My theory is that the information is essentially going into a hashing function. Without knowing exactly what the hashing function is, you would not be able to retrieve it. The wave function is not well enough defined to give a high probability of detection.
Think of it this way: if you drop the encyclopedia in, the spacial position of each inkdrop or bit is coded as a point energy field in space-time. That energy comes from its position in space with respect to the gravitational center of the black hole and its own internal energy state. When the information enters the black hole, some of that information is dispersed back out as Hawking radiation simply because of the mass-energy conversion function. But, that radiation is a sampling of the various energy states that was information before, and is highly randomized. Since we can't predict how it will be re-emitted, it is essentially hashed into a random noise.
Now here is another example, suppose we recode the encyclopedia as a series of binary digits, represented by large and small planets in a string. If we "feed" the string in (being the binary representation of all the information content), the stream of Hawking radiation will rise and fall in proportion to the amount of mass falling into the black hole. This radiation would be re-emitted proportionally to the masses falling into the event horizon. Here, the information would survive the entry into the black hole because it would be reflected back into the universe from which it came, although at a small proportion of the original signal strength (the mass equivalent energy of the coding medium). I'm thinking that it would also be coded on a gravitational subcarrier: the derivative of the mass of the black hole would increase, but at a varying rate. This would generate gravity waves as well, also varying in proportion to mass input. But, this is just my take on the thought experiment. I would argue that there is a coding efficiency that limits the amount of data that can "survive" the entry into the event horizon and this is limited by the radiant emission of the black-hole. |
