
Kip Thorne: The Man Who Imagined Wormholes and Schooled Hawking (2007) - kercker
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/nov/the-man-who-imagined-wormholes-and-schooled-hawking/
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mahranch
"Schooled" is a bit of an exaggeration. They just place bets on the outcome of
physics from time to time.

One thing is strange though, they're conceding bets on outcomes that are far
from conclusive/decided. For example, the bet about the black hole &
information paradox. There are many different ways _both_ of them could be
wrong/right. One such possible answer resides in string theory. A few string
theorists put forth the idea that black holes may not have a singularity at
all (thus, no paradox). Let me explain:

Massive enough stars collapse into neutron stars when they die. A neutron star
is made out of neutron degenerate matter. Basically, when a star dies, gravity
rips apart/compresses/implodes everything down to neutrons. The gravity is so
strong that helium, hydrogen etc. cannot exist within the star, it immediately
gets broken down into more fundamental components. It gets ripped apart and
turned into this "neutron degenerate matter". This is because neutrons have
enough energy or "strength" to resist gravity. This is why a neutron star is
stable. But if a star has enough mass (more gravity), it's possible for even
neutrons to break down and succumb to gravity. Some people have hypothesized
that they can break down into quark stars but we have yet to see them.
Instead, we currently believe they form singularities (a black hole) since
there is nothing more fundamental to hold back the force of gravity.

Massive enough stars collapse into black holes/singularities because after
neutrons/quarks, there is nothing more fundamental to break down into. But in
string theory, there is. In string theory, strings are the fundamental
component of the universe. A few (not all, it's pretty fringe/new) string
theorists have hypothesized that a black hole could be simply a "fuzzball".
It's basically a star made out of strings. It would behave and have the
_exact_ same properties that current black holes have (light cannot escape, no
limit on size, extreme gravity, etc) but it resolves 2 of the paradoxes -- no
singularity (no invoking infinity & breaking QM) and no information paradox.

See here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzball_%28string_theory%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzball_%28string_theory%29)

If string theory is correct, and fuzzballs are the true description of black
holes, the bet itself is wrong. It would be like betting whether the sun was
made out of cheese or wax. The answer would be neither.

~~~
kurthr
"Schooled" is in fact, just ancient click-bait for wrong. I heard Hawking's
exact explanation in the late 80s (a copy of the bet was on display in Bridge
Hall as I remember), but there is also documentation from Hawking himself in
'97 long before this article was written. I suspect Kip would be annoyed by
the implication, since they are pretty good friends. It's even more sad that
they don't mention the girly-magazine part of the wager since that adds a
human and salacious twist to it... although out of Discover's G-rated range.

 _Hawking 's explanation for his position was that if black holes didn't
actually exist much of his research would be incorrect, but at least he'd have
the consolation of winning the bet._ Stephen Hawking (1997). Black Holes
(VHS). New River Media

~~~
rdc12
They did mention the Penthouse magazine subscription.

"The bet was very nonpolitically correct: He gave me a subscription to
Penthouse magazine when I won."

