Home » Technology » Do black holes have ‘hair’ after all, and is that the solution to Stephen Hawking’s information paradox?

Do black holes have ‘hair’ after all, and is that the solution to Stephen Hawking’s information paradox?

What’s the problem? Einstein’s general theory of relativity says that information about what goes into a black hole cannot get out of that black hole.

It has been shown that hawking radiation does not contain information about the particle of the pair that disappeared in the black hole, and if the hawking radiation does not provide information, it means that all information that disappears into a black hole stays there forever.

However, that is a problem for quantum field theory, in which a fundamental law says that any process can be mathematically reversed, meaning that information cannot be irretrievably lost.

Information may be horribly jumbled or remain locked in a black hole forever, as long as that black hole continues to exist, the information is still out there somewhere in the universe.

But since hawking radiation does not bring out any information from the black hole and causes the black hole to disappear completely, with all the information it contains, that is a violation of the law of the conservation of information. And so there would be something wrong with general relativity or with quantum mechanics.

There have been many attempts to reconcile hawking training with the information retention law, but none so far have been quite satisfactory (and some attempts have even created additional problems).

But now four physicists say they have found a solution to the problem.

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