The Black Hole War

Ma allora che fine fa, l'informazione, quando precipita in un buco nero?
Leonard Susskind è una vecchia volpe della fisica, così in gamba che riesce a dare a questo rigorosissimo saggio il ritmo di un romanzo d'avventura. Battaglie, colpi di scena, grandissime menti che si confrontano. Il valore di questo libro, oltre che nelle teorie che espone (per inciso qui si parla del paradigma olografico), sta nell'immagine del mondo della fisica e dei fisici che restituisce.
Se qualcuno volesse avvicinarsi dalla narrativa alla saggistica scientifica, non esiterei a consigliargli questo libro.

Okay, I need to face facts: I'm a physics geek. I may not be brilliant on all that math stuff, but I have a pretty good intuitive feel for all the big and a lot of the really small questions. Just don't ask me to actually DO the math.

So after all these fun-filled years of grabbing all the popular science books by all the great names in physics today, I revel in all the conflicting theories and directions that they take.

Sometimes, they can get bitter and protracted, and other times... friendly, if still intractable. This particular book had a little of it all. But about what? Susskind VS Hawking square-off about BLACK HOLES. Specifically, whether or not entropy is, in fact, happening on the other side of the Schwarzschild radius.

The war show more is over now and Hawking had backstepped in the early 2000's, but it still meant that two camps of physicists were up in arms against each other about whether information COULD actually be lost in the special conditions of a Black Hole.

From the start to the end of this book, I was hooked. It FELT like we were on the stage of a grand debate. Susskind always felt like he was on the losing side, but you know how those niggling doubts are. Conflict, losses, concessions, brief respites, and ultimate vindication. It's all here. :) Fun. :)

Yeah, but what about the science? Oh? You want to know about that? Well in the spaces of these years, we went from total loss of information and not just scrambled information (information being any kind of physical state in the universe) to a discovery of a cool little idea that states that if you add information (matter or energy) into a Singularity, it will either A: get bigger by at least a Plank or B: heat up. We must incorporate the little idea that the information of a holographic universe is contained on the SURFACE of any kind of container and not its volume.

Cool, right? Well, things get better once we start introducing String Theory. :)

Susskind makes one hell of a narrative here. I love reading about all these great men battling it out over long stretches of time and visiting each other amiably and still holding on to their positions for their lives.

The point is... none of them knew who was going to be right. The battle was the thing. And in the end, it was the very real and fundamental conflicts on a pure science level that pushed everyone to new heights. :) And we got to see it. :)

Very fun. show less

In this popular science book, Susskind takes us on a roughly chronological tour of his decades-long argument with Stephen Hawking and the other proponents of the idea that information is lost in a black hole. Along this journey are peppered many character descriptions, and quite a few very engaging anecdotes as well as some fundamental physics discussions.

On the personal front, Susskind comes across as charismatic, highly engaging, and full of curiosity and fun. Hawking is described in a rather complex way - one of the most brilliant scientific minds of the 20th century, but whereas others, including perhaps Hawking himself, have claimed that Hawking's severe disability was an advantage for his science, either because of show more over-compensation or his ability to focus far more on science, and have the rest of his life taken care of by caregivers, Susskind is frank that, especially towards the latter half of his debilitating life, Hawking's illness made innovative science near impossible. More than this, though, Hawking comes across as a man irrationally stubbornly connected to earlier brilliant, but ultimately probably wrong ideas. And he was too slow to realise that the arguments had moved on. In a rather shocking description of Hawking's misplaced arrogance, Susskind describes how Hawking gives in and relents to Suskind's (and many other) theoretical physicists' position, though as though it were Hawking that had just come to this revelation, rather than giving due credit to the other scientists, quite a few years earlier. Not very flattering.

The physics itself is the main story here, though. Susskind first briefly describes the key historical roots of the black hole debate, in relativity and quantum mechanics, and how black holes could, potentially resolve these apparently clashing theories. Hawking was the first to make key progress in this area, with the idea of a black hole radiating out its contents, though very slowly, and critically in an information-scrambled way. This was an extremely shocking idea to Susskind as it violates the law of conservation of information.

His idea to combat this was first to claim that there are complementary states of events behind and in front of the black hole event horizon. Then came the idea of the holographic principle, where information in some body (black holes, or even our universe) is represented on the outer surface of that body. Initially these ideas weren't necessarily tied to superstring theory, but as the years went on, and superstring theory became ever more pervasive in theoretical physics, these ideas, especially the holographic principle, became ever more intimately connected to superstring theory.

Black holes, often in these debates, are a key idea, at least in theoretical ways. Susskind throughout explains his ideas clearly and carefully and although much of the debates between these theoretical physicists is no doubt extremely technical and mathematical, on the whole he admirably conveys his ideas so that we understand, on a superficial level, what the key points are. Although much of this debate surrounds theories that might not be testable for decades, nevertheless the potential insights and superstring view of the universe Susskind paints are regularly thrilling. show less

One of the best popular physics books I have read in a long time. Leonard Susskind's The Black Hole War spends 450 pages focused on one question: what happens when information is absorbed by a black hole? It is a debate between Stephen Hawking and other general relativists who think that the information is lost and Gerard 't Hooft, Leonard Susskind and others, who are deeply uncomfortable with the conclusion that black holes can violate the second law of thermodynamics by reducing entropy.

