About the black hole thing...

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Stephen Hawking recently claimed that black holes were a blunder in his work and that they did not exist. I was really ticked off by this because I felt that it was a terrible decision for him to take black holes out of the equation in terms of astrophysics and quantum mechanics. I was always a fan of black holes because thinking about them always made me wonder how they were so powerful and how they were probably capable of transporting matter to another dimension. Seeing something like this pop out of nowhere became a really big disappointment for me because we have evidence that these holes exist, but then Hawking goes on how these things could not exist in nature and that event horizons also weren't possible as well, which, again, angered me.

Am I the only one who is distraught by this announcement from Stephen Hawking?

Such is the nature of physics. I can't say I find it disappointing - it is what it is. As we discover more about the universe some details change. It now appears the event horizon of black holes is somewhat large and fuzzy and that virtual particles can and are produced all the time which means that the black holes can lose mass and can shrink.

I'm pretty sure that they still exist, and it really doesn't explain gravitic phenomenae like Cygnus X-1, which is a fairly well documented case of a black hole. --Just that the definition of a 'black hole' is now changed.

But, in a lot of articles he talked about black holes...When did he exactly say that they don't exist?

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/25/53445 ... lack-holes


Earlier in his days, if I remember correctly, he proposed matter CAN be destroyed. I guess all of his hypothesis seemed to work out mathematically, except it challenged well-known physics. This was controversial, as the Law of Thermodynamics states otherwise. He was later proven to be wrong, but I can't remember which scientist spent years on that.

Anyways, he later proposed (again, if I remember correctly) that he wasn't entirely wrong. He was wrong about matter being destroyed, but he was attempting to come up with a revised hypothesis, or possibly a new one that allowed for matter to not be destroyed, but simply exist some where else.

I believe this has to do with him subscribing to the "many worlds" interpretation in quantum physics. I believe he stated that in this interpretation, matter is obviously not destroyed, just located in a different place.

I believe he's not saying they don't entirely exist, but the classical definition of a "black hole" should be redefined. Black holes were thought to suck in all matter and never let it escape.




People should feel free to correct me, as I may have written a few errors. It's been a while since I've read anything about Stephen. Call me lazy, but I don't feel like researching this further at the moment, as their are far more intelligent people here who could elaborate on this.

Didnt know that he had disowned black holes!

And I also thought that they had found actual black holes ( including strong evidence for the big one at the center of the galaxy).

Some days I think physicists just make stuff up to keep themselves in the news.

Matter escaping from a black hole is not a new revolution.

Altering the idea of an event horizon is... And adding both of these together means they have essentially taken away the most extreme (and defining) attributes of a black hole.

Personally, I think it's all exciting.

I did not answer the poll.

Hawking also put his name on a type of energy emitted by black holes, called Hawking Radiation. I suspect he meant black holes still exist, but he has changed his ideas about how they work. As in they don't suck in everything and nothing escapes...some force in the black hole changes matter into a form of energy which CAN escape.

People misunderstood what Hawking said. What he meant was that so-called black holes weren't "black", i.e. that our notion of them had been wrong. According to him, the traditional understanding violates quantum physics. If what Stephen Hawking says is true, then black holes only hold matter and energy temporarily.

His article can be downloaded for free here. To learn more, look up about the Black hole information paradox.

From what I know, they had evidence that they existed through observation of how certain stars were being pulled in by the gravity of something without it being visible as to what that something was and thus have mathematically deduced that such stars must be being pulled in by a black hole or something similar. I thought this was also the case since scientists were spotting elementary particles being emitted from seemingly empty space, which backed up Hawking's view that black holes do not destroy information but rather spit out virtual particles that create real particles, which then become annihilated. So I would have thought they exist. Saying this however, I always think what we think exists such as 'dark matter' could just be the product of miscalculation and perhaps we need to change the mathematical paradigm in which we work in order to account for the gravitational pull that makes us think 'dark matter' exists. I don't know though.

How does he explain the existence of the black hole in the Milky way.

I can agree that Black-holes might not operate how we perceive them to be, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist.

Hawking should know better.