Comments about "Thorne–Hawking–Preskill bet" in Wikipedia

This document contains comments about the document "Thorne–Hawking–Preskill bet" in Wikipedia
In the last paragraph I explain my own opinion.

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Introduction

The article starts with the following sentence.
Thorne and Hawking argued that since general relativity made it impossible for black holes to radiate, and lose information, the mass-energy and information carried by Hawking radiation must be "new", and must not originate from inside the black hole event horizon.
If BH radiate or do not radiate has nothing to do with GR.
The first step is to demonstrate that a BH (in its broadest sense) emits radiation. The next step is to demonstrate (or make acceptable) that this radiation comes from within a certain radius or outside this radius. You can call this radius the event horizon, but than you must be clear what this event horizon is.
Since this contradicted the idea under quantum mechanics of microcausality, quantum mechanics would need to be rewritten.
If applicable General Relativity should be adapted.
Preskill argued the opposite, that since quantum mechanics suggests that the information emitted by a black hole relates to information that fell in at an earlier time, the view of black holes given by general relativity must be modified in some way.
If Preskill is correct than I agree GR should be modified.
IMO the opinion of Preskill is that the radation emitted by a BH was original part of the BH. That means that it was directly caused by the internal processes within the BH.
If the opinion of Hawking is that the radiation emitted by a BH was original was not part of a BH, he could also be correct. It is like a comet which closely passes the Sun. Its equivalent is a star which closely passes a BH. During this passing by, the star can easily lose energy in the form of radiation which can become visible i.e. be detected.
It is also possible that other physical processes are involved.
In 2004, Hawking announced that he was conceding the bet, and that he now believed that black hole horizons should fluctuate and leak information.
What has a black hole horizon to do with this problem?
The issue is BH physics and not BH information.
Thorne, however, remained unconvinced of Hawking's proof and declined to contribute to the award.
I can imagine that Thorne is not convinced in Hawking's proof. But what about Preskill's proof or Thorne's proof?
As of 2008, Hawking's argument that he has solved the paradox has not yet been accepted by the community, and a consensus has not yet been reached that Hawking has provided a strong enough argument that this is in fact what happens.
IMO the only way to solve the paradox is to claim that there is no paradox and to explain which the physical processes involved in BH evolution.
But according to Hawking's new idea, presented at the 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation, on 21 July 2004 in Dublin, black holes eventually transmit, in a garbled form, information about all matter they swallow:
BH's do not transmit information in a garbled way. BH's convert in falling matter and during this process radiation is emitted.

1. Earlier Thorne–Hawking bet

When we made the bet in 1975, we were 80% certain that Cygnus X-1 was a black hole. By now (1988), I would say that we are about 95% certain, but the bet has yet to be settled.
It is interesting that people are placing bets on the processes that take place in our Universe. It is much more important to agree how you can settle such a bet. How you prove something.

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Created: 9 February 2016

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