Can data be erased?

Question

I saw something on T.V. about space and how black holes erase the "Data" of an object and how data can never be erased. Like you could blow up a building and a grain of dust from that building could tell you what it looked like or something like that.

Answer 1

It can be erased, but not destroyed.

Answer 2

This was a show concering Stephen Hawking and another scientist, who disagreed about that very thing. Hawking admitted he was wrong. He said data were erased, the other scientist said it could not be.

What happened was that the second scientist found that, to an outside observer data appeared to be erased but to the data it appeared to be intact. It was like it was smeared over the "surface" of the black hole, so that it was everywhere all the time (to the outsider). You would have to watch the show several times to take it all in, I think. Black holes and other manifestation of extreme velocity and gravity are very complex and difficult for non-professionals to visualize and understand.

Answer 3

This is the black hole information paradox. In quantum theory, information (not data) cannot be lost. Hawking radiation is the only thing that comes out of a black hole and it's featureless - it has no information. According to Stephen Hawking, that meant that information could be lost in a black hole, which was contrary to quantum theory. It's now been realised that the information somehow gets imprinted in the event horizon.

fwiw, I have no idea what any of the above actually means! Shortly after Hawking admitted he'd been wrong I asked an astro-physics prof, who's spent most of his career studying black holes, if he could explain it - he said "No!!".

Answer 4

Black hole theory has cause much speculation. Though the object is not exactly erased, it is destroyed beyond all recognition. Black holes theoreticaly create utra high gravity, propeling objects into a central point of colision, and crushing them and even the space between electrons nutrons and protons.

Answer 5

The gravity, or the magnetic field, or its Hawking Radiation could probably "erase" a computer. Because the gravity is so high, signals could not move around the computer, because they cannot be sent fast enough...