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Stephen Hawking Suggests Black Holes Are Possible Portals To Another Universe (scienceworldreport.com)

An anonymous reader shares an article on Science World Report: Stephen Hawking, in a recent lecture held at the Harvard University, claimed that black holes could be portals to a parallel universe. The celebrated physicist spoke at length about black holes and suggested that they neither store materials absorbed by them nor physical information about the object that created them. Known as the information paradox, the theory goes against the scientific rule that information on a system belonging to a particular time can be used to understand its state at a different time. Over the years, it has been speculated that black holes do not retain information about the stars from which they are formed, except storing their electrical charge, angular momentum and mass. According to Hawking, as per that theory, it was believed that identical black holes might be formed by an infinite quantity of matter configurations. However, quantum mechanics has signaled the opposite by revealing that black holes could only be formed by particles with explicit wavelengths. If the characteristics of the bodies that create black holes are not deprived, then they include a lot of information that is not revealed to the outside world, according to the physicist. "For more than 200 years, we have believed in the science of determinism, that is that the laws of science determine the evolution of the universe" Stephen Hawking said. If information was lost in black holes, we wouldn't be able to predict the future because the black hole could emit any collection of particles."This is in contrast to some of Hawking's earlier views. In 2014, for instance, Hawking suggested that black holes don't exist, at least not like we think.

28 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. Not quite logical by slashmydots · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If the mass completely leaves the universe for another universe, why would the gravity be left behind? Also we still can't retrieve the information about the matter that entered without leaving this universe. Also, black holes from other universes should perhaps then spew random massive particles into our universe somewhere and we wouldn't be able to use its vector to determine where it came from AND it would start interacting with matter in our universe which would mess with the back-tracking of information on movement. So much for information preservation.

    1. Re:Not quite logical by Viol8 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "If the mass completely leaves the universe for another universe, why would the gravity be left behind?"

      I wondered something similar when they kept saying the singularity in a black hole has zero size. Well something with no dimentions doesn't exist so how can it still have a gravitational field? Unless because time is so slowed inside a black hole relative to outside that from an outside observers point of view the singularity essentially never forms.

    2. Re:Not quite logical by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I am not an astrophysicist but i thought the reason a black hole would still have mass and gravitation is that not only is the mass compressed to a geometric point but the resulting gravitation that causes time to appear to effectively stop also compresses the space that contains it.

      Basically that if you could be an observer within the geometric point the amount of space within that point would be near infinite and the surrounding space outside that point would be unobservable.

      Sounds like our universe to me. It's a lot better than that BS "we may be a simulation" that was floated here a few days ago.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    3. Re:Not quite logical by Maritz · · Score: 2

      Also we still can't retrieve the information about the matter that entered without leaving this universe.

      This is exactly the stuff that Hawking was contradicted on by Juan Maldacena, Lenny Susskind and so on. You can get that information back out, you just have to wait for the black hole to dissolve. That won't happen much until the ambient temperature of the universe drops lower than that of the black hole, and even then it's slow. Something like ten to the hundred years for a stellar-sized black hole to disappear completely.

      But what those guys demonstrated is that the hawking radiation carries the information about what went in. That's why Hawking conceded defeat.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  2. Stealing from Disney.... by martiniturbide · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I knew I hear this idea before :) It is like we need a reboot of it with an overhauled V.I.N.CENT. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  3. Sphere of Annihilation by Infiniti2000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Going through a black hole will destroy you, much like a sphere of annihilation. This article reminds me of one of my favorite D&D stories. As relayed by another DM of a group of relatively inexperienced (new) players, they had encountered a sphere of annihilation. One player touched it and promptly vaporized into nothingness. One of the remaining party members said, "Oh, it must be a portal! Quick, everyone, jump in!" Four more pops later and the DM had to decide between a TPK or a new adventure in some otherworldly plane.

    1. Re:Sphere of Annihilation by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2

      >> TPK or a new adventure in some otherworldly plane

      Always a good time to introduce the Dark Sun campaign, IMHO. That's always played like an outer ring of hell.

  4. Re:Determinism? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The problem is undetermined.

  5. least plausible by ooloorie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Portals to another universe" sounds like the least plausible model of black holes. More plausible are non-singular models in which the matter simply transitions into another state inside the black hole; examples are the gravastar and the dark energy star; there are many other possibilities.

    It also seems odd to me that people would cling to the "information paradox" as if there were some good reason to believe it. If you truly believe that there is a singularity at the center of a black hole, why wouldn't you also believe that it can destroy information? Conversely, if you try to preserve information in a black hole, it seems to me that you are effectively already modeling an object other than a singularity.

