Stephen Hawking and the undying perplexities and complexities of the "black hole information problem or paradox" have something new to offer to curious minds. The physicist claimed that black holes have hair.
A new study of Hawking together with other brilliant minds, Andrew Strominger of Harvard University and Malcolm Perry of Cambridge University in England, showcased that our previous understanding of "black hole information paradox" might be wrong to some extent.
It was previously perceived, through Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, that information sucked or fell into a black hole would not be visible from the outside. It means that everything that crosses the event horizon cannot escape the clutches of the black hole, not even light itself. However, contrary to that particular theory proposed by John Archibald Wheeler of Princeton, Hawking and his colleagues theorized that black holes are not eternal prisons.
"They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought." New York Times quoted Hawking as saying. "If you feel you are trapped in a black hole, don't give up. There is a way out."
And basing on the new theory hypothesized by Hawking, it somehow suggests that black holes in itself though may suck everything, radiations and particles could still escape or leak from it once it would collapse. And these radiations coming from a gradually disappearing black hole is called the 'Hawking radiation,' according to ScienceAlert.
According to the new theory of Hawking, these radiations are preserved or retained through the halo of 'soft hair' surrounding a black hole. To simply put it, the hair, which is not an actual hair but a representation, may actually be capable of storing information or imprints coming from what of what was swallowed by the black hole.
With these new finding, Hawking is once again countering his previous calculations detailing that information inside a black hole will be lost forever, and everything also disappears when the black hole evaporates.
Though these new findings of Hawking and his colleagues are astonishing, even debunking an old theory proposed in relevance to the nature of black hole. Loopholes may still be found, and as what the proponents emphasized it is not an answer in itself but rather a compass that could point to an ultimate solution regarding the riddles of the black hole.
Watch the explanation of black hole information paradox below: