The last document Stephen Hawking worked on published by his colleagues

The latest scientific article written by the beloved theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking was posthumously published by colleagues at Cambridge and Harvard.

Entitled "Black Hole Entropy and Soft Hair", the paper discusses a concept called "the paradox of information", which Professor Hawking spent decades pondering. Researchers, including co-author Malcolm Perry, reportedly completed the study a few days before Hawking's death in March.

The document is now online via the preprint resource arxiv.org.

The paradox of information

The paradox of information is an enigma derived from the combination of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics. In the 1970s, Hawking proposed that black holes also have quantum particles of temperature and leakage. Eventually, the black holes evaporate, leaving an identical void everywhere else.

However, according to physics, the information is never lost. So where exactly does the material that a black hole has consumed?

"The problem is that if you throw something into a black hole, it looks like it's going away," Perry explained. "How could the information contained in this object be recovered if the black hole disappears on its own?"

Hawking and his colleague tried to solve the problem. They argued that some black hole information can be preserved before it disappears completely.

In 2016, scientists proposed the idea of ​​"soft hairs", photons and gravitons escaping the horizon of events of a black hole or the point where nothing – not even light – could s' escape. The study says some black hole information could be recorded by photons.

The idea is based on entropy or the measure of internal disorder. When the material is dragged into a black hole, its temperature changes. Since entropy is affected by temperature, especially heat, scientists can use its modifications with information stored by photons.

This is the third in a series of studies on the paradox of information on black holes. However, Perry said that the study did not completely answer the puzzle.

"We do not know that Hawking's entropy is all that you could possibly throw at a black hole," he said. "It is therefore a step forward."

The death of Stephen Hawking

Hawking died on March 14 at his home in Cambridge, UK. He was known for his work on black holes and general relativity, as well as for his bestselling books, including A brief history of time.

At age 21, he was diagnosed with a rare form of motor neuron disease that tied him up in a wheelchair most of his life. His ashes were buried at Westminster Abbey alongside Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton.