Incomprehensible information

[neufer]

Stephen Hawking Says No Black Holes Exist
by Brent Matsalla on January 25, 2014.

<<Stephen Hawking is the most famous living scientist in the world and he gained much of his notoriety from the bizarre space objects known as “black holes.” Now Hawking is saying that no black holes exist in our universe.

A black hole is a theory from physicists that regions of space and time in our universe can become so dense that nothing can escape their grasp including light. The density increases until the huge gravity of a black hole eventually generates what is known as an “event horizon.” Stephen Hawking then took those theories and applied quantum mechanics to black holes back in 1974. Hawking’s point of view sparked much controversy in the scientific community and that controversy still continues today.

Generally, quantum mechanics does not play well with any other grand theories of general relativity or physics. It is even more complicated when combined in situations where both of the grand theories are relevant. When the quantum mechanics was applied to the theory of black holes, Hawking was able to determine that black holes are not actually black. However, what Hawking did find is that the phenomena will emit radiation in small quantities that would cause them to eventually shrink and evaporate.>>

More here: http://guardianlv.com/2014/01/stephen-h ... les-exist/

[geckzilla]

I liked Universe Today's article on this. Guardian LV fails to even link to the original paper.
http://www.universetoday.com/108561/bla ... not-quite/

I can't help but wonder once again what a black hole might look like up close. It is one of those tantalizing but unknowable things.

[Chris Peterson]

I can't help but wonder once again what a black hole might look like up close. It is one of those tantalizing but unknowable things.

There are some excellent simulations that almost certainly show what a black hole looks like up close. Not a lot of doubt about that. It's what it looks like really close that isn't certain: from the event horizon inwards. That's not something unknowable, although if you learn about it first hand, it's probably not teachable.

[geckzilla]

I think the simulations very likely provide a reasonable idea of how a black hole looks in the same way that a model of a dinosaur provides a reasonable representation of what it looked like when it was alive. They both satisfy a certain amount of curiosity but the longing to see a real one remains.

One thing confuses me about Stephen's idea here: No event horizon means what? Would this make it visible in some odd way? Another thing I have wondered is if Hawking radiation means a black hole could glow slightly. Maybe not visually but at least in some detectable way with an instrument.

[Ann]

Information is not lost, just incomprehensible. I like it. It would be like pushing the complete works of William Shakespeare down a black hole and getting it back completely scrambled up, with the letters broken down into quarks and then rearranged into strings, Hawking radiation, a few runaway molecules from leather and straw, a whiff of charm from Oxford, a few escaped pensive positrons and some gluons getting unglued.

Ann

[Beyond]

Information is not lost, just incomprehensible. I like it. It would be like pushing the complete works of William Shakespeare down a black hole and getting it back completely scrambled up, with the letters broken down into quarks and then rearranged into strings, Hawking radiation, a few runaway molecules from leather and straw, a whiff of charm from Oxford, a few escaped pensive positrons and some gluons getting unglued.

Ann

The first link you give, I'm not sure. But i think you nailed it with the second link

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Information is not lost, just incomprehensible. I like it. It would be like pushing the complete works of William Shakespeare down a black hole and getting it back completely scrambled up, with the letters broken down into quarks and then rearranged into strings, Hawking radiation, a few runaway molecules from leather and straw, a whiff of charm from Oxford, a few escaped pensive positrons and some gluons getting unglued.

The first link you give, I'm not sure. But i think you nailed it with the second link

[MargaritaMc]

NATURE: Stephen Hawking: 'There are no black holes'

Notion of an 'event horizon', from which nothing can escape, is incompatible with quantum theory, physicist claims.

Zeeya Merali

24 January 2014



Most physicists foolhardy enough to write a paper claiming that “there are no black holes” — at least not in the sense we usually imagine — would probably be dismissed as cranks. But when the call to redefine these cosmic crunchers comes from Stephen Hawking, it’s worth taking notice. In a paper posted online, the physicist, based at the University of Cambridge, UK, and one of the creators of modern black-hole theory, does away with the notion of an event horizon, the invisible boundary thought to shroud every black hole, beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape.

In its stead, Hawking’s radical proposal is a much more benign “apparent horizon”, which only temporarily holds matter and energy prisoner before eventually releasing them, albeit in a more garbled form.

“There is no escape from a black hole in classical theory,” Hawking told Nature. Quantum theory, however, “enables energy and information to escape from a black hole”. A full explanation of the process, the physicist admits, would require a theory that successfully merges gravity with the other fundamental forces of nature. But that is a goal that has eluded physicists for nearly a century. “The correct treatment,” Hawking says, “remains a mystery.”

Hawking posted his paper on the arXiv preprint server on 22 January*. He titled it, whimsically, 'Information preservation and weather forecasting for black holes', and it has yet to pass peer review. The paper was based on a talk he gave via Skype at a meeting at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, California, in August 2013.

Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2014.14583

More here: http://www.nature.com/news/stephen-hawk ... es-1.14583


* http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.5761 Information preservation and weather forecasting for black holes. S.W. Hawking

New Scientist

The Independent

[neufer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A02NfC3bnYM&t=15m06s

[MargaritaMc]

http://astrobites.org/2014/01/31/inform ... ack-holes/

[neufer]

Thursday, January 30, 2014
If it quacks like a black hole

<<Unless you’ve been sitting in a white hole, you probably read somewhere that Stephen Hawking now claims black holes don’t exist. I was about to close my eyes and let this wave of media nonsense pass over me, but even my mother asks what that’s supposed to mean. So here is the brief explanation.

