CP3 Lunch -Black Hole Entropy, Curved Space and Monsters - David Reeb

Wednesday 11 Mar 2009, 13:00 → 13:50 Europe/Brussels

Cycl.06

I will give a basic introduction to entropy, black holes and black hole thermodynamics. An outstanding issue in the field, the black hole information puzzle will also be mentioned, which asks how the microscopic entropy of the black hole final state can be so much bigger than the entropy of the initial pre-black hole state. Then I will point out another puzzling aspect of black hole thermodynamics: I will show how, in classical General Relativity, one can construct matter configurations (dubbed "monsters") which contain *more* entropy than the black holes into which they will eventually collapse.