[thedoc (OP)]

Rayce Stipanovich asked the Naked Scientists:
   I hope that you can answer this for me.  I was wondering that, if modern physics states that information cannot be lost, then when information contained in atoms falls past the event horizon of a black hole, it can never be retrieved, thus, making it in effect lost.  How can this be?  It is called the Hawking Paradox and has stumped physicists for ages.  Hawking himself came up with many theories, but they seem to contradict each other.  If information can be lost, than what is the porpose, then, for collecting information.  Could you please shed some light in this dark truth in one of your podcasts.  Thank you if you can answer this.
What do you think?

[evan_au]

If information can be lost, than what is the purpose, then, for collecting information.

Information about matter falling into a black hole may or may not be lost, but it is certainly scrambled beyond our current abilities to reconstruct it. Some of the information will gradually "leak" out of the black hole as photons emitted close to the event horizon eventually reach external observers - but they are severely delayed and red-shifted; you may need to wait until teh end of the universe to collect them.

But in more mundane scenarios, information stored on magnetic tape, floppy disks and books in landfill is often lost. So regularly back up your computer, and quickly upload your selfies to your favorite social media platform... []

[jeffreyH]

Within nucleons we have constituents called quarks which cannot exist freely as individual particles. They must always be confined. We do not say that the information about the quarks is lost. If a black hole is considered to be a similar object to a nucleon then the information is masked rather than lost.

[CPT ArkAngel]

Information is never lost. Some information radiates outside as matter fall in and some is kept in the structure of the black hole. There is no singularity. Hawking's mistake is to imply a singularity...

[Bill S]

I'm still struggling with my daughter's tablet, and some of my posts seem to be getting lost. I'll try this one again.

I'm firmly with ArkAngel on the singularly bit.

I think we have to ask what we really mean when we talk about information loss. Do we mean lost to us? If so then what does that mean in the context of the Universe? It has echoes of the quantum measurement debate, and the absurdity of arguing that human intelligence is required to create reality.

Do we mean lost to the Universe? If the Universe is all there is,  where would the information go?

[Novaflipps]

Everything is energy, energy can't disapear, just transform into other states. Its really simplified i know, but true. So nothing can't be lost imo

[yor_on]

It's about conservation laws. But it's not about Noether,  it's more of an assumption that if everything else can be related to conservation laws, and symmetries existing, why not information too? But think of yourself writing a piece of information on a ice cube. As the ice melts, is the information lost?
=

I've seen CPT (charge, parity and time) used as an example supporting this idea, but as time practically is a one way arrow even though we have a theoretical 'time symmetry' aka 'time reversal'? I don't think it will hold myself, making Hawking radiation into something containing little or none information of what it was in-falling, except in those circumstances we involve Noether's conservation laws. But that is a guess, I don't really know.