# Black hole information paradox

- kind: problem
- status: partial
- year: 1976
- authors: Stephen Hawking

**Statement.** Is information that falls into a black hole destroyed when the black hole evaporates?

Hawking radiation looks thermal, which would destroy information and break quantum mechanics. Since 2019, calculations using 'islands' and replica wormholes have reproduced the Page curve, which says information does come back out. How it escapes, in terms of a local mechanism, is still debated, so the problem is marked partial.

Posed 1976, Stephen Hawking.

## Sources

- [Wikipedia: Black hole information paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox)

[Gravity and the quantum](/wiki/Space:gravity-and-quantum.md) · [Physics](/wiki/Continent:physics.md)

## Relations to this page

- related to [quantum-gravity](/wiki/Problem:quantum-gravity.md) — The original curation links this problem to Black hole information paradox; the argument for the link has not been written yet.

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