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[Any Questions]

Hi folks,

Courtesy of my lunchtime Engadget fix I can confirm that Professor Hawking has solved this little conundrum

Stephen Hawking announced during a lecture at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden on Tuesday that he has potentially solved the Information Paradox. The paradox a conflict between the quantum mechanics and general relativity models that has vexed physicists for more than four decades. The Information Paradox arises from black holes -- specifically what happens to information about the physical state of objects that fall into one. The quantum mechanical model posits that the information remains intact while general relativity argues that it is indeed obliterated under the black holes immense gravitation. But Hawking has developed a third opinion: the information never actually makes it into the black hole. "I propose that the information is stored not in the interior of the black hole as one might expect, but on its boundary, the event horizon," he said.

Basically, Hawking argues that the information about particles sucked into the hole sit on the surface of the event horizon as holograms (2D afterimages of a 3D object). "The idea is the super translations are a hologram of the ingoing particles," he told the crowd. "Thus they contain all the information that would otherwise be lost." What's more, that information can actually escape a black holes pull thanks to Hawking Radiation -- the concept that photons can sometimes be ejected from a black hole due to random quantum fluctuations

These photons would carry the information off of the event horizon, however it wouldn't be of any use. "The information about ingoing particles is returned, but in a chaotic and useless form. This resolves the information paradox. For all practical purposes, the information is lost." Even if the information wasn't blasted into a parallel universe (which Hawking said is totally possible), it'd be like trying to read the data off a corrupted hard drive. Sure there's still "information" there, it's just not going to be of any use.

Hawking's lecture on Tuesday was just the start. Malcolm Perry, a professor at Cambridge's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics who collaborated with Hawking, will release more details of the new theory later today. The pair expect to publish a paper fully describing their findings next month

Enjoy and sleep easy now.

 

[Nostremitus]

Hmm... I thought that was already a theory... Pretty sure I read that in a book or saw it in a movie already...

 

[Log4Girlz]

Hmm... I thought that was already a theory... Pretty sure I read that in a book or saw it in a movie already...

Leonard Susskind

 

[speedpop]

So this is how McConaughey survived....

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

Holograms on surface of event horizon? Yeah I thought of that years ago.

 

[nico1982]

...

I have yet to watch that movie :\

 

[CTLance]

Thanks for posting that. I know some of those words. Intredasting.

 

[Twilight Gap]

The first four sentences make me feel dumd

 

[DEAD RABBIT]

Holographic principle

 

[Shuggananas]

"Stephen hawking announced"
"potentially solved"

EH

 

[speedpop]

I have yet to watch that movie :\

Dazed and Confused?

 

[Twilight Gap]

"Stephen hawking announced"
"potentially solved"

EH

 

[Raonak]

Is he implying all matter falling into a black hole sits on the event horizon, or just some?

 

[Nostremitus]

Leonard Susskind

Maybe, could have been another author referencing it, though. I don't recall actively reading him.

 

[cameron]

Homer Simpson: Could you dumb it down a shade?

WP:

According to Hawking's idea, the particles that enter a black hole leave traces of their information on the event horizon. When particles come back out — in a phenomenon called Hawking Radiation — they carry some of that information back out, preserving it. Technically, anyway.

"The information is stored in a super translation of the horizon that the ingoing particles [from the source star] cause," he explained, for those of you who like a little more physics lingo. "The information about ingoing particles is returned, but in a chaotic and useless form. For all practical purposes the info is lost."

At Monday's public lecture, he explained this jumbled return of information was like burning an encyclopedia: You wouldn't technically lose any information if you kept all of the ashes in one place, but you'd have a hard time looking up the capital of Minnesota.

 

[donkey show]

Dazed and Confused?

Sahara

 

[Ray Wonder]

Why does the information sit on the edge of the Horizon though? What prevents it from going past that point?

 

[params7]

It all makes sense now.

 

[marrec]

Is he implying all matter falling into a black hole sits on the event horizon, or just some?

He's implying physical information of matter floats on the event horizon and is "destroyed" through the process of Hawking Radiation.

 

[Tertullian]

The paradox a conflict between the quantum mechanics and general relativity models that has vexed physicists for more than four decades. The Information Paradox arises from black holes -- specifically what happens to information about the physical state of objects that fall into one. The quantum mechanical model posits that the information remains intact while general relativity argues that it is indeed obliterated under the black holes immense gravitation.

