Hawking asserts there is way out of the ‘black hole’

All is not lost if you fall into a black hole, you could simply pop up in another universe, according to Professor Stephen Hawking.

The physicist has a new theory about where lost information ends up after being sucked into a black hole, a place where gravity compresses matter to a point where the usual laws of physics break down.

Speaking in Stockholm, Hawking said: “If you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up. There’s a way out.”

The professor said he had discovered a mechanism “by which information is returned out of the black hole”.

He was at a conference dedicated to examining the mystery of the “information paradox”, a conundrum on what happens to things swallowed by black holes.

Information about the physical state of something disappearing into a black hole appears to be completely lost, vanishing as if by magic.

But according to the way the universe works, this should be impossible. Even information falling into a black hole ought to end up somewhere.

According to Hawking, it does: Either it is translated into a kind of ‘hologram’ on the edge of the black hole, or it breaks out into an alternative universe.

He said “black holes ain’t as black as they are painted.

They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought. Things can get out of a black hole both on the outside and possibly come out in another universe.”