Reply #20: I believe the "information" reference is getting at the notion of entropy [View All]

[daleo]

Increasing entropy implies increasing disorder and decreasing information. So, he seems to be saying that black hole processes do not always lead to increases in entropy. Or something like that.

I also remember studying Hawking radiation in a junior Astronomy course back in the late 1970's, so in this sense his speculations that black holes can emit radiation are not new. Although, I suppose he may have come up with a new angle.

That's about as far as my 20 year old B.Sc. will take me. For what it is worth, I once met Werner Israel, who worked with Hawking on black hole theory way back when ("black holes have no hair"). We didn't discuss cosmology, though. He just handed my some budget documents on university business. He seemed like a really nice, gentle soul, though.