Professor Stephen Hawking is making many science-fiction fans rub their hands with glee following his recent scientific proposal, which suggests that, contrary to established opinion, black holes may allow matter to appear out the other side like a portal.
For decades, despite what science fiction had always shown, science had largely agreed that while the end result of matter entering a black hole was unknown, it was a given that that matter would most likely be obliterated.
This would be in line with Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, but given the laws of quantum mechanics, all ‘information’ is eternal, which creates something known as the ‘information paradox’.
But now, according to The Guardian, Hawking believes he and his colleagues may have finally solved it.
Speaking at the Hawking Radiation conference in Stockholm, Hawking said that information may not actually enter a black hole at all, rather it’s permanently encoded in a 2D hologram at the surface of the black hole’s event horizon, or its point of no return.
“This information is emitted in the quantum fluctuations that black holes produce, albeit in ‘chaotic, useless form’,” Hawking said. “For all practical purposes the information is lost.”
With this in mind, Hawking did not dismiss the possibility that if you were to enter a black hole you would be lost forever, but entering a black hole would certainly be a one-way trip.
“The existence of alternative histories with black holes suggests this might be possible,” Hawking said. “The hole would need to be large and if it was rotating it might have a passage to another universe. But you couldn’t come back to our universe. So although I’m keen on space flight, I’m not going to try that.”
Black hole illustration via Shutterstock