Do black holes destroy information?

Question

Stephen Hawking argued this long ago and my understanding is that string theorists have debated this to a point that now Hawking concedes, but I have not seen any public corrections by Hawking.

Answer 1

Hawking in fact did publish a paper saying he was wrong, but the scientific community is still not sure about this whole deal.

Here is a little paragraph from Wiki:
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In July 2005, Stephen Hawking published a paper and announced a theory that quantum perturbations of the event horizon could allow information to escape from a black hole, which would resolve the information paradox. Basically, his argument assumes the unitarity of the AdS/CFT correspondence which implies that an AdS black hole which is dual to a thermal conformal field theory, is unitary. When announcing his result, Hawking also conceded the 1997 bet, paying Preskill with a baseball encyclopedia (ISBN 1-894963-27-X) 'from which information can be retrieved at will'. However, Thorne remains unconvinced of Hawking's proof and declined to contribute to the award.
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What you are referring to is the "no hair" theory. The no hair theory says that the information about objects falling into the black hole is destroyed, but quantum physics forbids this. Since General Reletivity, (which is what the no hair theory is based on) has no more proof than quantum physics, scientists are at a standstill. Here is more about the "no hair" theory from Wiki:

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The "No hair" theorem states that black holes have only 3 independent internal properties: mass, angular momentum and electric charge. It is impossible to tell the difference between a black hole formed from a highly compressed mass of normal matter and one formed from, say, a highly compressed mass of anti-matter, in other words, any information about infalling matter or energy is destroyed. This is the black hole information paradox.

The theorem only works in some of the types of universe which the equations of general relativity allow, but until the late 1990s it appeared that the universe in which we live belongs to one of the types in which the theorem works. However astronomical observations from 1999 onwards suggest that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. One of the most widely-supported explanations for the acceleration is that the cosmological constant in Einstein's general relativity equations is not zero, and the "no hair" theorem does not work if the cosmological constant is not zero
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Scientists are still not sure about this, and it is a very difficult task to figure out black holes. By the way, it's funny you should ask this, because I just spent the last half hour looking up this very subject on Wikipedia.

Answer 2

Well I am certainly not Hawking by any stretch of the imagination. In trying to respond to your question it is rather essential to know what the information is that might be destroyed? Is this data on a disk? Is it radio signals making up a message? Is it a visual scene in light rays? What is the nature of the information media/medium?

It has been proposed that black holes have such intense gravitational pull that even light is sucked in and prevented from escaping. If that is true, then anything traveling at the speed of light such as a visual scene in light rays, a radio message, or stuff like that would all be captured and dissappear into the center of the hole.

Intense radiation is also theorized to exist within the black hole which might also prevent/preclude the transmission and reception of various kinds of radio signals.

All of this is theory, however. And for all intent and purpose, none of us will ever travel over to the near vicinity of a black hole to check it out.

Answer 3

Actually that is partially true. The extreme gravity of black holes disintegrate energy and thus the then present information that that energy contains. Thus the original energy is broken down and separated into more simple forms of itself. The information is separated. This process of disintegration takes place progressively as the energy goes farther and farther into deep inner-dimensional space. So the information is eventually disintegrated or separated into its most basic form as the most basic elementary particles. The information is no longer retrievable, but still exists amongst the collective particles of energy of which it is contained by. When the the final stage of the recycling process of energy takes place through transduction the original information can be considered destroyed. So it is not black holes or the gravity of black holes that destroy information it is the transduction process in deep inner-dimensional space that does. Finally, the energy of the information that goes through the universal recycling process becomes renewed particles within the make up of the universe and the most basic particles to reproduce hydrogen and helium. Parallel universes do not exist. But space is made of more dimensions than humans experience. There are only theories of parallel universes that fuel the imagination.

Answer 4

That is not the first time that Steven Hawking has retracted a statement. Yes, black holes destroy information and everything else that enters them except protons and most of those are changed into neutrons by the absorption of an electron.

Answer 5

So what is your question about ? Stephen Hawking or black holes ? It is obvious if B.H.s are absorbing any electromagnetic wave they are destroying any information carried by them.

Answer 6

Black Holes destoy/distort everything.

Answer 7

Information is a form of disentropy, so maybe you can find the answer at this link.

Answer 8

Black holes destroy time itself

Answer 9

Black holes destroy everything that enters them.

Answer 10

black holeser the universes kids,they;ll eat anything