QUIET AT THE END
They say in space no one can hear you scream, but if you are
falling into a black hole, you can't even hear yourself. According
to the so-called asymptotic silence hypothesis, spacetime becomes
so contorted that signals can't travel any significant distance--
not even from your mouth to your ears. In the 11 February PRL, a
team of physicists and mathematicians says it has new evidence for
the hypothesis, which also applies to other "singularities" such as
the starting point of the big bang. A better understanding of
singularities could eventually point to a correct solution to the
disaccord between relativity and quantum mechanics.
(Lars Andersson et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 051101)
Link to the paper: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v94/e051101
COMPLETE Focus story at http://focus.aps.org/story/v15/st8