Bb: Black Hole Information Paradox

The black hole information paradox results from the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity. It suggests that physical information could "disappear" in a black hole. It is a contentious subject since it violates a commonly assumed tenet of science—that information cannot be destroyed. _Wikipedia (Black hole Information Paradox)


The scenario John Myers describes "is true, but it's really an issue of information getting scrambled, not lost." In the black hole paradox, the problem is that the information appears to be truly lost, not merely scrambled, yet "the foundations of classical mechanics and statistical mechanics are based on the exact conservation of information." Finally, "a number of the letters express a very common misconception, namely, that because an outside observer sees an infalling observer slow down, that the in falling observer sees the outsider speed up. This is simply not so. The in falling observer looks back and sees nothing unusual."--R. COWEN

Dark secrets by McGinnis, Michael / Science News