I wanted to slowly ease our way into the topic of black holes, one of the most intriguing and mysterious objects of the universe that's been the subject of debate for decades. But famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking's newly published paper about black holes shocked the world on Sunday - it would be a shame not to talk about it, so i apologize for jumping ahead!
In his four-page paper titled "Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting for Black Holes" published through ArXiv.org, an archive for electronic preprints of scientific papers, Hawking causes a string of contradictions by revising the very view that gave rise to his reputation. Instead of being lost forever, he now claims that matter that fall into black holes can indeed come back out!
Dr. Stephen Hawking shocks the world again with his latest revelations on black holes.
In his four-page paper titled "Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting for Black Holes" published through ArXiv.org, an archive for electronic preprints of scientific papers, Hawking causes a string of contradictions by revising the very view that gave rise to his reputation. Instead of being lost forever, he now claims that matter that fall into black holes can indeed come back out!
This is a lot to take in, I know.
Let me try to paint a picture for you here - our galaxy, the Milky Way, and the billions of galaxies beyond ours, are scattered with giant, scary vortexes weaved into the fabric of the universe that act as eternal vacuums, called black holes. A black hole forms when a very massive star collapses and dies. It implodes and sucks in everything around it that crosses the point of no return, called the event horizon. Nothing, not even light, can escape. In theory, only stuff that travels faster than the speed of light can escape (nothing does, to human knowledge) and information that disappeared inside a black hole is lost forever. Simply put, you do not want to leave your car keys near a black hole.
An artist's interpretation of a massive black hole.
HOWEVER, in Hawking's new eyebrow-raising statement, he's suggesting that things that fall into these dense radiation whirlpools CAN actually escape. Instead of a well-defined point of no return ("event horizon"), Hawking claims that these massive vortexes have chaotic and turbulent edges that fluctuate greatly ("apparent horizons"), and anything that falls in will be fired back out in a scrambled, unrecognized form.
Relief for astronauts, I guess. Not really.
In summary - black holes do exist, but they might be gray after all. This was a lot for me to take in as Hawking's classic black hole theory laid the foundation for my understanding of these extraterrestrial objects. It must be 100 times harder for Hawking to come out and admit that he's been wrong. But pride aside, they're all theories for now until the day we go out there and come across a black hole face to face. But hey, now there's a chance we can make it back out alive to tell the story.
Relief for astronauts, I guess. Not really.
A computer-generated illustration of a black hole consuming nearby gas clouds and matter.
In summary - black holes do exist, but they might be gray after all. This was a lot for me to take in as Hawking's classic black hole theory laid the foundation for my understanding of these extraterrestrial objects. It must be 100 times harder for Hawking to come out and admit that he's been wrong. But pride aside, they're all theories for now until the day we go out there and come across a black hole face to face. But hey, now there's a chance we can make it back out alive to tell the story.
