How would it feel to fall into a black hole? Would you cruise pleasantly toward your doom, only feeling the deadly tug-and-crunch long past the point of no return? Or would you slam headlong into a scorching wall of fire at the black hole’s event horizon? It might sound the like the plot of the latest summer blockbuster, but this question turns out to have profound implications for physics.
On Wednesday, September 25 at 3 p.m. ET/noon PT, the Kavli Foundation will be hosting a live webcast on this question, known as the firewall paradox, with four of the top researchers in the field, Raphael Bousso (U.C. Berkeley), Juan Maldacena (Institute for Advanced Study), Joseph Polchinski (U.C. Santa Barbara) and Leonard Susskind (Stanford University). Members of the public are invited to submit questions via email , and you can watch the webcast here or on the Kavli Foundation site.
Want to read up in advance of the event? Try the following primers:
Nature News: Fire in the hole!
The New York Times: A Black Hole Mystery Wrapped in a Firewall Paradox
Slate: New York Times Wants to Fight Einstein, Einstein Declines
