The Black Hole War: My Battle With Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics

455 Pages·2008·43.99 MB·English

by  Leonard Susskind

"Susskind does a masterful job of translating the incredible com
plexity of general relativity, quantum physics, string theory, and
black hole theory into a cheerful romp through the worlds of the
very big and the very small."
-Sheila Jones, Toronto Globe and Mail
"Susskind does a terrific job across an astonishing range, from Ein
stein's work in relativity to the laws of thermodynamics to the fan
tastical ideas behind string theory in cosmology. When the debate
finally ends, the reader has gotten some rather entertaining insights
into the world of physics and a very nice grounding in the science."
- Deborah Blum, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"The Black Hole War charts the ups and downs of this lengthy yet
good-natured dispute. Susskind skillfully explains the subtleties of
the physics that underlie the issue, and includes anecdotes to en
liven the technical details." - Paul Davies, Nature
"Susskind is very down to earth, an easygoing and entertaining
guide through the most exciting frontiers of theoretical physics."
- Aman~a Gefter, New Scientist
"Susskind shares Richard Feynman's gift for spinning fascinating
anecdotes. ... The Black Hole War succeeds on two levels: as an en
gaging memoir by a skilled storyteller; and as a compelling intro
duction to some elusive but captivating scientific ideas."
- John Preskill, Physics World
"A mind-bender. ... This is your universe on acid .... Susskind ex
plains this dizzying notion about as clearly as is probably possible."
-George Johnson, New York Times Book Re iew
"Susskind is famous for his wit and storytelling abilities. ... The Black
Hole War will richly reward anyone who takes the time to ponder
the intricacies of its themes." - Sean Carroll, Wall Street Journal
THE BLACK HOLE WAR
MY BATTLE WITH STEPHEN HAWKING TO MAKE
THE WORLD SAFE FOR QUANTUM MECHANICS
Leonard Susskind
BACK BAY BOOKS
I.JTTtE, RROWN ANO COMPANY
New York -'' Boston ,_..., London
ALSO BY LEONARD SUSSKIND
The Cosmic Landscape:
String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design
Copyright © 2008 by Leonard Susskind
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Back Bay Books I Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
www.hachettebookgroup.com
Originally published in hardcover by Little, Brown and Company, July 2008
First Back Bay paperback edition,July2009
Back Bay Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company.
The Back Bay Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
lllustration of Trinity College, Cambridge, on page 273 © 1996 by Jeremy Bays.
www.art-work-shop.co.uk. Photograph on page 284 courtesy of the Isaac Newton
Institute for Mathematical Sciences. M. C. Escher's Circle Limit IV in chapter 22 ©
2008The M. C. Escher Company-Holland. All rights reserved. www.mcescher.com.
Please address physics questions to Susskind's Blog: Physics for Everyone,
http:/lsusskindsblogphysicsforeveryone.blogspot.coml.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Susskind, Leonard.
The black hole war :my battle with Stephen Hawking to make the world safe
for quantum mechanics I Leonard Susskind.-1st ed.
p. em.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-316-01640-7 (he) I 978-0-316-01641-4 (pb)
1. Quantum theory. 2. General relativity (Physics). 3. Black holes (Astronomy).
4. Space and time. 5. Hawking, S. W. (Stephen W.). L Title.
QC174.12.S896 2008
530.12-dc22 2007048355
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
RRD-IN
Printed in the United States of America
What is it that breathes fire into the equations and
makes a universe for them to describe?
- STEPHEN HAWKING
CONTENTS
Introduction 3
Part I The Gathering Storm
1 The First Shot 17
' The Dark Star 25
3 Not Your Grandfather's Geometry 50
4 "Einstein, Don't Tell God What to Do" 76
5 Planck In vents a Better Yardstick 111
6 In a Broadway Bar 117
7 Energy and Entropy 126
8 Wheeler's Boys, or How Much Information
Can You Stuff in a Black Hole? 143
9 Black Light 157
Part II Surprise AHack
lC How Stephen Lost His Bits and Didn't Know
Where to Find Them 179
.
viii CONTENTS
11 The Dutch Resistance 193
12 Who Cares? 200
13 Stalemate 211
14 Skirmish at Aspen 225
Part Ill CounteraHack
15 The Battle of Santa Barbara 233
16 Wait! Reverse the Rewiring 265
17 Ahab in Cambridge 271
18 The World as a Hologram 290
Part IV Closing the Ring
19 Weapon of Mass Deduction 309
20 Alice's Airplane, or The Last Visible Propeller 354
21 Counting Black Holes 366
22 South America Wins the War 395
23 Nuclear Physics? You're Kidding! 422
24 Humility 433
Epilogue 442
Acknowledgments 449
Glossary 451
Index 457
THE BLACK HOLE WAR
INTRODUCTION
There was so much to grok, so little to grok from.
-ROBERT A. HEINLEIN,
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
omewhere on the East African savanna, an aging lion spies
her intended dinner. She prefers older, slower victims, but
the young, healthy antelope is her only choice. The wary eyes
of the prey are placed on the side of his head, ideally suited for
scouring the landscape in search of dangerous predators. The pred
ator's eyes look straight ahead, perfect for locking onto her victim
and gauging the distance.
This time the antelope's wide-angle scanners miss the predator,
and he wanders within striking range. The powerful rear legs of the
lion thrust her forward toward the panicked victim. The timeless
race begins anew.
Though burdened by age, the big cat is the superior sprinter. At
first the gap closes, but the lion's powerful fast-twitch muscles grad
ually give way to oxygen deplivation. Soon the antelope's natural
endurance wins out, and at some point the relative velocity of the
cat and her prey switches sign; the closing gap begins to open. The
moment she senses this reversal of fortune, Her Royal Highness is
defeated. She slinks back into the underbrush.
4 THE BlACK HOLE WAR
Fifty thousand years ago, a tired hunter spots a cave opening blocked
by a boulder: a safe place to rest if he can move the heavy obstruc
tion. Unlike his apish forebears, the hunter stands upright. In that
straight-up posture, he pushes mightily against the boulder, but
nothing happens. To get a better angle, the hunter places his feet at
a greater distance from the rock. When his body is almost horizon
tal, the applied force has a much larger component in the right di
rection. The boulder moves.
Distance? Velocity? Change of sign? Angle? Force? Component?
What incredibly sophisticated calculations took place in the untu
tored brain of the hunter, let alone the cat? These are technical con
cepts that one ordina1ily first meets in college physics textbooks.
Where did the cat learn to gauge not only the velocity of its prey but
also, more important, the relative velocity? Did the hunter take a
physics course to learn the concept of force? And trigonometry to
reckon the sines and cosines for computing components?
The truth, of course, is that all complex life-forms have built-in,
instinctive physics concepts that have been hardwired into their
nervous systems by evolution.1 Without this preprogrammed phys
ics software, survival would be impossible. Mutation and natural se
lection have made us all physicists, even animals. In humans the
large size of the brain has allowed these instincts to evolve into con
cepts that we carry at the conscious level.
I. No one really knows how much is hardwil"Cd and how much is learned in early life,
but the distinction is not important here. The point is that by the time our nervous
systems are mature, experience, of either the personal or the evolutionary kind, has
given us a lot of instinctual knowledge of how the physical world behaves. Whether
hardwired or learned at a very young age, the knowledge is very difficult to unlearn.