In an article by George Musser (QuantaMagazine, October 29, 2020) it seems we might be further along in solving the paradox of contradicting results between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics when dealing with black holes. In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information, which seems impossible by definition. The work appears to resolve a paradox that Stephen Hawking first described five decades ago.
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| Ashley Mackenzie for Quanta Magazine |
According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the gravity of a black hole is so intense that nothing can escape it. In the 1970s Stephen Hawking and others sought to describe matter in and around black holes using quantum theory (although they continued to describe gravity using Einstein’s classical theory — a hybrid approach that physicists call “semiclassical.”) These new insights of Hawking provided some interesting effects on the boundary of the black hole, but still left the interior as 'unknown'. Hawking claimed that at the quantum level, things can escape the black hole (Hawking radiation), eventually leading to a complete evaporation of the black hole in time.
The article describes some very interesting work done recently to bring the two theories together. The trip is a wild one - Page Curves, Multidimensional quantum wormholes, and other weirdness-es steeped in reality and getting perilously close to fiction. Read the full article at QuantaMagazine. Easy enough for the layman to comprehend, provided you read slowly and try to visualize the concepts.
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