In the course of explaining this debate, Susskind necessarily goes through quantum mechanics, general relativity, string theory, and other areas of physics. And it is leavened with first person discussion of his personal odyssey and his obsession with show more Stephen Hawking, whose unvarnished portrait as epically arrogant and self-centered yet brilliant and charismatic is considerably more impressive than the pop culture version. The first person account not only makes for interesting reading it also lets you learn something about how science is advanced and debates are settled. Hawking posed his view in 1981. By 1993, there was significant theory/evidence that it was wrong but it still was not universally clear: at a conference in Santa Barbara the Susskind view prevailed in a 39-25 vote, not exactly the method most of us would recognize in determining universal scientific truths. By 2007 Hawking himself conceded in writing and paid a debt.

What makes the book so good, however, is how much Susskind explains in a fundamental way, as close to first principals as possible. One of the remarkable results of the last few decades is that the amount of information stored in a black hole is proportional to its surface area, not its volume. Susskind shows how this result is derived by solving several equations, most of them explained or semi-derived in the text itself, ending with the remarkable result that almost all of the arbitrary constants cancel and you're left with what appears to be one of those fundamental equations that make you believe that physicists really have figured out some of the fundamental laws of nature.

From explanations of Hawking radiation and Black Hole entropy, the book takes you through understanding why Hawking's view was so persuasive and the physical discoveries that were needed to overthrow it -- almost all of them generated by simple and profound thought experiments. The book shows that whether or not string theory is "true," it still helps settle existing questions and generate new ones, including the fact that the world can be thought of us a hologram that has a dual in a lower-dimensional, gravity-less world.

I felt myself following almost everything until the last quarter of the book, which focused on Quantum Chromodynamics and string theory. Not sure if my increasingly low comprehension rate was anything that could be remedied by Susskind or inherent in the material. show less

When I first saw the title, I must admit that I expected that this would be some bitter tirade regarding the relative value of the theories of Hawking and Susskind. I was very very wrong.
This is a wonderful, imaginative, generous introduction to some of the deepest problems in physics. It has a joy running through it - without a shred of bitterness. Susskind clearly has a great passion for his work. He also has a great gift in his ability to explain difficult ideas. I have read many of the popular books on cosmology, string theory etc. I must say that this is my favorite.

One of the best popular physics books I have read in a long time. Leonard Susskind's The Black Hole War spends 450 pages focused on one question: what happens when information is absorbed by a black hole? It is a debate between Stephen Hawking and other general relativists who think that the information is lost and Gerard 't Hooft, Leonard Susskind and others, who are deeply uncomfortable with the conclusion that black holes can violate the second law of thermodynamics by reducing entropy.

In the course of explaining this debate, Susskind necessarily goes through quantum mechanics, general relativity, string theory, and other areas of physics. And it is leavened with first person discussion of his personal odyssey and his obsession with show more Stephen Hawking, whose unvarnished portrait as epically arrogant and self-centered yet brilliant and charismatic is considerably more impressive than the pop culture version. The first person account not only makes for interesting reading it also lets you learn something about how science is advanced and debates are settled. Hawking posed his view in 1981. By 1993, there was significant theory/evidence that it was wrong but it still was not universally clear: at a conference in Santa Barbara the Susskind view prevailed in a 39-25 vote, not exactly the method most of us would recognize in determining universal scientific truths. By 2007 Hawking himself conceded in writing and paid a debt.

What makes the book so good, however, is how much Susskind explains in a fundamental way, as close to first principals as possible. One of the remarkable results of the last few decades is that the amount of information stored in a black hole is proportional to its surface area, not its volume. Susskind shows how this result is derived by solving several equations, most of them explained or semi-derived in the text itself, ending with the remarkable result that almost all of the arbitrary constants cancel and you're left with what appears to be one of those fundamental equations that make you believe that physicists really have figured out some of the fundamental laws of nature.

From explanations of Hawking radiation and Black Hole entropy, the book takes you through understanding why Hawking's view was so persuasive and the physical discoveries that were needed to overthrow it -- almost all of them generated by simple and profound thought experiments. The book shows that whether or not string theory is "true," it still helps settle existing questions and generate new ones, including the fact that the world can be thought of us a hologram that has a dual in a lower-dimensional, gravity-less world.

I felt myself following almost everything until the last quarter of the book, which focused on Quantum Chromodynamics and string theory. Not sure if my increasingly low comprehension rate was anything that could be remedied by Susskind or inherent in the material. show less

This book was like a summary of everything I love about physics; the thought experiments, the elegant mathematics, the condensing of everyday reality into really bizarre activities on a subatomic level and the necessity of thinking in a completely new way to even begin to understand it all. The only thing I didn't like about this book is the continual regret that I do not have the mathematical chops to follow the math he didn't include.
Susskind not only follows the progression of some extremely difficult physics with a translation everyone can understand, he also describes the personalities involved in the scientific dispute with wit and warmth. A scientific argument of this scale does not happen all that frequently and it is show more interesting to note that human qualities of curiosity, persistence and complacency have just as much to do with scientific achievement as mere cold facts do.
The equal parts respect and frustration that are accorded to Stephen Hawking is also interesting. The one physicist that everyone knows about is proven to be wrong about an essential fact of science. That alone is enough to make a good general reading book. We have a tendency to put great scientists on pillars they don't deserve. Ever since Einstein people have thought of physicists as our society's answer to mystic gurus who have the keys to the universe the plebeian masses cannot understand. But they are people who have egos just like the rest of us.
The author is direct in stating that String Theory and the interesting things happening in physics now is just the beginning of a revolution perhaps as epic as the changes that happened around the turn of the 20th century. There are a lot of things still to be figured out in this field, it is a very exciting time to be a physicist. show less