Quantum Hair  

James Penha

“Quantum hair” could resolve [Stephen] Hawking’s black hole paradox, say scientists… by bridging the gap between general relativity and quantum mechanics using a new mathematical formulation. …As matter collapses into a black hole, they suggest, it leaves a faint imprint in its gravitational field. This imprint is referred to as “quantum hair” and, the authors say, would provide the mechanism by which information is preserved during the collapse of a black hole.

— The Guardian, March 17, 2022

Black holes
are not as omnivorous 
as we thought; before they suck
up their compass and die, they excrete obituaries
Bohr, Planck, Einstein, and Hawking would understand.

The Science

Classical and quantum physics rule that information cannot be destroyed in the universe. And so when Stephen Hawking argued in the 1970s that physical information disappears in a black hole, a so-called ‘black hole information paradox’ emerged that has exasperated scientists ever since. Now, a group of scientists led by Xavier Calmet of the University of Sussex claims that their mathematical formulation resolves the apparent contradiction.

The Poet

Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. His essays have appeared in The New York Daily News and The New York Times. Penha edits The New Verse News, an online journal of current-events poetry. Twitter: @JamesPenha.

Next poem: Science Concatenation by Ganiyat K. Oloyede