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Physicists come close to resolving the black hole information paradox (2020)

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Physicists come close to resolving the black hole information paradox (2020)

#11

Post by tasty_freeze »

svachalek wrote: post #6
daveslash wrote: post #2

Clicked this thinking it was about the double slit experiment observer-effect. Maybe that's not exactly a paradox, but I still can't wrap my head around it.

I don't think anyone fully has their head around wave-particle duality. There are many different interpretations and as I understand it none of them (or none of the major ones) are even falsifiable. My gut says though, that the main problem is probably thinking it is ever possible to be outside the experiment.

> I don't think anyone fully has their head around wave-particle duality.

Other than taking enough physics to get a EE degree, I don't know physics. One explanation I've heard from a physicist appeals to me. He said something like:

All the confusion about wave/particle duality is because we explain physics in terms of intuitions we have in our daily lives. Sometimes the analogy that is most convenient is to use a wave metaphor, and sometimes the best analogy is to use a particle metaphor ... but in both cases it is neither particle nor wave.

Re: Physicists come close to resolving the black hole information paradox (2020)

#13

Post by joe-collins »

svachalek wrote: post #6
daveslash wrote: post #2

Clicked this thinking it was about the double slit experiment observer-effect. Maybe that's not exactly a paradox, but I still can't wrap my head around it.

I don't think anyone fully has their head around wave-particle duality. There are many different interpretations and as I understand it none of them (or none of the major ones) are even falsifiable. My gut says though, that the main problem is probably thinking it is ever possible to be outside the experiment.

I'm at the same level of partial knowledge where I agree with you. My understanding is that everything in the universe interferes with everything else, but we assume, with some justification and empirical success, that the impact of sufficiently distant or indirect effects is negligible. That's demonstrably close to true for systems of a certain small size or complexity, but it doesn't seem remarkable to me that the assumption might fall apart with a wider perspective.

Re: Physicists come close to resolving the black hole information paradox (2020)

#14

Post by wrycoder »

> Particle by particle, the information needed to reconstitute your body will reemerge.

No. What might emerge are hydrogen molecules (following quark confinement, free neutron decay, chemistry, etc.). The "information" to "reconstitute" the unfortunate astronaut's body is diffused forever.

Why do people write this stuff?

For that matter, try this wild speculation: Lenny Susskind, "Dear Quibitzers" GR=QM[0], in which he reifys[1] his toy models and carries on as if they were (almost) objective reality.

He's a professor at Stanford. I'm reminded of Pauli's remark, "Your theory is crazy. But is it crazy enough?" It seems that a physicist can say almost anything these days.

[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.03040 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)

Re: Physicists come close to resolving the black hole information paradox (2020)

#15

Post by Jerry2 »

Dr Sabine Hossenfelder explained why this is all just an an illusion:

>What’s going to happen with this new solution? Most likely, someone’s going to find a problem with it, and everyone will continue working on their own solution. Indeed, there’s a good chance that by the time this video appears this has already happened. For me, the real paradox is why they keep doing it. I guess they do it because they have been told so often this is a big problem that they believe if they solve it they’ll be considered geniuses. But of course their colleagues will never agree that they solved the problem to begin with. So by all chances, half a year from now you’ll see another headline claiming that the problem has been solved.

>And that’s why I stopped working on the black hole information loss paradox. Not because it’s unsolvable. But because you can’t solve this problem with mathematics alone, and experiments are not possible, not now and probably not in the next 10000 years.

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/04/i-stopped-working-o...

Re: Physicists come close to resolving the black hole information paradox (2020)

#16

Post by krastanov »

Jerry2 wrote: post #15

Dr Sabine Hossenfelder explained why this is all just an an illusion: > What’s going to happen with this new solution? Most likely, someone’s going to find a problem with it, and everyone will continue working on their own solution. Indeed, there’s a good chance that by the time this video appears this has already happened. For me, the real paradox is why they keep doing it. I guess they do it because they have been…

This sounds quite unreasonably defeatist. That argument (can not be solved without an experiment) can be made for pretty much anything, but it has a few counterexamples in physics, and many more in math and theoretical computer science.

Re: Physicists come close to resolving the black hole information paradox (2020)

#17

Post by akomtu »

svachalek wrote: post #6
daveslash wrote: post #2

Clicked this thinking it was about the double slit experiment observer-effect. Maybe that's not exactly a paradox, but I still can't wrap my head around it.

I don't think anyone fully has their head around wave-particle duality. There are many different interpretations and as I understand it none of them (or none of the major ones) are even falsifiable. My gut says though, that the main problem is probably thinking it is ever possible to be outside the experiment.

MWI and pilot-wave are decent explanations. The effect, by itself, isn't mind bending; its verification is.

Re: Physicists come close to resolving the black hole information paradox (2020)

#18

Post by tidenly »

krastanov wrote: post #16
Jerry2 wrote: post #15

Dr Sabine Hossenfelder explained why this is all just an an illusion: > What’s going to happen with this new solution? Most likely, someone’s going to find a problem with it, and everyone will continue working on their own solution. Indeed, there’s a good chance that by the time this video appears this has already happened. For me, the real paradox is why they keep doing it. I guess they do it because they have been…

This sounds quite unreasonably defeatist. That argument (can not be solved without an experiment) can be made for pretty much anything, but it has a few counterexamples in physics, and many more in math and theoretical computer science.

How can that argument be made for pretty much anything?

I thought Sabines point is that the measurements required to confirm the theory aren't possible, so it's largely lots of money and time going into pointless speculation right now - even if you find the right solution you have no means to test it.

Mathematics you can make your own proofs on paper, physics is not the same.

Re: Physicists come close to resolving the black hole information paradox (2020)

#19

Post by ithkuil »

nomel wrote: post #7
ithkuil wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The easiest way to wrap your head around is to: 1. Abandon for a moment the idea that we are special 2. Imagine what the most simplified agent that "experiences" things would look like. For example a simple machine that observed am experiment and reduces it into a simple "do I see interference bands or do I see only one band?" and records it to some simple memory. 3. Let the wave in superposition interact with the ma…

> observed am experiment > Let the wave in superposition interact with the machine This is the key point right, that an observation cannot be made without a very real, physical, interaction, that necessarily influences the thing being observed?

No, it's even more bind bending: the observation influences the observer!
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