"I want to report that I think I have solved a major problem in theoretical physics." With those words the eminent physicist Stephen Hawking opened a lecture at a scientific conference in Dublin on Wednesday which, in true Hawking style, overturned decades of scientific thinking, thrilled many of his academic peers and left everyone else scratching their heads.
Speaking to an audience of more than 600 physicists and dozens of the world's media, Hawking said he now believed that black holes, the mysterious massive vortexes formed from collapsed stars, do not destroy everything that is sucked into them. Instead, an abstract quantity called "information," which de-scribes the core characteristics of every type of particle, leaks from the black hole over time.
The announcement marks a U-turn from Hawking, who had argued that anything swallowed by a black hole was forever hidden from the outside universe. It has also lost him one of the most famous bets in science: in 1997 Hawking and physicist Kip Thorne made a wager with John Preskill at the California Institute of Technology, who insisted that information carried by an object entering a black hole was not destroyed.
PHOTO: EPA
"I'm now ready to concede the bet," Hawking said. An encyclopedia was to be chosen by the winner.
"John is all-American, so naturally he wants an encyclopedia of baseball. I had great difficulty finding one over here, so I offered him an encyclopedia of cricket as an alternative," Hawking said. "But John wouldn't be persuaded of the superiority of cricket."
The about-turn ends a 30-year personal struggle for Hawking. In 1974, while formulating new equations in an attempt to unite the heavyweight ideas of quantum mechanics and general relativity, he realized that black holes must emit heat, now known as Hawking radiation. The problem was that this radiation would carry energy away, meaning the black hole would gradually evaporate and then disappear in a final explosive outburst -- taking the crucial information with it. This contradicts the fundamental laws of quantum physics, which insist the information can never be fully wiped out.
While several physicists over the years offered solutions to this paradox, Hawking believed that the intense gravity inside a black hole somehow unravelled the quantum laws. More intriguingly, he suggested that the vanishing information might travel through the black hole to a parallel universe -- planting the seeds for a staple of science fiction.
"There is no baby universe branching off as I once thought," Hawking admitted. "I'm sorry to disappoint science fiction fans but if information is preserved there is no possibility of using black holes to travel to other universes. If you jump into a black hole, your mass energy will be returned to our universe, but in a mangled form which contains the information about what you were like."
His calculations suggest the surface of the black hole, the event horizon, has fluctuations that let the information escape.
"It is great to solve a problem that has been troubling me for nearly 30 years, even though the answer is less exciting than the alternative I suggested," he said.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
Myanmar’s junta chief met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for the first time since seizing power, state media reported yesterday, the highest-level meeting with a key ally for the internationally sanctioned military leader. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing led a military coup in 2021, overthrowing Myanmar’s brief experiment with democracy and plunging the nation into civil war. In the four years since, his armed forces have battled dozens of ethnic armed groups and rebel militias — some with close links to China — opposed to its rule. The conflict has seen Min Aung Hlaing draw condemnation from rights groups and pursued by the
RSS