    1. Re:least plausible by ooloorie · · Score: 2

      How is that different from the implications of the summary of the article written by someone who wasn't in the class and heard someone talking about it?

      I have no idea how it is different, not having attended the lecture. I just thought it was worth pointing out that other people have thought about these issues before and come up with various explanations. As for Mazur and Mottola's gravastars, it's possible that Hawking's lecture referred to their model and the summary just misattributed it to Hawking and then described it poorly.

  6. Re:Sane people suggest by SpankiMonki · · Score: 2

    You know, trolling around here is properly done with a degree of subtlety. Problem for you is one doesn't need to read past your handle without knowing you're a troll.

  7. Paradigm longevity by Empiric · · Score: 2

    "For more than 200 years, we have believed in the science of determinism..."

    Our culture being steeped in Newtonian mechanics (where everything is fundamentally predictable) for a very long time has had a strong psychological influence, even after QM comes along to show that determinism itself is very questionable as a principle.

    Supervenience is a trickier question than most realize, even top-flight physicists.

    --
    ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
  8. Re:Sane people suggest by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Okay, idiot parent troll/spite/whatever aside, there is a small kernel of something that did strike my mind.

    Hawking was once incredibly brilliant, in spite of the massive debilitation from ALS, a normally fatal disease that he's (so far) outlived by at least a factor or four.

    That said, insofar as his brilliance, I think that time has sadly passed, or has slipped enough that seriously, unless there's solid math or observation backing it up, maybe the press should stop breathlessly reporting everything he says.

    Like in this case, for instance. Where is the math for it? Seriously?

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  9. Re:Sane people suggest by bondsbw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For Hawking, it's worth listening to his intuition even if he doesn't yet back it with science. It's not like he's some quack that has never made a solid discovery. Maybe he or someone else will take his ideas and put forth the work to reconcile them.

    I agree that the press should never report his ideas as fact or even probable until there is an adequate basis for that claim. For now this needs to be classified as musings of Hawking, and that's all.

    --
    All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  10. Consoling a friend? by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Funny

    Fry> Don't cry Bender. Nobody really knows what happens in a black hole. It's possible she's still alive in another dimension somewhere. Right, Professor?
    Professor> Oh why yes, absolutely!
    *Professor turns to Zoidberg*
    Professor> Not a chance.
    *Professor mimes being hanged*

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Consoling a friend? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      #blackholesmatter

    2. Re:Consoling a friend? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Informative

      We DO know that you will get ripped to shreds before you get inside, though.

      If the black hole is big enough you can cross the event horizon without feeling so much as a pinch.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    3. Re:Consoling a friend? by azcoyote · · Score: 2

      Haha, that quote is exactly what was going through my mind as I read this abstract, too.

      The comment below by Reaper9889 is correct and thus highlights the fact that one could argue that the black hole goes to another universe but still kills whatever passes through. Nevertheless, this shows the silliness of the whole idea suggested now by Hawking. Any information that might be transferred to another universe would be essentially garbled beyond all recognition such that it would have only a nominal connection to this universe. A person goes in, and out in another universe comes some shadowy noise (of Hawking radiation?) that can never again be reassembled into a living person. On the other side, could we be sure that whatever "information" is really ever arriving from another universe? In fact, it is just as easy to conclude that whatever "arrives" is just random, meaningless noise with no basis in any universe whatsoever. Ockham's Razor would make such a multiverse assumption seem extremely improbable.

      Perhaps the biggest problem, however, is that normal people read this kind of "news" and think that black holes are portals that might bring living people to other universes. Thankfully we don't have to worry about people throwing themselves into black holes any time soon, but people do turn this kind of gibberish into metanarratives of meaning--similar to how Bender is comforted by the thought that maybe she could still be alive in another universe. The thought of infinite other universes helps us to forget the pain and evils of this one. Example: "Maybe our little human civilization will be meaningful after all because some small little information about it will be able to reach another universe in some way and some other intelligent race will know that we once existed and that we were intelligent, after all." (Richard Dawkins says something similar to this in one of his books, but premised not on multiple universes but on the endless expanse of space.) "We maybe," I reply, "But maybe when that garbled, scratchy, noise that used to be information comes through to the other civilization, just maybe they won't give a damn. How meaningful will that be?"

      --
      Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
    4. Re:Consoling a friend? by tnk1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      You're right, for a supermassive black hole, like the one at the center of our galaxy, the gravitational shear between what you experience at your head and your feet is basically like what you'd experience on the surface of Earth.

      However, if you did manage to get far enough in, with all the oddness that implies, you would experience increasing shear as you approached the singularity. Eventually, it would become strong enough to rip you apart.

