RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Maybe There Is a Way Out After All

Science - Reuters

Black Holes: Maybe There Is a Way Out After All
Thu Jul 15, 8:24 AM ET

By Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - Black holes, those fearsome galactic traps from which not even light can escape, may not be quite so terminally destructive after all, according to cosmologist Stephen Hawking.

The author of "A Brief History of Time" now believes some "information" sucked into black holes escapes over time, contradicting some of his most famous work on the phenomenon.

Hawking will present his latest findings at a scientific conference in Ireland next week, New Scientist magazine said, after asking at the last minute to speak.

Black holes are formed when massive stars collapse from their own gravity, the pull of which was thought so strong that nothing can escape.

The idea has been fascinating astronomers since the late 18th century, suggesting images of unimaginably strong cosmic whirlpools sucking up space matter and consigning it to oblivion.

In the 1970s, Hawking said that once a black hole formed it lost mass by radiating energy, known as "Hawking radiation," but it contained no information about the inside matter and once the hole evaporated, all information was lost.

This however, created a paradox, since the laws of quantum physics assert such information can never be completely wiped out.

Hawking responded that the gravitational pull of black holes was so strong, it unraveled the laws of quantum physics. But that argument failed to convince skeptics in the scientific community.

He will now argue that the black holes never quite shut themselves off completely and, as they emit more heat, they eventually open up and release information.

The possible solution to the paradox has sent waves of excitement through the physics community.

"He sent a note saying: 'I have solved the black hole information paradox and I want to talk about it,"' organizer and physicist Curt Cutler told the New Scientist.

"I haven't seen a preprint (of the paper). To be quite honest I went on Hawking's reputation."

Gary Gibbons, an expert on black holes, attended a recent seminar held by Hawking at Cambridge University where he outlined his new findings.

"It's possible that what he presented in the seminar is a solution," Gibbons told New Scientist.

"But I think you have to say the jury is still out."

Hawking, who is almost entirely paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair as a result of motor neurone disease, made his name with "A Brief History ...," which sold more than five million copies worldwide.

Hawking is presenting his paper at the International Conference on General Relativity on 21st July, but no one really knows exactly what he's going to say. I expect that there'll be some quite complicated mathematics attached to his theory. It's a big risk on the part of the conference organisers to include the paper, without looking at it first, even when you consider its source.

If Hawking is correct then he will lose a bet that he made with the theoretical physicist, Kip Thorne, who originally argued that information can escape from a black hole. The loser of the bet has to present the winner with an encyclopedia - something from which information can be retrieved from at any time.

I've heard of Hawking making these wagers before and I think that he must do it to motivate himself. I recall reading in one of his books that there was one man who he refused to make bets with in case he was a time traveller and already knew the answers.

It was either John Titor ot Chris Oakley from 40 years in the future.

I don't know dad, oakley hates everything that is Black. It's probably titor.

Oakley probably went in there to try and bomb it. His hate has no bounds.

IF THOSE BLACK HOLES WOULD WORK THEN THEY WOULDN'T HAVE TO MOOCH OFF OF THE UNIVERSE!