Black Hole Physics Hint that Gravity May Not be a Constant of the Universe

[n2doc]

New research by scientists at the University of York gives a fresh perspective on the physics of black holes. Black holes are objects in space that are so massive and compact they were described by Einstein as "bending" space. Conventional thinking asserts that black holes swallow everything that gets too close and that nothing can escape, but the study by Professor Samuel Braunstein and Dr Manas Patra suggests that information could escape from black holes after all.

The implications could be revolutionary, suggesting that gravity may not be a fundamental force of Nature.

Professor Braunstein says: "Our results didn't need the details of a black hole's curved space geometry. That lends support to recent proposals that space, time and even gravity itself may be emergent properties within a deeper theory. Our work subtly changes those proposals, by identifying quantum information theory as the likely candidate for the source of an emergent theory of gravity."

But quantum mechanics is the theory of light and atoms, and many physicists are skeptical that it could be used to explain the slow evaporation of black holes without incorporating the effects of gravity.

more
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/08/news-flash-black-hole-physics-hint-that-gravity-may-not-be-a-constant-of-the-universe.html

[Cherchez la Femme]

1. Gravity is a curious thing

thanks for the post

[PoliticAverse]

2. Indeed. I find that I've gotten heavier as time has passed.. n/t

[Thor_MN]

5. I find that I'm getting taller as I age, the floor gets farther away each year

Also my hair doesn't seem to be able to quite keep up with my increase in height.

[laconicsax]

3. Interesting. Thanks for posting.

[immoderate]

4. Heavy

IIRC, in James Gleick's book The Information, he describes a bet that Hawking made with another scientist, that information could not survive a black hole. Can't tell you exactly how they solved it (Vulcan mind experiment) but Hawking paid off. This occurred a few years ago.

--imm

[Jim__]

7. I believe the solution to that led to the idea of the holographic universe.

...

The whole argument started when Stephen Hawking attempted to describe what happens to matter during its lifetime in a black hole. He suggested that, from the perspective of quantum mechanics, the information about the quantum state of a particle that enters a black hole goes with it. This isn't a problem until the black hole starts to boil away through what's now called Hawking radiation, which creates a separate particle outside the event horizon while destroying one inside. This process ensures that the matter that escapes the black hole has no connection to the quantum state of the material that had gotten sucked in. As a result, information is destroyed. And that causes a problem, as the panel described.

As far as quantum mechanics is concerned, information about states is never destroyed. This isn't just an observation; according to panelist Leonard Susskind, destroying information creates paradoxes that, although apparently minor, will gradually propagate and eventually cause inconsistencies in just about everything we think we understand. As panelist Leonard Susskind put it, "all we know about physics would fall apart if information is lost."

...


't Hooft described how the disagreement eventually got worked out. It's possible, he said, to figure out how much information has gotten drawn in to the black hole. Once you do that, you can see that the total amount can be related to the surface area of the event horizon, which suggested where the information could be stored. But since the event horizon is a two-dimensional surface, the information couldn't be stored in regular matter; instead, the event horizon forms a hologram that holds the information as matter passes through it. When that matter passes back out as Hawking radiation, the information is restored.

more ...

[immoderate]

8. Great article! Thank you!

--imm :hi:

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. Gravity as described by classical potential theory/Laplace's equation.

The effect is immediate, no wave behavior,ie disturbance is felt without any delay throughout space. The law of attraction between bodies is known, but the cause is a total mystery. All attempts to measure any sort of "gravity waves" or medium of transmission of a "gravity field" have led to nothing.

[DetlefK]

9. We just don't have a decent gravity wave detector yet.

I have in the back of my head, that one is being built right now, finished in 5-10 years. Don't remember clearly.

Don't forget that gravity waves are hard to detect.
Gravity has only one kind of charge and because of this, you need a quadrupole-antenna to emit/measure gravity waves. And of course, because money matters, we would have to build the detector on a planet, where it is prone to earthquakes.