121–130 of 143 posts
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Quantum processes are described by Schrodinger's equation, that is a linear differential equation in time. Consequently, it's solutions for every possible boundary conditions are always reversible.
So if you could measure an atom precisely enough you could calculate exactly when it decayed from a heavier atom?
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Your sarcasm reflects back on you, as explained by my concurrent edit to my point, which I will repeat here: Occam's razor is not, as Wikipedia claims, a matter of "the simplest explanation is usually the right one": it is a matter of eliminating premises that are not explaining anything beyond what can already be explained. Your armchair "hypothesis" that, in about 1000 years, gravity will cease to function entirely…
Rather than delving into whether additional assumptions is related to the complexity of a theory, which I think is a largely pedantic debate, I think we don't disagree as much as you perceive. > not something that needs to be explained I agree, and I'm saying that Sabine is discounting the same tool that you used to reject my hypothesis. That is my point. If there is an explanation for BHIP that does not introduce an…
To put that aside and address your larger point, then if we had just one candidate that provides "an explanation for BHIP that does not introduce any new assumptions or very small assumptions to existing theory", then it would indeed be a plausible candidate explanation. That is not, however, the situation we are faced with: Hossenfelder's argument is that there are many equally plausible (and equally speculative) ways in which the paradox could be resolved (though none that "[do] not introduce any new assumptions or very small assumptions to existing theory"), with no prospect of us getting the data to choose between them (note that Hossenfelder is highly skeptical of choosing between theories on the basis of 'beauty', 'elegance' or other subjective distinctions[1]. As I explained above, Occam's razor is not in this category.)
As far as I know, this argument might fail if some data from a seemingly unrelated field supports just one of the candidate resolutions of the paradox. This might be the point you are trying to make, but if so, your "gravity might fail" analogy isn't helping, as we are not currently faced with multiple, equally-plausible theories of gravity, one of which will be preferred if gravity stops working in 1000 years (speculating that it might do so is neither an observation nor a theory of gravity, it's just speculation.)
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Math-Beauty-Physics-Astray/dp/04...
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Except that later Hawking came to the conclusion that black holes do have hairs.
> later Hawking came to the conclusion that black holes do have hairs Reference, please?
"Soft hair", so not exactly enough to resolve the information loss problem.
I don't fully understand the claim that all quantum processes are time-reversible. Aren't there a lot of spontaneous quantum phenomena that aren't?
There are "pure quantum evolution" processes (those described by unitary evolution of ket vector), such as atom sitting forever in its ground state or being in a superposition of different Hamiltonian eigenstates. Those are time-reversible. There are other processes which are not of such kind. Some people don't want to call those quantum processes, but they sure do have a prominent place in QM textbooks. For example…
Her frustration with the priorities of theoretical physics probably is justified, but in this case I disagree with @skdh. Her claim is that any solution for the BHIP cannot be falsified, and that strikes me as too pessimistic for two reasons. First, look at the results of pushing the theory harder with respect to spinning black holes. Many predictions of Kerr's theory have been observed, even if the ring singularity…
> and if black holes really do explode at the end of evaporation, then maybe that is also observable I suppose her reason to assume we can't observe this is that evaporation takes extremely long time. For example, a solar mass black hole will take about 10^64 years to evaporate [1] (this is approximately 7 * 10^54 times the age of the universe). Note that astronomical black holes are heavier than the Sun, so take eve…
You know, regular waves (and particles, as waves) go in to the black hole, Fourier-transformed waves (as Hawking Radiation, or whatever else goes out) come out of the black hole...
Now you see it... now you don't!
Hmm, not to go all crackpot or anything (but to go all crackpot! ), now that I think about it, it makes me wonder if disappearing sub-particles do that by Fourier-transforming themselves into smaller sub-particles(!) (as waves!), which then radiate outward in space (undetectably, because they're now multiple smaller/higher-energy particle/waves!) from the point at which they "disappeared" from!
If this crackpot theory is true (and let's not kid ourselves, it is a completely crackpot theory! ) then NO INFORMATION would ever be lost to the Universe, ever, basically, the Universe would just be doing a whole lot of Fourier Transforms (and Reverse Fourier Transforms!) in the background, all the time, at all particle sizes, but at different time scales relative to that particle size!
In fact, if a particle goes out of scope ("disappears") relative to a Fourier Transform, then perhaps Fourier Transforms are what also, equal-and-oppositely CREATE particles!
And all of this "creation" and "destruction" of particles -- would be at different beat FREQUENCIES relative to scale!
It also leads to a very weird question, which is:
What is the relationship of Gravity to the Fourier Transform?
And, Is Gravity itself just a Fourier Transform -- just at a specific scale?
Also, if Black Holes are Fourier Transforms -- maybe Suns and Stars are too -- just reverse or "Inverse" Fourier Transforms...
?
> And without data, the question is not which solution to the problem is correct, but which one you like best. I think this is correct to some extent, ultimately unavoidable, and some assumptions can be "inferred" as more reasonable than others, even in the absence of falsification. By Sabine's stance, the problem of induction [0] hasn't been "solved" because we actually have no reason to assume that past events are…
This is a problem with "philosophical" induction, not logical induction. I don't even know what it means "to believe in [philosophical] induction." Does it mean to believe that future things will behave like things similar to them in the past, except when they don't, in which case we made a mistake in thinking they were similar?
It's somewhat more fundamental than that: it's attacking the idea that experience can be used in any way. Not believing in inductive reasoning would mean being constantly surprised at everything you see, as it's theoretically just as likely that an object that you saw 1 second ago will disappear as it is that it will not. You would be surprised every day that the sun has risen again.
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So if you could measure an atom precisely enough you could calculate exactly when it decayed from a heavier atom?
Measuring things is kind of problematic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem
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You can believe what you like - science is not concerned with persuading every skeptic.
The point isn't skepticism of science, it's the recognition that something akin to Occam's Razor has to be used in theory, as there will always be an infinite number of unfalsifiable theories for any set of observations. In this context, Sabine is the skeptic of theory writ large. So many replies taking my argument to be the exact opposite of what it is.
Similarly, science need not, and will not, be hobbled by the "infinite number of unfalsifiable theories" that you raise.
In effect, science tables all these fanciful objections unless and until circumstances and evidence make them relevant. Scence is not metaphysics - it is not attempting to deduce how the world must be; it is trying to find out how it is, and so the sort of arguments that philosophers get entangled in (such as "possible worlds" arguments which ultimately reduce to what a given philosopher can imagine) don't carry much weight. This is not just "something akin" to Occam's razor; it is precisely that, and it is not a vague preference for "beauty" or "elegance".
Elsewhere, Hossenfelder made an insightful comment about falsifiability, along the lines that falsifiability is just table stakes for a hypothesis to make the grade as a theory, and not a guarantor of merit.
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I wonder how charge evaporates from a charged black hole? And does it do so at a rate that is different from the mass? i.e. does most of the mass evaporate away, and then the charge?
That seems to be an open question. Hawking radiation is not charged, but it also turns out that there is a maximum amount of charge a black hole of a given mass can have, and the lower the mass the lower the maximum allowed charge. So it would seem that a charged black hole would evaporate by Hawking radiation until it reached the point where any further mass loss would put it over the charge limit. Physicists don’t…
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/490524/evaporati...