Writing from Dingle Bay, Ireland:

Penrose has a new book "The Road to Reality" that looks really good. It was too heavy for me to carry in luggage with my two other Wheeler 90th and Hawking 60th books, I shall order Penrose's book ASAP. All three will shape my own "Hidden Variable."

Fiction: String Theory.
I agree with Penrose, String Theory is really interesting pure math, but so far no evidence for it. No evidence for real on mass-shell-supersymmetry partners. Since supersymmetry is badly broken it probably won't make an infinity-free quantum field theory anyway. Penrose did not mention loop quantum gravity, but same objections apply to it. Penrose did mention that Ed. Witten is now in past 6 months using Twistors to get rid of the 11 dimensions and bring it back to 4 dimensions? Raising the supersymmetry partner mass scale all the time makes string theory Popper unfalsifiable said Penrose.

Fatih: That quantum theory applies at ALL levels like Hawking assumes in his "breakthrough" that information is not lost down a blackhole, but can be recovered after the black hole evaporates. My theory says linear unitary nonlocal micro-quantum theory (Schrodinger-Dirac equations) breaks down to nonlinear nonunitary local macro-quantum theory (Landau-Ginzburg equation) when the macro-world Einstein curved space-time non-perturbative background-independent geometrodynamics emerges from it in a spontaneous breakdown of the unstable false globally flat vacuum without gravity guv and without inertia rest mass m in E^2 = (pc)^2 + (mc^2)^2 mass shell to a lower energy density lower entropy metastable curved vacuum with exotic dark energy of negative ZPF pressure and exotic dark matter of positive ZPF pressure (not to be confused with the QED Casimir force).

In particular micro-quantum gravity and cosmology is an illusion. Macro-quantum gravity and cosmology is not. Penrose does not say this. I say it, but it is consistent with Penrose's intuition in his talk at GR 17 that a breakdown of micro-quantum theory at the macro-level is needed. This is why Hawking's solution at GR 17 is wrong in my opinion.

Fantasy: "Theoretical physics needs some fantasy, otherwise it is boring." said Penrose. I have often expressed the same sentiment. Penrose considers Andrei Linde's et-al inflation "fantasy" even though it may make some correct predictions like the scaling symmetry in the primordial fluctuations and spatial flatness, it still does not explain the fine tuning needed to set the arrow of time, i.e. the irreversibility of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Penrose points out that it is the geometry of space that must have low entropy in the Big Bang because the matter thermalizes quickly to high entropy. In my theory the geometry of space is from the phase ripples in the phase of the zero entropy giant quantum vacuum wave so this may solve Penrose's problem though I am not yet sure. That is, the phase transition from unstable globally flat micro-quantum vacuum to a more stable curved macro-quantum vacuum not only lowers the relative ZPF energy density but also lowers the relative entropy S ~ Bklog(Volume of Phase Space of the Vacuum).

For a universe of size R(t)Lp in the FRW metric, the Hawking entropy of the geometry is

S(t) = kR(t)^2/4

S(0) = 0

kB is Boltzmann's constant.

To be continued

On Jul 22, 2004, at 4:35 AM, Jack Sarfatti wrote:

Part 1 of several

First of all no one really understood what Hawking was saying in detail. This included Kip Thorne, John Preskill, Matt Visser and many others. The jury is still out. Hawking's paper with the details will be out in a month.

There are several levels of objections:

1. Can one apply micro-quantum theory to the universe at large? The "particle" or "hidden variable" in Bohm's ontology is an entire 3D space geometry which extends to billions of light years across as universe expands. So we run into the Schrodinger Cat problem with a vengeance! Hawking basically presented a huge quantum double slit analogy with one "slit" being topologically simple 3D metrics and the other "slit" being topologically multiply connected with a "fixed point" obstruction in the Euclidean signature domain without causal light cones before continuing into physical space-time with light cones where we live. Also there is the condensed matter approach of Sakharov and me that gravity is a PW Anderson "More is different" emergent collective ODLRO phenomenon from a pre-inflationary epoch without any gravity and without any inertial rest masses! The latter suggests no quantum foam corrections to cosmic ray spectrum at ultra-high energies and no dark matter as real particles whizzing through space to make detectors click with the right stuff.

