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Lou Dobbs of CNN continues to impress me!
Jul. 22nd, 2004 12:00 amI just watched a segment on the Lou Dobbs hour on CNN, and they were talking about Hawking's recent reversal about black holes, and how matter *and* information can escape them. Lou then started a conversation about quantum physics vs string theory....wait a sec...this is not Scientific American Frontiers...this is the guy who started CNN Financial News spin off!! Wow. But don't forget, Lou Dobbs was also the person behind SPACE.COM...
TANJ, I am impressed by Lou Dobbs!
Here's part of the transcript from the July 21st 2004 editon of Lou Dobbs Tonight...
DOBBS: The scientist who first gave us the black hole theory today admitted he was wrong rejecting the decades old theory that made him famous. Stephen Hawking says matter is and does escape from black holes.
Bill Tucker reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a theory that captured the imagination, the massive collapse of all matter at a point in space so profound nothing could escape destroying everything inside of it. It was the theory on which Stephen Hawking built his career and reputation, his book "A Brief History of Time" popularized his theory, sold 10 million copy, made the physicist a household name, and unlikely figure of pop culture. Now the scientist who is crippled by a motor neuron disease says he was wrong. Matter can and does escape a black hole. The admission cost Hawking, not his career but an encyclopedia, the price of a bet he made with an American physicist, John Preskill.
JOHN PRESKILL, CALTECH: I always hoped when he conceded this there would be a witness, but this really exceeds my expectations.
TUCKER: Now the scientific community eagerly awaits the explanation of how that matter, that information escapes. Beyond science fiction fans and scientists this may seem like an obscure theory. Yet, while complex understanding black holes could create new understandings about our universe.
SAMIR MATHUR, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY: There i a deep between space time and matter that we have been trying to get at for so many years. I think all these threadings meet at the black hole. If one could understand how information comes out of the black hole, we will understand something very important about the interrelation of space, time and matter. TUCKER: Hawking apologized for his reversal warning them if they enter a black hole they'll be returned to this dimension and in a mangled form. It's not often a genius admits a mistake, probably only about once in a blue moon so it can be no coincidence that July is a blue moon month.
Bill Tucker, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Only Bill Tucker would have worked out the blue moon reference.
Joining me to talk more our expert on all things celestial, Charles Liu astrophysicist at the Museum of Natural History. Good have you with us, Charles.
CHARLES LIU, ASTROPHYSICIST: Always a pleasure.
DOBBS: This is great credit and also some consternation surrounding Stephen Hawking saying, hey, I'm wrong.
LIU: Scientists do that all the time. A lot of folks don't realize that we often change our views and opinions based on new discoveries and new ideas.
DOBBS: What new discovery says to Stephen Hawking with the support of Albert Einstein in point of fact that a black hole is dense matter and a rip and tear and time space continuum from which no one or no thing can escape.
LIU: Well, Stephen Hawking is best known for his theory on so- called Hawking radiation and showed a black hole could lose some of its matter and energy, but it would come out unrecognizably. It's as if you put an apple in a big black blender and you could get some of the matter out but you couldn't know that it was an apple.
DOBBS: You couldn't recognize it.
LIU: Right. Now, Stephen Hawking has used a new mathematical technique he hasn't used before on this problem.
DOBBS: Quantum gravity.
LIU: Yes, and what's called a Euclidean Path Integral, and he has concluded that he can actually trace the particle's path into and back out of a black hole and still keep the information and that's why he thinks he is wrong in the first place.
DOBBS: That's why he thinks he's wrong in the first place mathematically suggesting both conclusions and only mathematically will we know whether one or the other can be substantiated by the community of physicists including yourself. Meeting in Dublin, the 17th international meeting, what's the consensus to this point?
LIU: Well, it's such a new result that the consensus isn't in yet, but I would say that this is not the final word. It basicly...
DOBBS: I would hope not.
LIU: Yes, Professor Hawking is conceding that when you take the apple out of that blender you may get applesauce, but you don't know exactly how that operates and what it's working on, so there's still a lot left to learn.
DOBBS: You mentioned Hawking Radiation, the idea that energy at least in quantum theory it's sometimes hard to tell what's energy and what's matter, leaks away from the edge of that black hole. But at the same time, we have stream theory which is a quite different approach, both mathematically and conceptually to understanding the relationship between energy, matter and what becomes objects at least in our perception.
Where does that fit into all of this?
LIU: Well, stream theory is sort of the next great idea. If we think of the universe not as all there is, but rather just three dimensions of space and one dimension of time there's actually a possibility that much more exists beyond our universe that we can't sense or understand.
DOBBS: When you say beyond, you're talking about in terms of the cosmos, but also in terms of the physical makeup of that which is in point of fact us.
LIU: Exactly. So every one of our subatomic particles that makes us who we are actually is a very complex so called stream, that reaches beyond space and time as we know it, and may interact in strange and unfathomable ways.
DOBBS: And, yet, it's minimal point, matter, existence, things, are they made up of 11 strings, 12 or 14?
We don't know, do we?
LIU: No idea and we can't prove it experimentally for quite some time. But the mathematics is very sound and very interesting and hopefully we'll be able to prove it with real observation sometime soon.
DOBBS: Once again, we have a debt owed you and Stephen Hawking for provoking our thoughts and our imagination. And we appreciate it Charles, thank you.