      A "normal" stellar mass black hole would rip you apart almost immediately because the shear would be very high much less further in.

      Either situation is probably academic, as you'd have been charbroiled long before you entered the event horizon by the X-rays and extremely hot matter in orbit which has been accelerated by the black hole to extreme velocities and energies.

  11. Another Possible Reality by FredK · · Score: 2

    Since the escape velocity from a black hole "exceeds" the speed of light, particles arriving at the event horizon have a lot of energy. The energy from these particles is enough for the creation of another universe. The space inside a black hole expands (in a direction orthogonal to our space dimensions) forming the big bang starting that universe.

  12. Re:Sane people suggest by tinkerton · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Agreed. Intuition is a valid part of scientific endeavour, though not many will agree on that. There should be a lot of freedom in how one constructs a hypothesis. It's still a guess. If it's completely grounded in experiment then it's not a guess.

  13. Re:Sane people suggest by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The guy's account is called "jewsdid911". I'm thinking you don't want to see the kinds of papers he writes.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  14. Re:Determinism? by Flavianoep · · Score: 5, Funny

    No, it was not determinism that quantum theory killed. Under Heisenberg's incorrectly named "principle of uncertainty," the exact position and momentum of a physical system cannot be measured a at the same time, but that doesn't mean they are undetermined, just that we cannot measure both of them at the same time. The term for it is Unschärferelation, that roughly translates as "unsharpness relationship", but due to Slashdot's lack of support of Unicode at the time, it was not possible to keep that in the original German, so the translation "principle of uncertainty" was adopted [source].

    --
    Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
  15. Re:Determinism? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

    It's indeterminate. ;)

  16. If the universe is just a computer simulation... by Vermonter · · Score: 2

    Then are black holes just portals to a different server?

  17. Re:Determinism? by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2

    Before we go down the road of namecalling, how about trying to offer up a proof? Most of us do not learn quantum mechanics in school, nor is it relevant to our lives in a direct way, thus all we have are vague and imprecise english to summarize things, and as it happened, most of the key people in this field were German. And that's why we use math and not english to talk about science.

    My attempt, and I am probably wrong I took one semester of modern physics to satisfy a degree requirement, is that if p=mv, (where p is momentum, not position), you can see clearly that uncertainty is mathematical definite, not an empirical approximate as derived from newtonian physics. Position is the first derivative of velocity, defined as lim(h->0) (v(t+h)+v(t))/h. As h approaches 0, this equation blows up to plus or minus infinity. Thus if we know velocity precisely, we thus cannot be sure about position: that equation explodes. Going the other way, if we know position precisely, we have no way of knowing velocity (change in position) without a second data point. If we know two positions precisely, we only know average velocity (h>0, above). Thus the best we can do is describe these quantities simultaneously is using stochastic methods. This is another branch of mathematics that most of us never touch, and makes reading actual quantum mechanics theories very challenging.

    That it is a mathematical impossibility to resolve this uncertainty derives directly from newtonian physics, no quantum magic required. Now you can still cling to the hidden state argument: that just because we cannot know these things does not mean they do not exist: possibly your billiard ball has a definitely position and definite velocity and it is our mathematical model that is not up to the task. This boils down to an unhelpful theory is unhelpful, we can assume they exist, but we can only approximate their values so back to square 1. In quantum mechanics, this idea of hidden state has been continuously asserted and refuted via empirical testing. That doesn't mean it's wrong, we may still be entirely ignorant about what is really going on, that's what scientists do and why every time they say they're "almost done", something crazy happens. It seems to me that a lot of scientists are willing to let the very odd behaviors they see in quantum mechanics pass by rather than seeking a deeper truth.

    On the other hand, a lot of useful things can be done with the state-free model, and that's where I prove myself again to be an engineer and not a scientist - if a model exists that i can use to build something, it is good enough for me.

  18. Re:Sane people suggest by flopsquad · · Score: 2

    Well I'll be damned, I had no idea Jews did 911.

    **Thank you, people of the Jewsish faith, for giving the Unites States its emergency services telephone number! It is much easier to use than having to know the number for the local police department everywhere you go!!**

    Mod jewsdid911 +1 Informative, pls.

    --
    Nothing posted to /. has ever been legal advice, including this.
  19. Re:Sane people suggest by flopsquad · · Score: 2

    Dear Autocorrect:

    You insist that when I type '>' I really meant to abbreviate Sergeant, and you will go to your grave convinced that 'href' is just me fucking up 'heed' multiple times every day. But when I type 'Jewsish,' you're like, "Shit yeah man looks right to me!"

    Get your shit together.

    Love,
    -floppy

    --
    Nothing posted to /. has ever been legal advice, including this.