Filling the Black Hole

I try to read a variety of books. But the variety is not too wide. I've been fascinated by quantum physics, string theory and the stuff the universe is made of. This probably started when Tom and I read E=MC2, The Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation. Then I read Einstein's biography, The Elegant Universe and about 6 other books with related topics. This subject is pretty hard for me, but the more I read about it, the easier it is to understand.

Leonard Susskind wrote The Black Hole War just for me. It isn't way over my head, it doesn't talk down to me. And, best of all, it has a sense of humor. He explains everything clearly. I don't know if it helps that I've heard it several times before, but I'm thinking that it does. Susskind is brilliant. He thinks up the answers to questions on the way to major conferences. Big answers to big questions, like how to prove that Black Holes don't suck up everything on their way to imploding. How "information" is actually allowed to seep out of them.

Information in this sense is everything/anything. You and I are information. Ink spreading in a vat of water is information as is the water molecules. They call it information instead of stuff. That would have been my word. Susskind and his associates had a huge disagreement with Stephen Hawking about this information escape. One of the fun things about the book was his attempt to prove his theory to Hawking and Hawking's associates. Or cult members. Fascinating. Tom, you should read this.