Posted on 11/17/2008 11:12:21 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Stanford University physicist Leonard Susskind will discuss his 20-year battle with cosmologist Stephen Hawking over their conflicting interpretations of the behavior of black holes in a lecture at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, in McCosh 50.
He will describe the clash and the resulting discoveries in a talk titled "The Black Hole War."
Susskind, the Felix Bloch Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford, is widely regarded as one of the fathers of string theory. His lecture will be based on events and ideas in his newest book, "The Black Hole War: My Battle With Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics." Hawking, a world-renowned theoretical physicist, is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.
The intellectual disagreement between the pair centered on the question of whether quantum laws hold in black holes. Hawking argued that tiny bits of information are lost when black holes evaporate.
Susskind countered that it couldn't be true, as such an event would violate the basic laws of physics. In fact, Susskind found the idea so disturbing that he publicly declared his opposition to the notion and set about, as he said in his book, to "make the world safe for quantum mechanics." In his lecture, he will describe how string theory helped him resolve the conundrum.
Susskind has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the 1998 J.J. Sakurai Prize for theoretical particle physics by the American Physical Society.
The event is sponsored by the Louis Clark Vanuxem Fund, the Department of Physics and the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science.
(Excerpt) Read more at princeton.edu ...
I don’t know much about physics. What do they mean about information and why is losing it such a big deal?
ping for later
Will Sheldon be there, as well as Leonard?
That's racist!!
Neat stuff. Thaks for the link. Saw his book at Barnes and Noble the other day - must go back to buy it.
I used to have the answer to that one, uh, uh...
Supermassive black ho
From the look at both of them, Susskind must have won the duel.
It's a math thing. Information does not relate to any physical quantity.
“What do they mean about information and why is losing it such a big deal?”
I think they mean that “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
Ed Witten?
I read Hawking’s book “A Brief History of Time” about 15 years ago. Although I have a Ph.D., I probably understood half of what he wrote. However, he made a scientific case for the existence of God (or Intelligent Design if you prefer) that has had a longer lasting impression on me than anything else I have read, including CS Lewis.
“Hawking, a world-renowned theoretical physicist, is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.”
Lucasian Professor? If this chair is funded by Lucas (The Prince of Darkness..) I am going to have to rethink my feelings about Hawkings. Could be nothing there...or something there sometimes but not always...or Hawkings disappears when the humidity exceeds 85%.
I thought it would be good web alley cat, er, etiquette. ;’)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2133674/posts?page=3#3
I’ve love the relevant quotes, if you have time sometime (FReepmail).
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