Liora's Journal: Just in case it doesn't make the Science section...

Today at the 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation in Dublin, Cambridge University professor Stephen Hawking said in his talk titled The Information Paradox for Black Holes that he was wrong about the formation of an event horizon in a black hole, and that matter is not destroyed in a way defying subatomic theory, as he had previously believed. According to the talk's short, "the way the information gets out seems to be that a true event horizon never forms, just an apparent horizon." A New York Times story and aWired story are available, both apparently based on Reuters information.

Is it just me, or is that big freaking news?

[Edit: I missed the boat. Slashdot apparently covered it here. Which begs the question... Why is the NYT only covering this today?]

news for nerds?

[mekkab]

This is hardly news for nerds.

No, wait. It is indeed.

dup fever?

[blinder]

well, timothy posted your story... not really a dup... but heh, today is the day to bitch on slashdot... but I'll put that aside and just say:

Hey great work! Good job getting something posted on the FP! :-D

Why today

[turg]

Today is the day he announced it. The slashdot story was about the rumour he might make this announcement

Re:Why today

[TechnoLust]

Which is the difference between real journalism and... well slashdot. :-)

hmm....

[Planesdragon]

I wonder if Hawking makes these kinds of bets so that, years later, he can say that we've "proved it" to a commonly accepted measure of fact.

Good job!

[jawtheshark]

You made the frontpage! Cool!

Serious enough for me..

[andr0meda]

I could dig that theory, I thought that the event horizon in a black hole was a pretty logical explanation for the Hawking radiation that Hawking did predict and which was later measured. I wonder what happens at the edge where particles are exactly at the split between normal path evolution and lightspeed attraction.