The physics debate continues

The implications could be revolutionary, suggesting that gravity may not be a fundamental force of nature.

Prof. Braunstein says: "Our results didn't need the details of a black hole's curved space geometry. That lends support to recent proposals that space, time and even gravity itself may be emergent properties within a deeper theory. Our work subtly changes those proposals, by identifying quantum information theory as the likely candidate for the source of an emergent theory of gravity. Science Daily

HT Naked Capitalism

Prof. Samuel Braunstein and Dr. Manas Patra suggest that information could escape from black holes after all. Shannon will be everywhere.

Dr. Patra adds: "We cannot claim to have proven that escape from a black hole is truly possible, but that is the most straight-forward interpretation of our results. Indeed, our results suggest that quantum information theory will play a key role in a future theory combining quantum mechanics and gravity."

If these folks were economists, they would be banished.

But the question is, how much information needs to escape? Just enough so neighboring quant levels can set the Fibonacci value for -iLog(i). I should read the science report? Well, if you insist.

The significance of the information paradox came to a head in 1997 when Hawking, together with Kip Thorne of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the US, placed a bet with John Preskill, also of Caltech. At the time, Hawking and Thorne both believed that information was lost in black holes, while Preskill thought that it was impossible. Later, however, Hawking conceded the bet, saying he believed that information is returned – albeit in a disguised state. Physics World

A whoops for Stephen Hawking.

Ah yes, the tunneling thingy:

Normally, theorists dealing with black holes have to wrestle with the complex geometries of space–time arising from Einstein's theory of gravitation – the theory of general relativity. In their model, Braunstein and Patra say that the event horizon is purely quantum mechanical in nature, with bits of quantum "Hilbert" space tunnelling through the barrier.

Whoah, this sounds familiar:

There is yet another twist to the researchers' work. Last year, string theorist Erik Verlinde of the University of Amsterdam, building on work by Ted Jacobsen of the University of Maryland in the US, put forward a speculative idea for the origin of gravity. Under Verlinde's proposal, gravity is not a fundamental interaction, but emerges from the universe trying to maximize disorder

Lets hear from my Alma Mater:

Steve Giddings, a physicist specializing in quantum gravity at the University of California, Santa Barbara, does not think that Braunstein and Patra have addressed "the most central questions" of Verlinde's proposal. However, he says they have put forward another hint of an important link between quantum information and gravity. "An important challenge is to figure out whether the ideas enunciated by Verlinde and others can be given a more concrete foundation," he adds. "This may be one more piece of that puzzle, but we're not there yet."

Well, Golly Gee Whiz The message, of course, is that maximizing entropy requires economies of scale, quantization, and the setting of relative probability of events, otherwise known as Shannon Channel Theory.