Letters from the November 27, 2004, issue of Science News
By Science News
Dark Secrets
Astronomers and physicists seem to speak of black holes as though they took matter completely out of the universe (“Information, Please,” SN: 9/25/04, p. 202: Information, Please). An evaporating black hole would not fizz away into nothingness. It would lose energy and reappear in normal space as a very dense object (complete with information). Someone might consider this when discussing quasars.
Nancy Parker
Caldwell, Idaho
There are many obvious ways to destroy information, one of which is thermodynamically irreversible processes. The article says, “Conservation of information, it turns out, is tantamount to saying you can always run a film backward.” But you can’t. That’s what irreversible processes are all about.