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Hawking revises black hole thinking - The Guardian, July 15, 2004
Cosmologist Stephen Hawking has made a last minute request to present a paper revising one of his most famous theories at a scientific conference in Ireland next week. The esoteric world of astrophysics is agog to hear what he now has to say about black holes - and an American physicist is hoping to collect on a long-standing bet he and Professor Hawking made over the issue.
After nearly 30 years of arguing that a black hole destroys everything that falls into it, Professor Hawking now says he was wrong and that black holes may, after all, allow information within them to escape, reported New Scientist. In 1976 he 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.
So the organisers of the 17th international conference on general relativity and gravitation in Dublin next week were intrigued to get a last minute request from the Cambridge physicist to give his latest thinking on the problem, and immediately gave him an hour's slot on Wednesday.
"He sent a note saying: 'I have solved the black hole information paradox and I want to talk about it,'" 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 Professor Hawking at Cambridge University, where he outlined his new findings. "It's possible that what he presented in the seminar is a solution. But I think you have to say the jury is still out," he said.
The author of the unlikely 5 million bestseller A Brief History of Time will now argue that black holes never quite shut themselves off completely and, as they emit more heat, they eventually open up and release information. Professor Hawking, who is almost entirely paralysed and confined to a wheelchair as a result of motor neurone disease, has become a popular icon of the "brainy scientist", with his trademark voice synthesiser, among many who do not have a clue what he is talking about.
If he succeeds in making the case for his new hypothesis on black holes, then her stands to lose a bet with John Preskill, of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), that "information swallowed by a black hole is forever hidden, and can never be revealed".
Professor Preskill told New Scientist: "Since Stephen has changed his view and now believes that black holes do not destroy information, I expect him to concede the bet." His winnings? An encyclopaedia of his choice "from which information can be recovered at will".
Cosmologist Stephen Hawking has made a last minute request to present a paper revising one of his most famous theories at a scientific conference in Ireland next week. The esoteric world of astrophysics is agog to hear what he now has to say about black holes - and an American physicist is hoping to collect on a long-standing bet he and Professor Hawking made over the issue.
After nearly 30 years of arguing that a black hole destroys everything that falls into it, Professor Hawking now says he was wrong and that black holes may, after all, allow information within them to escape, reported New Scientist. In 1976 he 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.
So the organisers of the 17th international conference on general relativity and gravitation in Dublin next week were intrigued to get a last minute request from the Cambridge physicist to give his latest thinking on the problem, and immediately gave him an hour's slot on Wednesday.
"He sent a note saying: 'I have solved the black hole information paradox and I want to talk about it,'" 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 Professor Hawking at Cambridge University, where he outlined his new findings. "It's possible that what he presented in the seminar is a solution. But I think you have to say the jury is still out," he said.
The author of the unlikely 5 million bestseller A Brief History of Time will now argue that black holes never quite shut themselves off completely and, as they emit more heat, they eventually open up and release information. Professor Hawking, who is almost entirely paralysed and confined to a wheelchair as a result of motor neurone disease, has become a popular icon of the "brainy scientist", with his trademark voice synthesiser, among many who do not have a clue what he is talking about.
If he succeeds in making the case for his new hypothesis on black holes, then her stands to lose a bet with John Preskill, of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), that "information swallowed by a black hole is forever hidden, and can never be revealed".
Professor Preskill told New Scientist: "Since Stephen has changed his view and now believes that black holes do not destroy information, I expect him to concede the bet." His winnings? An encyclopaedia of his choice "from which information can be recovered at will".
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