Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper: How to Escape from a Black Hole
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Re: Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper: How to Escape from a Black Hole
#2This was so difficult for me to understand because the author tried _so hard_ to make this sound poetic.
Here's what I got..
- For a long time we thought that any information (matter/light) that goes into a blackhole is lost forever and is "corrupted".
- Hawking believed this for a long time and said “God not only plays dice, but he often throws them where they can’t be seen." No one really knows _how_ the blackhole actually "corrupted" the information but had some nutty theories.
- 30 years later (in 2004) Hawking changed his mind and said that information can actually be retrieved from a blackhole.
- A dude named Andrew Strominger recently discovered that black holes have this "soft hair" property that can be "read" to theoretically "see" what is inside the blackhole.
- Hawkings last paper says that he thinks the information inside will be re-emitted when the black hole evaporates.
TL;DR: Hawking for a long time thought matter/information that went into a blackhole was lost forever - and then changed his mind about it.
Re: Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper: How to Escape from a Black Hole
#3I wish I could understand the minds of these people. They lived with us and yet they are so much ahead in the comprehension of the universe. I've always loved science, I chose to do computers in the end though. I don't understand a single world of the abstract.
I also wish I could just know what people in a thousand years learn about the universe. It seems like the knowledge we gain (science and technology) is exponential and just started a few years ago.
It also feels like this contribution is so cool, even more seeing that Hawking is sharing it with us things after dying somehow.
Re: Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper: How to Escape from a Black Hole
#4If you want to dive in, I believe this is the right arxiv link https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.01847
Re: Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper: How to Escape from a Black Hole
#5I wish I could understand the minds of these people. They lived with us and yet they are so much ahead in the comprehension of the universe. I've always loved science, I chose to do computers in the end though. I don't understand a single world of the abstract. I also wish I could just know what people in a thousand years learn about the universe. It seems like the knowledge we gain (science and technology) is expone…
I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. Sure, being a programmer and being Stephen Hawking are two very different things, but we still take an occasional dip in the ocean of abstract thinking when working deeply on complex, generalized problems in programming.
One person's mundane work is another person's magical wizardry.
Also, unfortunately there's no evidence that I know of that our knowledge is going to continue growing at an exponential pace. It seems an equally plausible hypothesis that we're reaching a plateu that may last for quite a length of time.
(But... I personally have my hopes up that we'll be doing Star Trek style space exploration within the next millennium!)
Re: Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper: How to Escape from a Black Hole
#6I wish I could understand the minds of these people. They lived with us and yet they are so much ahead in the comprehension of the universe. I've always loved science, I chose to do computers in the end though. I don't understand a single world of the abstract. I also wish I could just know what people in a thousand years learn about the universe. It seems like the knowledge we gain (science and technology) is expone…
I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. Sure, being a programmer and being Stephen Hawking are two very different things, but we still take an occasional dip in the ocean of abstract thinking when working deeply on complex, generalized problems in programming. One person's mundane work is another person's magical wizardry. Also, unfortunately there's no evidence that I know of that our knowledge is going…
> One person's mundane work is another person's magical wizardry.
Absolutely. Sometimes I get excited about a topic and try to learn as much as possible, but once you peek behind the curtain it's just as mundane as anything else.
Most of the time an abstract is hard to understand because the concepts have been abstracted. If you just break it down and pick it apart, it's not hard to understand, though it can be time consuming depending on what you already know.
Re: Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper: How to Escape from a Black Hole
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. Sure, being a programmer and being Stephen Hawking are two very different things, but we still take an occasional dip in the ocean of abstract thinking when working deeply on complex, generalized problems in programming. One person's mundane work is another person's magical wizardry. Also, unfortunately there's no evidence that I know of that our knowledge is going…
> One person's mundane work is another person's magical wizardry. Absolutely. Sometimes I get excited about a topic and try to learn as much as possible, but once you peek behind the curtain it's just as mundane as anything else. Most of the time an abstract is hard to understand because the concepts have been abstracted. If you just break it down and pick it apart, it's not hard to understand, though it can be time…
I'm tempted to believe that cosmology and astrophysics are the exception to that rule.
Re: Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper: How to Escape from a Black Hole
#8I get that Hawking's work is incredible and that he, himself, is an amazing person. But is his work really worth putting him on the same pedestal as Newton?
Re: Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper: How to Escape from a Black Hole
#9This was so difficult for me to understand because the author tried _so hard_ to make this sound poetic. Here's what I got.. - For a long time we thought that any information (matter/light) that goes into a blackhole is lost forever and is "corrupted". - Hawking believed this for a long time and said “God not only plays dice, but he often throws them where they can’t be seen." No one really knows _how_ the blackhole…
Isn’t that What he called Hawking radiation? Didn’t think it was news at this point.
It’s funny how we talk of information “not being lost” since it’s emitted as radiation... would we be able to decypher anything? If not, it’s still lost.
Re: Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper: How to Escape from a Black Hole
#10This was so difficult for me to understand because the author tried _so hard_ to make this sound poetic. Here's what I got.. - For a long time we thought that any information (matter/light) that goes into a blackhole is lost forever and is "corrupted". - Hawking believed this for a long time and said “God not only plays dice, but he often throws them where they can’t be seen." No one really knows _how_ the blackhole…
Isn’t that What he called Hawking radiation? Didn’t think it was news at this point. It’s funny how we talk of information “not being lost” since it’s emitted as radiation... would we be able to decypher anything? If not, it’s still lost.
Hawking Radiation, in its original form, did not allow anyone to learn the quantum information about what went into the black hole — if it was made entirely of photons; or entirely of antimatter; or made of any mix of photons, normal matter, and antimatter… all would be indistinguishable.
What’s news is that it isn’t all lost, that the starting state has any influence at all on what comes out. I am only an enthusiastic amateur at this, but I get the impression this is as surprising as the discovery of Hawking Radiation in the first place.