Stephen Hawking's final scientific paper illuminates the black hole information paradox

[Judi Lynn]

By Ephrat Livni
41 minutes ago

Scientists have long been stumped by a single riddle—the black hole information paradox.

It asks what happens to matter that’s swallowed into a black hole in space. Where does the information about the previously existent stuff go when matter “disappears” into a hole? Is it possible that it’s irretrievably lost? Or is it stored somewhere, and if so, wouldn’t this make one black hole distinct from another?

Now, they believe they may know, or at least that they may have clues to solving this riddle. In a paper by colleagues of cosmologist Stephen Hawking, called “Black hole entropy and soft hair” uploaded to the arXiv preprint server on Oct. 3 and updated on Oct. 9, researchers from Cambridge University in the UK and Harvard University in the US discuss their work with the legendary scientist just before he died last March. They argue that information about matter is stored in “soft hairs” on the event horizon of a black hole.

Hair wars
Black holes are places in space that we can’t see but know exist because of the effect they exert on nearby stars. In these places matter is intensely compressed and gravity’s pull is so strong that even light can’t escape. These mysterious holes raise a lot of questions and have led to a scientific war of sorts.

More:
https://qz.com/1420737/stephen-hawkings-final-scientific-paper-illuminates-the-black-hole-information-paradox/

[SCantiGOP]

1. We lost a lot of information

When Professor Hawking departed this life.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. So, why can't the information just be lost?