The Black Hole War: My Battle with
Stephen Hawking to Make the World
Safe for Quantum Mechanics by
Leonard Susskind
Beating Hawking At Physics Like Beating Michael Jordan At Basketbal
At the beginning of the 21st century, physics is being driven to very
unfamiliar territory--the domain of the incredibly small and the incredibly
heavy. The new world is a world in which both quantum mechanics and
gravity are equally important. But mysteries remain. One of the biggest
involved black holes. Famed physicist Stephen Hawking claimed that
anything sucked in a black hole was lost forever. For three decades,
Leonard Susskind and Hawking clashed over the answer to this problem.
Finally, in 2004, Hawking conceded.
THE BLACK HOLE WAR will explain the mind-blowing science that finally
won out, and the emergence of a new paradigm that argues the world--this
catalog, your home, your breakfast, you--is actually a hologram projected
from the edges of space.

Personal Review: The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen
Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by
Leonard Susskind
This book contains the amazing story of how Stephen Hawking lost a bet
over a matter of physics.
For the very few who don't know, Hawking is to modern physics like
Michael Jordan is to basketball. Hawking started his career by
determining, contrary to over fifty years of popular wisdom, that Black
Holes would radiate and eventually dissolve. As follow ups he authored
the mega seller Brief History of Time and has generally been at the
forefront of modern cosmology for the past thirty years.
Oh and yeah, he also holds the very same academic chair at Oxford
University once held by Isaac Newton.
So it goes without saying that winning a bet against him over a matter of
physics is...well...astounding.
But that's the story this book tells. Though the physics itself is incredibly
complicated, the basic dispute raged over what happens to matter once it
disappears beyond the event horizon of a Black Hole.
As suggested by the question, does the matter permanently disappear
never to be able to interact with the rest of the universe? Or alternatively,
is that matter somehow still preserved able...not now obviously, but
eventually someday...to re-interact with this universe from which it once
came?
Amazingly the two main fields of physics, quantum physics and relativity,
seemed to suggest two different answers. For its part relativity seemed to
suggest, as wagered by Hawking, that yes indeed, the matter would be
lost. On the other hand quantum physics held that such a loss was
impossible and that eventually (in like a number of years equal to 1 with 68
zeros behind it) the information could someday re-emerge.
For reasons having to do with the failure of his own cosmological models
Hawking surrendered on the bet.
Yet the likes of Paul Davies (a professor with the University of Adelaide in
Australia) think that perhaps Hawking may have been premature and may
yet prevail. In this way, the development would be similar to Einstein dying
having considered his cosmological constant to be a failure when modern
physics supports the notion that at least for his part, Einstein was right
after all.

Regardless, and this is something Susskind is quick to point out, Hawking
can still claim bragging rights for starting a discussion that runs to the heart
of the question of whether quantum or relativistic reality controls in physics.
And regardless of your position on this issue, you will no doubt find this to
be an enlightening and highly accessible book.
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