Is there a way to retrieve information that falls into a black hole? (Image: Richard Kail/SPL)
The fate of information that falls into a black hole is a mystery. Can it ever get out or does it disappear forever? Now, new work shows how in theory you can retrieve something from a black hole.
Sean Carroll of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and his colleagues approached the problem using techniques gleaned from the art of quantum teleportation, which involves moving quantum information from one place to another.
Quantum teleportation is based on entangled particles. When particles are entangled, measuring the state of one particle instantly influences the state of the other, no matter how far apart they are. An oft-called-upon example involves a couple called Alice and Bob, each of whom has access to one of a pair of entangled particles. To begin the teleportation, Bob sends one bit of information – a bit being the basic unit of information – to Alice. She uses that bit and her share of the entangled pair to move one bit of quantum information, or a qubit, from Bob’s location to where she is.
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