![]() So Jacob Beckenstein calculated how much information a black hole contains. When you say information, what do you mean? ![]() It doesn't appear to have any moving parts at all, so immediately back in the 1970s, there was a sign that there may be something deeper to black holes.Ī more modern version of Hawking's discovery is that the temperature of a black hole has to do with the information it can store or hide from us. A black hole in Einstein's theory is just a distortion in the fabric of space-time where even light itself cannot escape. Temperature tells you how fast the component parts of something are jiggling around and moving.Ĭontrast that with the description of a black hole. Now that was a remarkable discovery because temperature was just a thing you could measure on a thermometer, but it was really only fully understood when we knew that everything is made of atoms. Hawking discovered that when you put those two frameworks together, there's a prediction, which is black holes have a temperature. In his new book, physicist Brian Cox explores how black holes are like the Rosetta stones to a deeper understanding of not only our universe, but the very nature of reality itself. How has that become even more true in recent years?īeginning with Stephen Hawking's work in the 1970s, it was understood that black holes are not only interesting from an astrophysical perspective, but they actually set up a fundamental clash of principle between the two great pillars of 20th and 21st century physics, which are Einstein's theory of gravity and quantum theory. ![]() You say right in the title of your book that black holes are the key to understanding the universe. The professor of particle physics from the University of Manchester and the Royal Society spoke with Bob McDonald about his new book, Black Holes: The Key to Understanding the Universe. In his new book, physicist and science communicator Brian Cox explores how the new physics might help us reconcile the fundamental clash of principals stemming from our understanding of gravity at a cosmological scale and the physics of the minutia that underlies it, quantum theory. Quirks and Quarks 16:47 UK science star Brian Cox’s new book explores how we might live in a black holeīlack hole research in the last few years is revealing a tantalizing new view of the very nature of time and space.
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