Hairy black holes: Physicists claim to solve a 50-year-old paradox

Scientists claim to have solved one of the greatest paradoxes in physics. A new theory bridges the contradiction first demonstrated by the famous British scientist Stephen Hawking. The so-called “quantum poetry” plays a leading role in this.

Dating back to the 1970s, Hawking’s paradox is all about black holes: dead stars exploding with a gravitational force so immense that not even light can escape.

Hawking pointed out a problem to his colleagues. According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, nothing can escape from a black hole, but according to quantum mechanics, this is impossible. This paradox presented scientists with a dilemma that one of the two theories, both fundamental to modern physics, may not be entirely correct.

No “hair” right?

If nothing can escape the black hole, no information about what is happening inside the black hole will appear. In the 1960s, the American physicist John Wheeler came up with the following description of black holes: objects with only mass, speed of rotation and charge, but otherwise devoid of any other physical properties. It is assumed that they were ‘bald’ and so Wheeler’s theory was called the ‘hairless theory’.

A team of physicists has now shown that the components of a dead star leave an imprint in a black hole’s gravitational field. They call this print “Quantitative Poetry”, and their thesis “Good Poetry Theory”.

The new theory, published in Physics Letters B† It bridges the gap between general relativity and quantum mechanics, according to scientists. Quantum poetry makes it possible to obtain information about a black hole, without violating the principles of both theories.

One of the researchers, Professor Xavier Calmette, told the BBC: “The problem is solved!” It’s a simple and elegant solution to the problem, he says, “but it will take some time to accept it.”