News Physics

Black holes resolve paradoxes by destroying quantum states

Performing the famous double-slit experiment near a black hole will never work

An image showing a black hole with a red ring surrounding it and going horizontally across the front.

Black holes are best known for warping space and time in their vicinities, leading to beautiful light patterns like the one shown in this illustration. Now it appears that black holes warp nearby quantum states, too.

Jeremy Schnittman/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

By Lisa Grossman

MINNEAPOLIS — Don’t try to do a quantum experiment near a black hole — its mere presence ruins all quantum states in its vicinity, researchers say.