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Black Holes Not Black After All, Theorize Physicists

KentuckyFC (1144503) writes Black holes are singularities in spacetime formed by stars that have collapsed at the end of their lives. But while black holes are one of the best known ideas in cosmology, physicists have never been entirely comfortable with the idea that regions of the universe can become infinitely dense. Indeed, they only accept this because they can't think of any reason why it shouldn't happen. But in the last few months, just such a reason has emerged as a result of intense debate about one of cosmology's greatest problems — the information paradox. This is the fundamental tenet in quantum mechanics that all the information about a system is encoded in its wave function and this always evolves in a way that conserves information. The paradox arises when this system falls into a black hole causing the information to devolve into a single state. So information must be lost.

Earlier this year, Stephen Hawking proposed a solution. His idea is that gravitational collapse can never continue beyond the so-called event horizon of a black hole beyond which information is lost. Gravitational collapse would approach the boundary but never go beyond it. That solves the information paradox but raises another question instead: if not a black hole, then what? Now one physicist has worked out the answer. His conclusion is that the collapsed star should end up about twice the radius of a conventional black hole but would not be dense enough to trap light forever and therefore would not be black. Indeed, to all intents and purposes, it would look like a large neutron star.

11 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. Not just physicists by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Funny

    physicists have never been entirely comfortable with the idea that regions of the universe can become infinitely density

    I'm pretty sure that editors outside of /. have never been entirely comfortable with that idea either.

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    Ezekiel 23:20
  2. Orange? by Sporkinum · · Score: 4, Funny

    Orange is the new black...hole...

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    "He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
  3. Re:wat by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 4, Funny

    Holy crap. The referenced paper is dense enough to have its own Schwarzschild radius.

  4. Infinite density by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 5, Funny

    physicists have never been entirely comfortable with the idea that regions of the universe can become infinitely density.

    They've clearly never been to DC. I'm convinced that regions of the universe are infinitely dense.

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    Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  5. Re:So ... by pushing-robot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Chicken. It looks like chicken.

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    How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
  6. Re:Do Slashdot editors actually edit? by rk · · Score: 3, Funny

    What you say! These is much English goodly!

  7. Re:So ... by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Funny

    WTF does a large neutron star look like then?

    Like a small neutron star. Only bigger.

  8. Re:Do Slashdot editors actually edit? by Daetrin · · Score: 4, Funny

    "For all intents and purposes" has been down-grammaticised into "for all intensive purposes". The latter has no actual meaning.

    That is untrue! For all intensive purposes i use an exercise machine!

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    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  9. Re:So ... by Pope · · Score: 4, Funny

    Imagine a perfectly spherical chicken...

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    It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
  10. Re:wat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Give Americans a few more generations and they will be fat enough to prove \ disprove the the theory.

  11. Re:wat by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, well... your MOM is infinitely dense.

    Yours is not infinitely dense. After all, everyone penetrates her.

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    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."