mburns's Journal: The Puzzle Posed by Susskind: Illusion at an Event Horizon

Hurrahs for Einstein!

The tools of string theory used by Susskind really let him down, as far as I can tell, when he did calculations of the environment that would be experienced on an observation post lowered on a tether close to the event horizon chosen for study (Sci. Am., April 1997, p. 52). (And, I am unconcerned here about the paradox of information lost into a black hole which Susskind, Hawking and others are debating.)

Susskind calculates an asymtotically hot environment at the event horizon; this is experienced on the hypothetical suspended platform, but not on a similar probe passing by the platform in free fall. To the contrary, non computational reasoning based on the principles of relativity seems sufficient to demand that the experiences of the two probes be more similar.

Susskind's tools of string theory are notoriously not fully relativistic. (At least, this should be notorious.) I do suspect that the error, caused by incompatibility with relativity, is inherent in the tools. An email to another string theorist, Professor Kaku, on the issue of negative mass brought the response that the equivalence principle, that sturdy pillar of relativity, was merely subject to empirical test, freeing string theory from that particular bound.

(The equivalence principle demands that, in free fall, no effects of a gravitational field be discoverable at a particular location, but only tidal differences with other locations. This mathematically implies that gravitational mass is identical with inertial mass. But, negative mass defies equivalence by showing the non relative presence of a gravitational field with only a local observation; negative mass reveals the field by fleeing from gravitation, while normal mass is merely behaving as usual in free fall, and no differently than in the absence of gravity.)

Whereas, my position is that relativity has an a-priori binding to the foundations of classical physics. The nub of the argument is that the denial of relativity introduces an unneeded and arbitrary design complexity to the universe - much more information must be specified (by some authority of causation) in order to describe the universe which is not relativistic. It is much better to not require acts of design, with all of the contradictions introduced by that notion!

So, what is the illusion I wish to describe; what is the difference seen by a distant platform, a near-by suspended platform and a probe in free fall when they observe the apparent temperature of the event horizon under study?

Susskind correctly calculates that the distant platform will infer an asymtotically high temperature at the event horizon; this inference derives from allowing for the red shift of the Hawking radiation in its travel from the horizon to the distant platform. But, he does not realize that this inference is only about the horizon immediately in line with the position of the distant platform. The horizon out of line will be additionally redshifted to a much lower temperature, and the inferred temperature near the horizon will be much lower if the summed contributions of the horizon out of line are properly red shifted.

The probe in free fall near the horizon is also correctly calculated by Susskind to not perceive an extreme environment. The stationary collection of matter and radiation close to the event horizon that is inferred by the distant platform is seen instead by the falling probe to be receding ahead of it into the black hole.

But, Susskind's major, and incompatible with relativity, blunder is to calculate that the platform on a tether - pulled up short before passing the horizon - now experiences the high temperatures of the Hawking radiation not red shifted. But, the sound calculation compatible with relativity is that the platform sees the event horizon recede into the black hole as it is lowered. When stopped, it does not measure a major change in the perceived Hawking radiation, certainly not a passing from a lack of existence to asymptotically high temperatures.

My argument has been relativistic and classical, not quantum mechanical. I have shown the necessity of observations from one platform being deemed an illusion as compared to observations from another. Two platforms see the event horizon, as revealed by the thermal Hawking radiation, at different depths into the black hole of concern - as much as 30% deeper by the close platform.

But, this kind of illusion of observation is not unprecedented in classical understanding; it is the quantum mechanical disagreement on facts between platforms that is challenging. Why should observers be forced to disagree about the location of quantum events?

It occurs to me that the quantum mechanical purpose and necessity of the event horizon is to hide out-right contradictions of observation. The overall mission of quantum mechanics is just so - to resolve the contradictions which are necessarily implied by a-priori conditions. The desperate difficulty of this mission is revealed by the necessity of discounting some observers as the victims of an objectively existing illusion.

--
Michael J. Burns

Thermal dermatology in the Susskind case

[anti-auctor]

You may want to think about 'thermal adverbs.' That their issue would be more than a physicalist term and linguistic convention (whooa, jaded combination), but a real phenomenon in the observable universe; and empirical; and logical; and stuffed with categorical import.; and finding a home in your analysis of 'The Puzzle Posed by Susskind.' But that may be too outrageous. Pity. Too sense; aye, no I mean two cents.

Just my small input.