I'm very unclear about the sense of the word "information" used here. The common-sense, everyday meaning of the word "information" is an inherently intentional, mind-relative concept. You don't have "information" (again, in the conventional sense) unless intelligent (or at least sentient) creatures exist. Otherwise there would be no one to "inform," no mind to translate physical reality into knowledge and concepts.

But it seems like what is under discussion here involves concepts that shouldn't be mind-relative. It seems like the stuff Hawking is investigating (i.e. what happens in black holes) should be true or false regardless of whether any life ever existed in the universe. So it seems that he must be using some idiosyncratic definition of the word "information."

 

[Aikidoka]

Hmm... I thought that was already a theory... Pretty sure I read that in a book or saw it in a movie already...

Yeah this has been around for a few decades. The Holographic Principle (not a theory) was formalized by Gerald t'Hooft and Leonard Susskind built upon it.

However, Stephen Hawking was very much against this idea, having a debate with Susskind about it ( in a book called The Black Hole Wars).

So, lol at Hawking being given the credit for an idea he vehemently rejected these past couple of decades.

 

[EVH]

So what if this is true and someday we are able to read that messed up information. Could we be able to see what the fuck went into the black hole since its origin or what?

It's like a time machine YouTube in space!

 

[eot]

a) it's not published
b) I read that it was not based on a fully relativistic model

 

[thelatestmodel]

I'm very unclear about the sense of the word "information" used here. The common-sense, everyday meaning of the word "information" is an inherently intentional, mind-relative concept. You don't have "information" (again, in the conventional sense) unless intelligent (or at least sentient) creatures exist. Otherwise there would be no one to "inform," no mind to translate physical reality into knowledge and concepts.

But it seems like what is under discussion here involves concepts that shouldn't be mind-relative. It seems like the stuff Hawking is investigating (i.e. what happens in black holes) should be true or false regardless of whether any life ever existed in the universe. So it seems that he must be using some idiosyncratic definition of the word "information."

That's what struck me as well. "Information" as in what? A radio signal? Something written down on a piece of paper? I get the feeling this is a new, physicist's definition of "information".

edit - as I thought, it is:

Information itself may be loosely defined as "that which can distinguish one thing from another".[citation needed] The information embodied by a thing can thus be said to be the identity of the particular thing itself, that is, all of its properties, all that makes it distinct from other (real or potential) things. It is a complete description of the thing, but in a sense that is divorced from any particular language.

So more or less it's similar to the philosophy of identity. Anything that can distinguish one thing from another.

 

[Ray Wonder]

Yeah this has been around for a few decades. The Holographic Principle (not a theory) was formalized by Gerald t'Hooft and Leonard Susskind built upon it.

However, Stephen Hawking was very much against this idea, having a debate with Susskind about it ( in a book called The Black Hole Wars).

So, lol at Hawking being given the credit for an idea he vehemently rejected these past couple of decades.

Oh wow. lol

 

[AllIsOneIsNone]

The thing I like about black holes is they keep sucking stuff in but their information stays the same age. Alright alright alright!

 

[marrec]

So what if this is true and someday we are able to read that messed up information. Could we be able to see what the fuck went into the black hole since its origin or what?

It's like a time machine YouTube in space!

Hawking says no. Susskind says yes. In a way. You can imagine this as quantum bits that are stored. If we could collect all the information and had a way to compile it then theoretically we could know the composition of the matter that entered the black hole (the quantum composition). Hawking claims that this process would be fruitless, even though the information is preserved... which doesn't exactly resolve the paradox, if I'm reading this correctly.

 

[LCfiner]

There are times I wish I understood the math and physics to a much higher level so I could understand the reasoning of how a "hologram" of quantum information can be a thing.

 

[Yagharek]

Didn't it take susskind almost thirty years to convince him there was a paradox in the first place.

 

[Yagharek]

Yeah this has been around for a few decades. The Holographic Principle (not a theory) was formalized by Gerald t'Hooft and Leonard Susskind built upon it.

However, Stephen Hawking was very much against this idea, having a debate with Susskind about it ( in a book called The Black Hole Wars).

So, lol at Hawking being given the credit for an idea he vehemently rejected these past couple of decades.

Yeah, this is the one.

Hawking was mistaken on this one so it's not like the credit is appropriately given in today's news piece.

 

[Shuggananas]

Yeah, this is the one.

Hawking was mistaken on this one so it's not like the credit is appropriately given in today's news piece.

Hawking is a fuckin fraud anyway

 

[EndcatOmega]

I'm very unclear about the sense of the word "information" used here. The common-sense, everyday meaning of the word "information" is an inherently intentional, mind-relative concept. You don't have "information" (again, in the conventional sense) unless intelligent (or at least sentient) creatures exist. Otherwise there would be no one to "inform," no mind to translate physical reality into knowledge and concepts.