2. Suppose we accept 1. Then can we use the Feynman path integral method to include topologically non-trivial 3D metrics that coherently interfere with the topologically simple ones? Matt Visser cited some old work by Bryce De Witt that says it is not possible.

3. Kip Thorne noted that Feynman's path integral is broader than conventional quantum theory that requires unitarity in the dynamical time evolution. One can have a post-quantum theory using Feynman's path integral of alternative histories that has nonunitary time evolution! Hawking simply assumes that the time evolution MUST be unitary and goes from there. Hawking's argument is probably correct given his initial assumptions. It is the initial assumptions that I think are wrong as a matter of fact as I explain in my book SUPER COSMOS and will explain even more clearly in my new book HIDDEN VARIABLE that I am writing based on this GR 17 Dublin Conference.

4. Hawking's argument in a nut shell is pretty simple:

I. Imagine light impinging on a double slit with a screen behind it. According to Feynman's histories rule for micro-quantum theory if you cannot tell which slit the light passes you must coherently add the complex gubit pilot waves before taking their squared modulus to see what happens at the screen. So then you interference fringes at the screen.

Hawking then makes a huge quantum leap of faith that this rule seen in particle scattering experiments applies to the entire multiverse!

The "light" impinging on the two slits is compared to the "information" falling down the black hole through the classical one-way membrane event horizon that Hal Puthoff in his PV theory says does not exist. No one here at GR 17 who has heard of Hal's idea takes it seriously. They consider Hal's particular positions on both PV and zero point energy metric engineering to be what Feynman called "Cargo Cult pseudo-science" ask Cliff Will, William Unruh and Matt Visser for example. They all volunteered their opinions to me in direct conversation that Marc Millis's NASA BPP project should never have been funded because the quality of its theoretical physics was too low. Indeed, this is what I say in my book SUPER COSMOS. They were all concerned that Hal's theoretical ideas on metric engineering would be bought by USG DOD and large aerospace companies. So was Professor X who is quite familiar with Hal's theories. Again this is not a personal attack on Hal Puthoff or even on some of his past work in physics. This is their honest judgment and they are just as hard on themselves and on their closest colleagues as on Hal. Indeed, Kip Thorne did not immediately embrace Hawking's argument here at GR 17 and neither did Preskill and they said so on stage. Preskill a particle physicist said on TV he could not follow Hawking's argument in detail.

II. Hawking then says that the only observables allowed in this extrapolation of micro-quantum theory to gravity are S-matrix observables connecting the information falling down the black hole to what a future observer at infinity will see. Well this is clearly no good at all for us physicists living now. It is one more argument why the whole micro-quantum gravity idea is a wrong idea from asking the wrong questions! Hawking then says that indeed the information in the topologically non-trivial black hole topology does exponentially decay in a non-unitary way along that "path" but that the future observer at the "screen" at future timelike/lightlike infinities, in the sense of the unitary analytic micro-quantum S-matrix of Geoff Chew and now Lenny Susskind, neverless sees BOTH Feynman path micro-quantum amplitudes add coherently at a point on the screen! This does make perfect sense logically ONLY in Bohm's ontology where EMPTY qubit waves have physical effects! The initial information I passing BOOTH slits is therefore recovered completely ONLY AFTER the black hole completely evaporates because I is REDUNDANTLY ENCODED in BOTH the topologically trivial "path" and the topologically non-trivial "path" where in fact it does get lost, but you only need it in one path. This is why Hawking says the black hole event horizon is "fuzzy" because he assumes quantum wave interference between macro trivial and non-trivial 3S SPACE topologies. Given all these dubious assumptions I suppose Hawking's argument will be correct as a matter of logic, though probably not as a matter of fact. So far of course what Hawking is saying is in W. Pauli's words "not even wrong" because there is as yet no way to falsify the idea in Karl Popper's sense. The same of course is true for John Baez's and Ashtekar's et-al "loop quantum gravity" and for Ed Witten's, Lenny Susskind's et-al "M theory" with superstrings - however the colliding "branes" may be testable along with idea of extra space dimensions making strong short-range gravity which is an idea I also arrive at independently from different simpler considerations using only Einstein's GR and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle with notions of macro-quantum ODLRO.

