One of Stephen Hawking’s most famous theories has been confirmed to be correct, thanks to space-time ripples caused by the merger of the two distant black holes.
The black hole area theorem, which Hawking derived from Einstein’s theory of general relativity in 1971, states that the surface area of a black hole cannot decrease over time.
This rule is of importance to physicists because it appears to set time to run in a certain direction: the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy, or disorder, of a closed system, must always rise. Because the entropy of a black hole is proportional to its surface area, both must always increase.
After establishing the area rule for short to medium time frames, the researchers will evaluate data from more gravitational waves to get further insights into black holes.
“I’m obsessed with these objects because of how paradoxical they are. They’re extremely mysterious and confounding, yet at the same time we know them to be the simplest objects that exist,” Isi said. “This, as well as the fact that they’re where gravity meets quantum mechanics, makes them the perfect playgrounds for our understanding of what reality is.”
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