Is the Hawking vs. Sussking debate still unresolved?

[bostonnew]

I've been reading about it various places online, but I can't seem to find a straight answer.

Is information lost when black holes disappear, or not?

Thanks!

 

[Demystifier]

It is not known yet, but prevailing belief is that information is somehow restored. For a brief review of options see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_...ain_approaches_to_the_solution_of_the_paradox

 

[tom.stoer]

The basic idea is that there are microphysical degrees of freedom storing the information and from which quantum corrections during black hole evaporation will again restore the information (quantum corrections mean that the spectrum is not purely black body).

The problem seems to be that these quantum corrections cannot be small.

 

[Dmitry67]

Where can I get more details about "Information is encoded in the correlations between future and past" solution?

 

[Demystifier]

Where can I get more details about "Information is encoded in the correlations between future and past" solution?

In reference [7] cited there on the wikipedia page.
For a simplified explanation see also
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0912.1938

 

[Dmitry67]

Thank you
OMG, Just noticed who is the author :)

But it puzzled me even more... What is a the INFORMATION if we assume block time?

 

[Demystifier]

OMG, Just noticed who is the author :)

Well, if that particular author is not sufficiently impressive, you may also see Ref. [6] by James Hartle.

But it puzzled me even more... What is a the INFORMATION if we assume block time?

I'm not sure that I understand the question, so I will respond with a counter-question: What is information if we DON'T assume block time?

 

[Dmitry67]

I have to be honest, the more I think about it the less I understand what is it.
For example, after reading the recent article http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.1066 by Max Tegmark and his (very logical) view that truly infinite universe must contain all possible states (with different frequences) I have to conclude that the total amount of information in such universe is ZERO because everything is derived from the equations.

Answering your question, without block time, Universe is truly evolving, and can be emulated. Then the emulator calculates state at t+dt based on the state at t. The information is the information the emulator must keep to simulate the evolution correctly. This is naive, but very general definition, because it is applicable to any mathematical universe, including, for example, the "Game of Life" universe.

However, if we assume block time, there is no 'flow' and no information to pass from the past into the future; everything is just a static solution, and time is just a direction.

 

[Demystifier]

However, if we assume block time, there is no 'flow' and no information to pass from the past into the future; everything is just a static solution, and time is just a direction.

If information does not flow from the past to the future, it does not mean that information does not exist.

 

[Demystifier]

The problem seems to be that these quantum corrections cannot be small.

Exactly. And at the same time, they SHOULD be small for macroscopically large black holes.

But the option "information is encoded in the correlations between future and past" (that Dmitry asked about) does not suffer from this problem because, for this option to work, no information needs to leak out from the black hole.

 

[Dmitry67]

ok, regarding static objects, what information is stored in a set of all primes?

 

[Demystifier]

ok, regarding static objects, what information is stored in a set of all primes?

For the same reason as before, I will again respond with a counter-question:
What information is stored in the static sentence:
"Any fool can ask a question, but only clever person can ask a good one." ?