LIU: I'm no Stephen Hawking, but I'm happy to be here.
DOBBS: You're our Stephen Hawking, by golly. And we thank you for being so.
LIU: Thanks, Lou.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can read the entire show transcript at: http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/21/ldt.01.html
ttyl
Farrell
TANJ, I am impressed by Lou Dobbs!
Here's part of the transcript from the July 21st 2004 editon of Lou Dobbs Tonight...
DOBBS: The scientist who first gave us the black hole theory today admitted he was wrong rejecting the decades old theory that made him famous. Stephen Hawking says matter is and does escape from black holes.
Bill Tucker reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a theory that captured the imagination, the massive collapse of all matter at a point in space so profound nothing could escape destroying everything inside of it. It was the theory on which Stephen Hawking built his career and reputation, his book "A Brief History of Time" popularized his theory, sold 10 million copy, made the physicist a household name, and unlikely figure of pop culture. Now the scientist who is crippled by a motor neuron disease says he was wrong. Matter can and does escape a black hole. The admission cost Hawking, not his career but an encyclopedia, the price of a bet he made with an American physicist, John Preskill.
JOHN PRESKILL, CALTECH: I always hoped when he conceded this there would be a witness, but this really exceeds my expectations.
TUCKER: Now the scientific community eagerly awaits the explanation of how that matter, that information escapes. Beyond science fiction fans and scientists this may seem like an obscure theory. Yet, while complex understanding black holes could create new understandings about our universe.
SAMIR MATHUR, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY: There i a deep between space time and matter that we have been trying to get at for so many years. I think all these threadings meet at the black hole. If one could understand how information comes out of the black hole, we will understand something very important about the interrelation of space, time and matter. TUCKER: Hawking apologized for his reversal warning them if they enter a black hole they'll be returned to this dimension and in a mangled form. It's not often a genius admits a mistake, probably only about once in a blue moon so it can be no coincidence that July is a blue moon month.
Bill Tucker, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Only Bill Tucker would have worked out the blue moon reference.
Joining me to talk more our expert on all things celestial, Charles Liu astrophysicist at the Museum of Natural History. Good have you with us, Charles.
CHARLES LIU, ASTROPHYSICIST: Always a pleasure.
DOBBS: This is great credit and also some consternation surrounding Stephen Hawking saying, hey, I'm wrong.
LIU: Scientists do that all the time. A lot of folks don't realize that we often change our views and opinions based on new discoveries and new ideas.
DOBBS: What new discovery says to Stephen Hawking with the support of Albert Einstein in point of fact that a black hole is dense matter and a rip and tear and time space continuum from which no one or no thing can escape.
LIU: Well, Stephen Hawking is best known for his theory on so- called Hawking radiation and showed a black hole could lose some of its matter and energy, but it would come out unrecognizably. It's as if you put an apple in a big black blender and you could get some of the matter out but you couldn't know that it was an apple.
DOBBS: You couldn't recognize it.
LIU: Right. Now, Stephen Hawking has used a new mathematical technique he hasn't used before on this problem.
DOBBS: Quantum gravity.
LIU: Yes, and what's called a Euclidean Path Integral, and he has concluded that he can actually trace the particle's path into and back out of a black hole and still keep the information and that's why he thinks he is wrong in the first place.
DOBBS: That's why he thinks he's wrong in the first place mathematically suggesting both conclusions and only mathematically will we know whether one or the other can be substantiated by the community of physicists including yourself. Meeting in Dublin, the 17th international meeting, what's the consensus to this point?
LIU: Well, it's such a new result that the consensus isn't in yet, but I would say that this is not the final word. It basicly...
DOBBS: I would hope not.
LIU: Yes, Professor Hawking is conceding that when you take the apple out of that blender you may get applesauce, but you don't know exactly how that operates and what it's working on, so there's still a lot left to learn.
DOBBS: You mentioned Hawking Radiation, the idea that energy at least in quantum theory it's sometimes hard to tell what's energy and what's matter, leaks away from the edge of that black hole. But at the same time, we have stream theory which is a quite different approach, both mathematically and conceptually to understanding the relationship between energy, matter and what becomes objects at least in our perception.
Where does that fit into all of this?
LIU: Well, stream theory is sort of the next great idea. If we think of the universe not as all there is, but rather just three dimensions of space and one dimension of time there's actually a possibility that much more exists beyond our universe that we can't sense or understand.
DOBBS: When you say beyond, you're talking about in terms of the cosmos, but also in terms of the physical makeup of that which is in point of fact us.
LIU: Exactly. So every one of our subatomic particles that makes us who we are actually is a very complex so called stream, that reaches beyond space and time as we know it, and may interact in strange and unfathomable ways.
DOBBS: And, yet, it's minimal point, matter, existence, things, are they made up of 11 strings, 12 or 14?
We don't know, do we?
LIU: No idea and we can't prove it experimentally for quite some time. But the mathematics is very sound and very interesting and hopefully we'll be able to prove it with real observation sometime soon.
DOBBS: Once again, we have a debt owed you and Stephen Hawking for provoking our thoughts and our imagination. And we appreciate it Charles, thank you.
LIU: I'm no Stephen Hawking, but I'm happy to be here.
DOBBS: You're our Stephen Hawking, by golly. And we thank you for being so.
LIU: Thanks, Lou.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can read the entire show transcript at: http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/21/ldt.01.html
ttyl
Farrell