But it seems like what is under discussion here involves concepts that shouldn't be mind-relative. It seems like the stuff Hawking is investigating (i.e. what happens in black holes) should be true or false regardless of whether any life ever existed in the universe. So it seems that he must be using some idiosyncratic definition of the word "information."

Someone who's done this stuff more recently than me can probably describe it better, so take this with a huge grain of alt but information is the physics definition- the quantum state of the particle. Its energy, momentum, and a bunch of other numbers like 'spin' that are harder to physically explain combined into a single vector. This can't be transmitted faster than the speed of light- certain velocities of waves can exceed the speed of light, for example, but as long as the transmission of the quantum state or w/e isn't exceeding the speed of light relativity does not give a fuck.

 

[marrec]

Didn't it take susskind almost thirty years to convince him there was a paradox in the first place.

I thought Hawking knew of the paradoxical nature of his proposal but just ignored it.

 

[Orbis Tabula]

Yeah this has been around for a few decades. The Holographic Principle (not a theory) was formalized by Gerald t'Hooft and Leonard Susskind built upon it.

However, Stephen Hawking was very much against this idea, having a debate with Susskind about it ( in a book called The Black Hole Wars).

So, lol at Hawking being given the credit for an idea he vehemently rejected these past couple of decades.

Thanks for clearing this up. I thought his idea sounded very familiar but I couldn't place from where.

 

[Yagharek]

I thought Hawking knew of the paradoxical nature of his proposal but just ignored it.

The impression I got from The Black Hole Wars was that he refused to acknowledge it was a problem. According to Susskind's account anyway. Who I am inclined to believe.

Susskind might be livid today if the news articles are accurate.

 

[marrec]

The impression I got from The Black Hole Wars was that he refused to acknowledge it was a problem. According to Susskind's account anyway. Who I am inclined to believe.

Susskind might be livid today if the news articles are accurate.

It wouldn't be the first time Hawking has been given entire credit for slightly expanding a generally accepted theory. I mean, Hawking Radiation got named after him, even though his proposed solution caused an obvious paradox.

I'll be very interested in reading the paper when it's released to see if there is any new information (yuk yuk) contained in it.

 

[twobear]

Hawking is a fuckin fraud anyway

What's fraudulent about Hawking's work? The fact that people think of him as some kind of modern-day Einstein is not exactly his own fault or doing.

The impression I got from The Black Hole Wars was that he refused to acknowledge it was a problem. According to Susskind's account anyway. Who I am inclined to believe.

Susskind might be livid today if the news articles are accurate.

The issue is that the information paradox arises from combining two theories that are fundamental in their own fields. GR, our theory of gravitation, says that information is lost in a black hole, but QM, our theory of matter, says it can't be. The view of people like Hawking and Penrose used to be that for all we know, in some fundamental theory of quantum gravity, information can be lost in precisely the way that GR predicts. Other physicists, such as Susskind, argued that if you let some information go missing some of the time, then everything goes out of the window.

There is no 'accepted' solution to the information paradox (so far as I know), although many physicists do now agree that QM must be right--information cannot be lost. But nobody agrees on the proposed solution. Hawking's solution is one of many proposals.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Hawking, pls.

 

[Zeus Molecules]

Am I the only one confused by the idea of "information" being referred to as something that can be destroyed by a black hole? Like I could wrap my head around objects, radiation, light, and fuck it even radio waves..... but "information" as just "information" are we talking about Black holes destroying thoughts?

 

[Nev]

Wrong thread.

 

[Ganzlinger]

So this is how you scientifically explain magic.

 

[Any Questions]

Am chucking over here

 

[DistortionOfReality]

Are we seriously at the point where it's 'cool' to hate Hawking?

'Hack' 'Fraud' .... Whatever way you try and spin it the man is a genius who has put forth several widely accept theories on the origins and mechanics of both black holes and time.

 

[Beaniedude]

Am I the only one confused by the idea of "information" being referred to as something that can be destroyed by a black hole? Like I could wrap my head around objects, radiation, light, and fuck it even radio waves..... but "information" as just "information" are we talking about Black holes destroying thoughts?

Think of information more as the ability to inform something.

If I take a photo of an apple, the photo tells us that there once was an apple there. If that photo is destroyed, that information is destroyed.

Hawking proposes that as objects fall into black holes they leave behind an 'afterimage' on the event horizon.

