Written by: Sashwat Paudel - 2022019, Grade X
Posted on: 17 August, 2020
Information paradox, also known as the Blackhole information paradox, is a paradox that suggests that information could be permanently deleted, once it enters a black hole. But, according to quantum mechanics, information can never be lost. Not only can this paradox turn the laws of physics, but also prove that the universe is a hologram.
What is Information?
Information, on the grounds of this paradox, is considered as the property of the arrangement of particles. Take a bunch of carbon atoms and arrange then in a certain order, you get graphite. Take the same atoms and arrange them in a different order, you get a diamond. The fact is that carbon atoms don’t really care if they're part of a diamond or a piece of coal. The basic building blocks of the universe are not so different. They are the same. Now, without information, the universe would consist of identical things. Everything in the universe would be the same.
According to quantum mechanics, information is never lost. Even if we burn a piece of paper, it is said that the information is not lost, only hard to read. This might seem insane, but, if we put in the right effort and tools, we can trace the universe right from the big bang.
Black holes and Hawking radiation
Black holes are constantly losing their mass by a phenomenon called Hawking radiation. Scientists have found out that black holes radiate their mass away like a boiling pot of water. But, this takes an unbelievably long period of time. Black holes radiate their mass away more frequently as time passes by. So, imagine that an apple is sucked by a black hole and it radiates away. Where did the information go? Keeping in mind that we cannot access the black hole unless we are willing to never return, the information is not accessible even when the black hole is alive. It can be assured that while radiating their mass away, black holes can delete the fundamental information in the universe.
The Information Paradox
There have been many solutions to this paradox, but we are uncertain about all of them. Maybe the information is really lost and we can't access it forever. If this is proven to be true, we must be throwing out a lot of science stuff that was working out really well in the past and start to shape the new laws. Maybe the information is not lost nor hidden but passes into a completely new universe we cannot visit. Even if it went to a new universe, it would not help as it would not be retrievable, but it would not break the laws of physics. But the most astounding thing of all is that it could prove that the universe is a hologram.
Holographic principle
If the information that goes into a black hole is stored at the boundary of a black hole, the process of Hawking radiation is able to read the information and carry it away. This way the information is not lost when black holes radiate away. This way the paradox is resolved.
According to this principle, if you were to step into a black hole, your information would be encoded into the black hole. This means that from an outsider’s perspective, you would be a flat 2D image on the edge of the black hole. But, from your perspective, you would be living your usual 3D life but you would never realize that you are, in reality, a 2D image. If this kind of stuff works for black holes, it surely works for the whole universe. Remember that black holes are also bound to the same fundamentals as the universe is. Like a person inside a black hole doesn’t have a clue they are encoded on a flat surface, we might as well be sharing the same fate.
We can just be encoded on a flat surface on the end of the universe.
For now, we just don’t know.
