well, because I wanted space travel to be believable. He just ruined it for me. Okay, Cricket verses Baseball? I say U.S. college Football. :) Forget the other sports. They are off topic. ;)

Re:Fails to give wheelchair ride?

[gnovos]

So there was this priest, this rabbi and this guy who's right hand got tangled in the umbilical cord and as a result is severely mangled and doesn't really resemble a hand at all... Kinda hard to work with.

timecube

[Anonymous Coward]

and STILL nobody has disproven time cube despite the hefty $10,000.00 reward.

Re:So what's the status of his bet with Kip Thorne

[benna]

I believe he had a bet with Kip Thorne over whether Cygnus X1 was a black hole or not. Hawking said it wasn't and Thorne said it was. Hawking conceded the bet a while ago. It was for a subscription to playboy. Hawking said that he really thought that it was a black hole but wanted a consolation prize if it wasn't.

Re:HA!

[abirdman]

All I can say is thank God it wasn't the other way around!