The eminent physicist Stephen Hawking has conceded that information can escape from black holes after all.
Hawking has always stuck resolutely to the idea that once information goes into a black hole, there is no way out. Until now. When news@nature.com asked about his change of heart, Hawking smiled and wrote: "My views have evolved."
The answer lies in one of Hawking's greatest discoveries: that black holes slowly evaporate into space by losing particles from the very edge of the gravitational precipice at their rim, called Hawking radiation. The black hole eventually shrinks to a tiny kernel, at which point a growing torrent of radiation begins to leak out, potentially carrying the lost information with it.