Black holes the giant all-consuming monstrous voids in space have been one
of the most intriguing objects of study ever since their discovery nearly five decades ago
Stephen Hawking described a black hole paradox the most famous paradox in physics that is
bedeviled physicists ever since two new published studies however show that there
may be an answer to the paradox after all and it might have something to do with something
called quantum hair welcome to Factnomenal and in today's video we'll take a close look at how an
independent group of physicists believe they may have finally solved Hawking's black hole paradox
outer space is filled with some truly fascinating objects but black holes just happen to take the
cake for being the strangest ones out there most often birthed from the collapse of gigantic stars
in 1916 Albert Einstein was the first to predict their existence
in his general theory of relativity but the official term black hole was only coined
years later in 1967 by American astronomer John Wheeler one of the most remarkable
features of nature these black holes which are extremely dense have immensely strong
gravitational attraction and from whose grasp even light is unable to escape they existed
only theoretically up until 1971 which is when the first physical black hole was actually discovered
fast forward to 2019 when the event horizon telescope released the first ever image of a
black hole right at the center of the galaxy m87 we've come a long way in our knowledge of black
holes yet there remains something that has kept physicists scratching their heads for decades
and towards our understanding of reality the infamous black hole information paradox
somewhere between the two greatest theories ever constructed in physics there seems to be a tiny
unexplainable flaw that has garnered decades worth of study and debate firstly according
to Einstein's general theory of relativity the gravity of a black hole is extremely intense
to the point that nothing can escape it black holes were seen as exceedingly simple despite
the complicated stuff that fell into them but they seemed to lock all that information away forever
but physicists would soon discover how wrong they were and how extremely complicated
black holes actually are when Stephen Hawking was studying black holes he and his team of
colleagues discovered that black holes aren't necessarily black but in fact released radiation
and eventually they evaporated entirely through a process which we now know is hawking radiation
the radiation from a black hole will carry away energy so the black hole will lose mass and shrink
eventually it seems the black hole will evaporate completely and disappear but this of course posed
a rather huge problem hawking radiation doesn't carry any information itself as by definition
it isn't able to do so so that leaves us with a burning question when a black hole evaporates
and disappears from the universe where does all that locked up information go this right here is
the black hole information paradox and over the years it's become the puzzle that every physicist
dreamed of solving normally information falling into a radiating object such as a star would be
represented in the messy spectrum of colors that shoot from its surface or at the very least it's
left behind after it dies but if hawking's radiation theory is correct this is not the
case for black holes which will eventually just evaporate out of existence this of course violates
the big rule in quantum physics which states that information that makes a particle a particle is
conserved in the universe from moment to moment for nearly half a century researchers have been
tinkering with various ideas and mathematical calculations for a potential solution to explain
how the information could stay within the universe without violating any of its laws or having to
bend existing rules or theories throughout the years there have been several bold attempts
made at solving this great paradox but few have come close to being potentially true until now
new studies from a group of independent physicists now suggest that our universe's mysterious black
holes might actually be hairy yes you heard that right quantum hair as they're calling it could
quite possibly be the answer to the paradox in the first paper that was published in the
journal physical review letters the researchers demonstrated that black holes are way more complex
than we originally thought and have gravitational fields that hold the key information about how
they were formed matter that collapses into a black hole would then leave a mark in its
gravitational field an imprint being referred to as quantum hair as per hawking's black hole
paradox black holes evaporate and along with that destroy any information about what informed them
which goes against fundamental quantum mechanics which states that any process in physics can be
mathematically reversed as opposed to what john wheeler said about black holes in the 1960s
where he suggested that black holes have no hair otherwise known as the no hair theorem
this newly discovered quantum hair actually provides a way for information to be preserved
as a black hole collapses the new studies have in fact found additional semi-classical effects and
new configurations that are still permissible as per Einstein's theory which hawking may not
have included in his study in short the new study proposes that black holes are really
just giant fuzz balls having a bit of fuzz would actually give black holes a path for their
quantum information to remain stuck within the universe even if the black hole itself tends to
fade away over time the work that theorists now have is to find ways in which they can make the
laws that tell space and time how to curve to mesh with the laws that tell particles to share their
information and that is no easy task as per this solution it applies quantum thinking to gravity in
the form of theoretical particles called gravitons the study team through a series of logical steps
demonstrated a reasonable model for how the information within the black hole could still
remain connected with the surrounding space across its event horizon or line of no return
as slight perturbances of the black hole's gravitational field or quantum hairs in
essence the study shows that black holes actually have external features or hair that allows an
outside observer to tell what's going on inside the black hole this is of course in
direct contrast to the no hair theorem where you can only tell three things about a black hole from
the outside its mass angular momentum and electric charge professor calmed in his team from Italy
and the us concluded that according to their calculation objects that fall into a black hole
leave imprints on a black hole's gravitational field so that in theory at least they do preserve
some of those objects information so it's theoretically possible for an observer to
study the hairs on a black hole to piece together information about what has fallen into the massive
void according to professor Xavier kalmat from the university of Sussex's school of mathematical
and physical sciences who worked on the study it was generally assumed in the scientific community
that resolving this paradox would require a huge paradigm shift in physics forcing the potential
reformulation of either quantum mechanics or general relativity having to change either of
these would mean so many things that we know and understand about the universe and its workings
wouldn't make sense at all since these form the basic foundation for so many theories and laws
of course not everyone is quite convinced just yet having been the most debated and researched
paradox in physics for half a century it's a given that there'll be thorough analysis and dissecting
of the study to see if researchers have in fact cracked the decades-long code to the black hole
information paradox many argue that the study uses too many assumptions quantum gravity and black
hole expert Tom Hartman an associate professor at Cornell University seems to believe that
the study does not in any way make significant progress on the black hole paradox so the mystery
is uh understanding the origin of this complexity understanding what it is that black holes are
made of and what gives you this enormous entropy professor calmed himself conceded that it's a big
claim that would take the scientific community some time to come to terms with theoretical
physicist at Imperial College London professor Toby Wiseman stated that the study was indeed a
good bit of work with the only pressing drawback then it doesn't show that the entirety of the
information that falls into a black hole can be recovered i would say you have to have a very good
reason a specific reason to say i don't believe it i don't think you can just throw up your hands
and say ah it's obviously wrong as a theory the study is actually based on quite a solid framework
and there's no doubt that this will be a very important addition if not proven true to the study
of black holes and perhaps one of the closest attempts to solve the information paradox if there
is one thing for certain everyone can agree that the two universal theories of quantum mechanics
and gravity which have never been reconciled would have to somehow come together in order
to once and for all resolve the paradox so what do you think has the most famous paradox finally
been solved let us know in the comments and don't forget to smash that like button and subscribe
to the channel so you don't miss more videos from us thanks for watching see you next time