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10185
Black holes
Sat Jan 24, 6:00 PM
Uncharted Science
Black holes and the reversibility of time
A basic principle of physics is that time evolution is always
reversible: given knowledge of the present, we can reconstruct the past
and predict the future. But it is a challenge to preserve this principle
when we combine the theory of gravity, which predicts the existence of
black holes, with quantum mechanics, which governs the microscopic
world. This is a problem in theoretical physics, but also one that has
philosophical implications. In this talk, we will discuss some recent
progress on this problem
A basic principle of physics is that time evolution is always
reversible: given knowledge of the present, we can reconstruct the past
and predict the future. But it is a challenge to preserve this principle
when we combine the theory of gravity, which predicts the existence of
black holes, with quantum mechanics, which governs the microscopic
world. This is a problem in theoretical physics, but also one that has
philosophical implications. In this talk, we will discuss some recent
progress on this problem