The information paradox

Post author:The Physics Detective
Post published:8th December 2018
Post category:Black holes Cosmology Hawking radiation Singularities Trouble with physics
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The information paradox was first mooted by Stephen Hawking in 1976. For an introduction to the subject, see Brian Koberlein’s black holes tell no tales or do they? Then see Hawking’s paper on the breakdown of predictability in gravitational collapse. Hawking said information is lost down a black hole because the quantum emission is completely random and uncorrelated. He also said “this means there is no S matrix for the process of black-hole formation and evaporation”. The S-matrix is the scattering matrix which is to do…

The Hawking papers

Post author:The Physics Detective
Post published:1st December 2018
Post category:Black holes Cosmology Hawking radiation Singularities
Post comments:10 Comments

You can find a list of Stephen Hawking’s publications on the Hawking.org website. It starts with his 1965 PhD thesis. This is said to have “borrowed from Roger Penrose's theorem which described a 'spacetime singularity' being present in the centre of black holes”. Penrose was one of Hawking’s PhD examiners. Seven out of Hawking’s first ten papers concerned singularities. Singularities and the geometry of spacetime One of Hawking’s early papers was singularities and the geometry of spacetime dating from 1966. At 91 pages it’s curiously long.…