[Paleopsych] Re: Hawking surprises GR 17

[Joel Isaacson]

>From: HowlBloom at aol.com
>To: isaacsonj at hotmail.com
>CC: paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>Subject: Re: Hawking surprises GR 17
>Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 00:43:22 EDT
>
>All thanks, Joel.  I seized on this one, too.
>
>The insight--that black holes DO allow information to escape, seemed
>intuitively obvious, perhaps because in big bang theory this entire cosmos 
>leaked into
>existence from the equivalent of a black hole--a singularity.
>
>If I understand what Hawking's getting at, and there's a chance that I may
>not, his notion gives credence to one of my bizarre speculations--that 
>whatever
>information this cosmos gathers in its lifetime, it will be able to pass on 
>to
>the universe on the other side of the big crunch in which the cosmos will
>end.

Intuitively, it is more satisfying -- I agree -- to hold that information is 
never
totally destroyed...  rather, that information may be diluted and condensed
at various stages...  perhaps a "black hole" effects an extreme condensation 
stage...
Trouble is that many-many things in cosmological physics are 
counter-intuitive..
The actual Hawking talk will be delivered Wed. the 21st, so we should then 
have
more clarification...     -- Joel

>
>In other words, universes, I suspect, can gather a store of networked
>information and, if they have clever beings with will and hubris, can 
>compress that
>information and pass it on to their progeny.  J
>
>ust as we living beings pass information on through genes or through memes,
>the cosmos that produces willfull, living beings can take their primitive
>capacities a long way in 20 billion years or so.
>
>That 20 billion year figure, by the way, is based on my guess that this
>cosmos will survive for a total span of 30 billion years from birth to 
>destruction.
>  Others better qualified than I am--Max Tegmark for example, who has a
>toroidal theory like mine-- put the total lifespan of the universe in the 
>trillions
>of years.  Onward--Howard
>In a message dated 7/15/2004 2:07:56 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>isaacsonj at hotmail.com writes:
>
>The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service
>
>
>Hawking cracks black hole paradox
>==========================
>
>19:00 14 July 04
>
>Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free 
>issues.
>
>After nearly 30 years of arguing that a black hole destroys everything that
>falls into it, Stephen Hawking is saying he was wrong. It seems that black
>holes may after all allow information within them to escape. Hawking will
>present his latest finding at a conference in Ireland next week.
>
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>The about-turn might cost Hawking, a physicist at the University of
>Cambridge, an encyclopaedia because of a bet he made in 1997. More
>importantly, it might solve one of the long-standing puzzles in modern
>physics, known as the black hole information paradox.
>
>It was Hawking's own work that created the paradox. In 1976, he calculated
>that once a black hole forms, it starts losing mass by radiating energy.
>This "Hawking radiation" contains no information about the matter inside 
>the
>black hole and once the black hole evaporates, all information is lost.
>
>But this conflicts with the laws of quantum physics, which say that such
>information can never be completely wiped out. Hawking's argument was that
>the intense gravitational fields of black holes somehow unravel the laws of
>quantum physics.
>
>Other physicists have tried to chip away at this paradox. Earlier in 2004,
>Samir Mathur of Ohio State University in Columbus and his colleagues showed
>that if a black hole is modelled according to string theory - in which the
>universe is made of tiny, vibrating strings rather than point-like 
>particles
>- then the black hole becomes a giant tangle of strings. And the Hawking
>radiation emitted by this "fuzzball" does contain information about the
>insides of a black hole (New Scientist print edition, 13 March).
>
>
>Big reputation
>
>
>Now, it seems that Hawking too has an answer to the conundrum and the
>physics community is abuzz with the news. Hawking requested at the last
>minute that he be allowed to present his findings at the 17th International
>Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation in Dublin, Ireland.
>
>"He sent a note saying 'I have solved the black hole information paradox 
>and
>I want to talk about it'," says Curt Cutler, a physicist at the Albert
>Einstein Institute in Golm, Germany, who is chairing the conference's
>scientific committee. "I haven't seen a preprint [of the paper]. To be 
>quite
>honest, I went on Hawking's reputation."
>
>Though Hawking has not yet revealed the detailed maths behind his finding,
>sketchy details have emerged from a seminar Hawking gave at Cambridge.
>According to Cambridge colleague Gary Gibbons, an expert on the physics of
>black holes who was at the seminar, Hawking's black holes, unlike classic
>black holes, do not have a well-defined event horizon that hides everything
>within them from the outside world.
>
>In essence, his new black holes now never quite become the kind that gobble
>up everything. Instead, they keep emitting radiation for a long time, and
>eventually open up to reveal the information within. "It's possible that
>what he presented in the seminar is a solution," says Gibbons. "But I think
>you have to say the jury is still out."
>
>
>Forever hidden
>
>
>At the conference, Hawking will have an hour on 21 July to make his case. 
>If
>he succeeds, then, ironically, he will lose a bet that he and theoretical
>physicist Kip Thorne of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in
>Pasadena made with John Preskill, also of Caltech.
>
>They argued that "information swallowed by a black hole is forever hidden,
>and can never be revealed".
>
>"Since Stephen has changed his view and now believes that black holes do 
>not
>destroy information, I expect him [and Kip] to concede the bet," Preskill
>told New Scientist. The duo are expected to present Preskill with an
>encyclopaedia of his choice "from which information can be recovered at
>will".
>
>
>Jenny Hogan
>
>----------
>Howard Bloom
>Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of
>History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to 
>the
>21st Century
>Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University; 
>Faculty
>Member, The Graduate Institute
>www.howardbloom.net
>www.bigbangtango.net
>Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic
>of Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: 
>The
>Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American
>Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, 
>Academy
>of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International
>Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org; 
>executive
>editor -- New Paradigm book series.
>For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
>www.paleopsych.org
>for two chapters from
>The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History,
>see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big 
>Bang
>to the 21st Century, see www.howardbloom.net