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The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable

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Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable

#4

The recent discussions here on the article Dr Hossenfelder is sceptical about: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24940086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25092231

Note, however, her comment:

> This is why the headline that the black hole information loss problem is “coming to an end” is ridiculous. Though, let me mention that I know the author of the piece, George Musser, and he’s a decent guy and, the way this often goes, he didn’t choose the title.

She's against where the popular media wants to go with the article, and against the headline, but not so much against the article itself.

Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable

#5
For me, this was the money quote:

> The black hole information loss problem is not a math problem. It’s not like trying to prove the Riemann hypothesis. You cannot solve the black hole information loss problem with math alone. You need data, there is no data, and there won’t be any data. Which is why the black hole information loss problem is for all practical purposes unsolvable.

We lack experimental data. We lack a way to get experimental data. All we have is some beautiful mathematics. That's nice, but we don't know if it corresponds to reality. That's true of the paper under discussion, and it's true of all the other papers proposing solutions as well.

Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable

#6

For me, this was the money quote: > The black hole information loss problem is not a math problem. It’s not like trying to prove the Riemann hypothesis. You cannot solve the black hole information loss problem with math alone. You need data, there is no data, and there won’t be any data. Which is why the black hole information loss problem is for all practical purposes unsolvable. We lack experimental data. We lack a…

This is not a convincing argument. We may not have data, but as in other problems in physics we may have indirect ways to get evidence. These indirect ways may not be apparent nowadays, but may become in the future.

Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable

#7

For me, this was the money quote: > The black hole information loss problem is not a math problem. It’s not like trying to prove the Riemann hypothesis. You cannot solve the black hole information loss problem with math alone. You need data, there is no data, and there won’t be any data. Which is why the black hole information loss problem is for all practical purposes unsolvable. We lack experimental data. We lack a…

It leaves me wondering, is that data fundamentally impossible to collect, or do we just not know how yet? Sure, maybe the problem is unsolvable by math alone but that doesn't make it mathematically unsolvable. Maybe we could build or capture a black hole in the lab, put detectors all around it, and watch it evaporate, or something.

Re: The Black Hole information loss problem is unsolvable

#10
post #9

If it’s unsolvable then now what? What does it mean for humanity?

> These solutions are all mathematically consistent. We just don’t know which one of them is correct. And why is that? It’s because we cannot observe black hole evaporation.

> You need data, there is no data, and there won’t be any data. Which is why the black hole information loss problem is for all practical purposes unsolvable.

She didn't say it was inherently unsolvable, only that it was practically unsolvable. There's still the possibility that it could be solved with some other data that doesn't require observing black hole evaporation.

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