Black hole paradox that stumped Stephen Hawking may have a solution, new paper claims

Nothing is supposed to escape a black hole’s event horizon — yet new research suggests it may secretly leak information. That leakage would appear in subtle signatures in gravitational waves, and now we know how to look for them, the study authors say.

In 1976, Stephen Hawking rocked the astrophysics world with his discovery that black holes aren’t entirely black. Instead, they emit tiny amounts of radiation and, given enough time, can give off so much that they disappear entirely. But this introduced a massive problem. Information flows into black holes as they consume matter, and that information can’t escape. But Hawking radiation doesn’t carry any information with it. So what happens to it when the black hole disappears?

Related Content

James Webb’s Big Year for Cosmology

The Realty behind the wave function and Relativity

A fan of Einstein’s work? This is the book for you.

Leave a Comment