* In this regard Feynman's path integral formalism is compatible with Bohm's ontology and is most general allowing the extension to macro-quantum theory with ODLRO. None of the Pundit Top Guns at this elite meeting have understood the role of macro-quantum ODLRO that can be put into Feynman's path integral formalism. What we need to do next is to see how Feynman or his students solve the superfluid helium or the BCS superconductor problem using the path integrals. Hawking would then need to reconsider since the MACRO-quantum Landau-Ginzburg ODLRO equations are already NONUNITARY as well as local and nonlinear unlike the micro-quantum Schrodinger, Dirac et-al equations that are nonlocal and linear - which is where Hawking & Co are stuck.

"The Question is: What is The Question?" John. A. Wheeler

To be continued:


On Jul 21, 2004, at 12:59 PM, Tony Smith wrote:

I was extremely disappointed to read the following,
excerpted from a N Y Times AP article at
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Ireland-Black-Holes.html?hp

"... By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ... Published: July 21, 2004 ...
... Filed at 1:22 p.m. ET ...

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- Famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking
said Wednesday that black holes ... do not destroy everything they consume
and instead can fire out matter and energy ``in a mangled form.''

Hawking's radical new thinking, presented in a paper
to the 17th International Conference on General Relativity
and Gravitation in Dublin, capped his three-decade struggle
to explain an elemental paradox in scientific thinking:
...
Hawking's answer is that the black holes hold their contents for eons
but themselves eventually deteriorate and die.
As the black hole disintegrates,
they send their transformed contents back out
into the infinite universal horizons from which they came.
...
Hawking added, ``It is great to solve a problem
that has been troubling me for nearly 30 years ... ''
...
Hawking settled a 7-year-old bet made with Caltech astrophysicist
John Preskill, who ... said he looked forward to reading
the detailed paper that Hawking is expected to publish next month. ...".
...
The final questioner asked him what problem he intended to tackle next,
now that he had solved the paradox of the black hole.

``I don't know,'' Hawking quickly replied,
bringing the house down with laughter. ...".

---------------------------------------------------------

Tony Smith then wrote:

"In my opinion it is disgraceful that Hawking claimed full credit
for solving the "information paradox", completely ignoring
the work of others who (in my opinion) had already solved the paradox
over the past years."

Jack adds: Tony you cannot believe what is written in newspapers. Hawking was only talking about his independent thinking on the problem. I suspect he never read any of the papers you cite below. Also, even if he did, his method is I would guess completely independent of theirs?

Tony continued:

"Such earlier solutions include, but are not
necessarily limited to:


1 - In 1999 Cerf and Adami wrote a paper at
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9904006
that used quantum information theory to solve it
by showing that "... Hawking radiation is effectively non-thermal
(in the sense that quantum correlations between the radiation and
the state of the black hole exist in principle) ...";.

2 - In 2000 Carlos Castro and Alex Granik wrote a paper at
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/physics/0002019
that used a Feynman Path Integral Approach to solve it by
showing that "points" on a black hole event horizon are effectively,
from a quantum path integral point of view, complicated enough
to permit information flow.
This is the first paper for which Carlos Castro was blacklisted
by Cornell (a partial blacklist then - the paper was removed from
"hep-th" where it was posted and put into the less-widely read "physics"
archive).
It is interesting to me that Hawking's abstract at
http://www.dcu.ie/~nolanb/gr17_plenary.htm#hawking
refers to a path integral approach, so perhaps Hawking is
"rediscovering" (and getting credit for) the Castro/Granik solution
that was the start of the blacklisting of Carlos Castro.

3 - In 2000 Chapline wrote a paper at
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0012094
that solved it by describing an event horizon as a quantum critical-
opalescent condensate;

4 - In January 2004 Mathur wrote a paper at
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-th/0401115
that solved it in terms of string theory by describing a black
hole as a fuzz-ball with information distributed throughout
its interior (and not restricted to a so-called "holographic" smooth
surface ball boundary).

---------------------------------------------------------------

...