It is often said that a black hole is defined by the presence of an event horizon. The event horizon is the boundary of a region from which no information can escape, ever. The relevant word to pay attention to here is “ever”. The event horizon is a mathematically well-defined property of space-time, but it’s a mathematical construct entirely. You would have to wait literally till the end of time to find out whether an event horizon really is an event horizon in the sense of this definition.

Instead of the event horizon physicists thus often talk about the apparent horizon. The apparent horizon is, roughly, something that looks like an event horizon for a finite amount of time. Since all we can ever measure of anything can be done only in finite times it’s the apparent horizon that we ask for, look for, and observe.>>

More here.

Yes, Virginia, Black Holes Exist!

[MargaritaMc]

Michigan State University:
PLUGGING THE HOLE IN HAWKING'S BLACK HOLE THEORY

March 24, 2014

Recently physicists have been poking holes again in Stephen Hawking’s black hole theory – including Hawking himself. For decades physicists across the globe have been trying to figure out the mysteries of black holes – those fascinating monstrous entities that have such intense gravitational pull that nothing – not even light – can escape from them. Now Professor Chris Adami, Michigan State University, has jumped into the fray.

The debate about the behavior of black holes, which has been ongoing since 1975, was reignited when Hawking posted a blog on Jan. 22, 2014, stating that event horizons – the invisible boundaries of black holes – do not exist.
...

One of the many perplexities is a decades-old debate about what happens to information – matter or energy and their characteristics at the atomic and subatomic level – in black holes. ... Now Adami believes he’s solved it.
...
The solution, Adami says, is that the information is contained in the stimulated emission of radiation, which must accompany the Hawking radiation – the glow that makes a black hole not so black. Stimulated emission makes the black hole glow in the information that it swallowed.

“Stimulated emission is the physical process behind LASERS (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). Basically, it works like a copy machine: you throw something into the machine, and two identical somethings come out.

“If you throw information at a black hole, just before it is swallowed, the black hole first makes a copy that is left outside. This copying mechanism was discovered by Albert Einstein in 1917, and without it, physics cannot be consistent,” Adami said.

More at:
http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2014/plugg ... -theory-1/

The study was co-authored by Greg Ver Steeg, University of Southern California and is published online in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.*

*http://iopscience.iop.org/0264-9381/31/7/075015/
Open Access
Classical information transmission capacity of quantum black holes
Christoph Adami and Greg Ver Steeg

[THX1138]

For the purposes of this post we have a 1000 solar mass black hole

#1 Information is lost forever once it’s passes the event horizon
#2 Not so says / said Mr. Hawking, as per Hawking radiation eventually it will return

Is there not another way for this information to return?

What of this black hole ( while it’s feeding ) consuming mater at a higher rate than it can
Accomplish and thereby some matter is being ejected at it’s poles ( This only being possible because that matter which is being ejected had never passed the event horizon, as per Chris Peterson.
And for the purposes of this scenario, right then a 500 solar mass star barrels into the black hole at flank speed, or a 1000 mass star if needed? Nonetheless certainly playing havoc with the thing if not destroying the black hole all together. The information lost forever within it is back now !
No ?

[Chris Peterson]

What of this black hole ( while it’s feeding ) consuming mater at a higher rate than it can

What does that mean? There's no limit on how fast a black hole can consume material. There may be external conditions that limit the rate matter flows, but they are just that... external.

And for the purposes of this scenario, right then a 500 solar mass star barrels into the black hole at flank speed, or a 1000 mass star if needed? Nonetheless certainly playing havoc with the thing if not destroying the black hole all together.

Black holes do not, and cannot, be destroyed by collisions with other black holes. They simply coalesce and produce a more massive object. Such collisions are pretty well described by theory (and have been modeled), and are a primary source of gravity waves that interferometric detectors are looking for.

[THX1138]

Not with a black hole, with a burning live star

[Chris Peterson]

Not with a black hole, with a burning live star

If a black hole collides with a star, it will absorb some of that star's mass, some will go into orbit, and some will probably be ejected from the system, with the details sensitive to the initial conditions.

[THX1138]

Hmmmm but thank you
Ok a collision with a neutron star ?
A quasar ?
There must be / seems like there should be some way of taking one out

[geckzilla]

A black hole is a point of infinite density. Throwing anything at it is like throwing fluffy kittens at solid rock.

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

A black hole is a point of infinite density. Throwing anything at it is like throwing fluffy kittens at solid rock.

More like throwing fluffy kittens down a garbage disposal.

Analog Simulator

[THX1138]

Speculation, yes but………………
The entire universe sprang forth from a singularity, yes ?
So named the big bang
So something made it go POP

[Chris Peterson]

Speculation, yes but………………
The entire universe sprang forth from a singularity, yes ?
So named the big bang
So something made it go POP

A misconception based on human observational bias. There is really no compelling reason to believe that the Big Bang required a cause. There is no known universal law of cause and effect. We observe events that don't appear to require causes, such as radioactive decay and virtual particle formation. The Universe might have popped into being with nothing making it do so.

[Nitpicker]

If there was nothing before the big bang (no space or time) then it can be said with some certainty that nothing caused the big bang.

[Chris Peterson]

If there was nothing before the big bang (no space or time) then it can be said with some certainty that nothing caused the big bang. :ssmile:

That logic is very good. Of course, the rules of logic may not have existed before the non-existent before, either.

[Nitpicker]

If there was nothing before the big bang (no space or time) then it can be said with some certainty that nothing caused the big bang.

That logic is very good. Of course, the rules of logic may not have existed before the non-existent before, either.

Indeed. But there was no requirement for logic at that non-time. No real requirement for logic now, either, just desire (for logic).