Stephen Hawking says in a new paper that black holes don't exist.
Hawking, a famed theoretical physicist, has a new paper titled "Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting for Black Holes," where he explains in two pages why he doesn't believe "event horizons" – from which nothing can escape – exist.
"The absence of event horizons mean that there are no black holes – in the sense of regimes from which light can't escape to infinity," Hawking writes.
Hawking previously explained how "event horizons" work.
"A black hole has a boundary, called the event horizon. It is where gravity is just strong enough to drag light back, and prevent it escaping," he explained in a lecture. "Because nothing can travel faster than light, everything else will get dragged back also.
"Falling through the event horizon, is a bit like going over Niagara Falls in a canoe. If you are above the falls, you can get away if you paddle fast enough, but once you are over the edge, you are lost. There's no way back. As you get nearer the falls, the current gets faster. This means it pulls harder on the front of the canoe, than the back. There's a danger that the canoe will be pulled apart. It is the same with black holes."
Hawking is well known for what has been dubbed Hawking radiation, the theory that black holes emit radiation and eventually evaporate, taking everything inside with it. After 30 years, Hawking conceded that it is indeed possible for information about matter to escape the hole.
"If you jump into a black hole, your mass energy will be returned to our Universe, but in a mangled form, which contains information about what you were like, but in an unrecognizable state," he said in 2004.
But some physicists said that created an information paradox and thus went against the rule of general relativity.
In the ongoing debate on black holes, Hawkings submitted his new theory this week to say there are no event horizons. Instead, there could be "apparent horizons" where light could escape.
New Scientist, which breaks down the debate, says if Hawking is correct, "it could lead to a better understanding of quantum mechanics and general relativity."