News Digest

Hawking: Black holes aren’t so ‘black’ — they could lead us to other universes

Professor Stephen Hawking has outlined a new theory about black holes, arguing they could lead to other universes. The astrophysicist said there was “a way out” of black holes, adding that he had discovered a mechanism “by which information is returned out of the black hole.” He said information lost in a black hole might be translated into a kind of hologram or break out into an alternative universe. “The existence of alternative histories with black holes suggests this might be possible,” he said. “The hole would need to be large and if it was rotating, it might have a passage to another universe.”

The message of this lecture is that black holes ain’t as black as they are painted.

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking

Hawking, 73, used a public lecture in Stockholm to detail his thoughts about where lost information ends up after being sucked into black holes, a place where gravity compresses matter to a density where the usual laws of physics break down. He said: ”[Black holes] are not the eternal prisons they were once thought. Things can get out of a black hole both on the outside and possibly come out in another universe. … But you couldn’t come back to our universe. So although I’m keen on space flight, I’m not going to try that.”