This afterimage is your photo.

However due to the properties of the event horizon the only thing that can escape are because of quantum mechanical processes.

And due to the random nature of quantum mechanical processes the afterimage, or photo, is destroyed.

There is no way to piece it back together to see that it once was a photo of an apple and hence that an apple existed.


At least that's my understanding.

 

[Orbis Tabula]

Am I the only one confused by the idea of "information" being referred to as something that can be destroyed by a black hole? Like I could wrap my head around objects, radiation, light, and fuck it even radio waves..... but "information" as just "information" are we talking about Black holes destroying thoughts?

As far as I understand it (and I very much have a layman's understanding) think about "information" in this sense as properties. Like particles and things have properties like spin, charge, and other physical quantities that define how they behave. Once a particle falls into a black hole, if information is destroyed, that means that it's impossible to look at the black hole and work out the properties of the particle that fell in. If information is not destroyed, that means it would theoretically be possible to figure it out. General relativity says information is destroyed in a black hole. Quantum Mechanics says information cannot be destroyed. These two things have both been correct pretty much every time we used them to predict stuff, so it's concerning when they disagree because it means we don't have the full picture.

Again, as a disclaimer, physics is a hobby for me, not my field. If anyone else has a better answer, I'd gladly defer to their expertise.

 

[Zeus Molecules]

Think of information more as the ability to inform something.

If I take a photo of an apple, the photo tells us that there once was an apple there. If that photo is destroyed, that information is destroyed.

Hawking proposes that as objects fall into black holes they leave behind an 'afterimage' on the event horizon.

This afterimage is your photo.

However due to the properties of the event horizon the only thing that can escape are because of quantum mechanical processes.

And due to the random nature of quantum mechanical processes the afterimage, or photo, is destroyed.

There is no way to piece it back together to see that it once was a photo of an apple and hence that an apple existed.


At least that's my understanding.

As far as I understand it (and I very much have a layman's understanding) think about "information" in this sense as properties. Like particles and things have properties like spin, charge, and other physical quantities that define how they behave. Once a particle falls into a black hole, if information is destroyed, that means that it's impossible to look at the black hole and work out the properties of the particle that fell in. If information is not destroyed, that means it would theoretically be possible to figure it out. General relativity says information is destroyed in a black hole. Quantum Mechanics says information cannot be destroyed. These two things have both been correct pretty much every time we used them to predict stuff, so it's concerning when they disagree because it means we don't have the full picture.

Again, as a disclaimer, physics is a hobby for me, not my field. If anyone else has a better answer, I'd gladly defer to their expertise.

So he is saying blackholes leave behind quantum crumbs that infer something was there but you won't be able to tell what exactly?

 

[marrec]

Am I the only one confused by the idea of "information" being referred to as something that can be destroyed by a black hole? Like I could wrap my head around objects, radiation, light, and fuck it even radio waves..... but "information" as just "information" are we talking about Black holes destroying thoughts?

You can think of "information" as the all the literal physical information of a particle of matter. It's position, spin, speed and etc at any given time.

When a particle falls into a black hole, general relativity says that the information of that particle is necessarily destroyed. Quantum theory tells us, though, that the information of a particle can never be destroyed. Physicists were keen to ignore this paradox because the nature of a black holes singularity was at the extreme edges of physics. Perhaps there was some solution that would present itself. This came to a head when Hawking proposed a theory of Black Hole radiation that could only be explained if information about the radiated particle were destroyed. The mechanical process behind Hawking Radiation is generally accepted... but so is the idea of information retention in quantum mechanics, thus the paradox.

So he is saying blackholes leave behind quantum crumbs that infer something was there but you won't be able to tell what exactly?

To use your analogy:

He wants to have his informational cake, and for the black hole to eat it too.

He says the information is preserved by the holographic principle but goes further than Susskind to say that it is effectively destroyed when radiated. However "effectively" is not "actually".

 

[Azih]

So... trying to understand 'information' here... what is the difference between the information about the physical state of an object and the physical object itself?

Really simply though

Quantum Mechanics sez the information about the physical state of the object isn't destroyed in a black hole

General Relativity sez it is

Hawking says the information instead gets stuck on the Event Horizon and can even escape through Hawking radiation but it's all messed up.

I'd like to see what kind of experiment they devise from the new theory.

 

[Rabbi_Vole]

I bet we roll up on a black hole in a few years and it's nothing like this.

 

[twobear]

I bet we roll up on a black hole in a few years and it's nothing like this.

We couldn't possibly know. That's the whole point.