Space & Astronomy

Hawking: there is a way out of a black hole

By T.K. Randall
August 25, 2015 ·  7 comments

A journey in to a black hole may not be a one-way trip after all. Image Credit: NASA / Alain Riazuelo It has long been accepted that anything that falls in to a black hole is never coming back - especially given that the gravitational forces involved are so great that not even light itself can escape.

Now however world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has put forward the notion that when something falls in to a black hole it might actually be possible for it to eventually emerge again.

Scientists had long speculated over precisely what happens when matter enters a black hole. On one hand quantum mechanics states that the information cannot be destroyed while on the other general relativity implies that it must be. This conundrum is known as the information paradox.

"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," Hawking said during a conference in Stockholm yesterday.This information could then be picked up and emitted back out of the black hole through Hawking radiation - a phenomena through which photons are emitted due to quantum fluctuations.

This would not only provide a way for something to escape a black hole but would also provide a solution to the information paradox that has perplexed scientists for so long.

That said however any information emitted from a black hole would be pretty much useless.

"The information about ingoing particles is returned, but in a chaotic and useless form," said Hawking. "This resolves the information paradox. For all practical purposes, the information is lost."


Source: New Scientist | Comments (7)

Tags: Black Hole, Stephen Hawking