Preposterous Universe

 
Information retrieval

We're in the midst of the University of Chicago's famed Scav Hunt, in which teams of energetic, creative, and sleep-deprived undergraduates scour the universe for all sorts of unusual objects. (The link is correct, trust me.) This year the hunt is being blogged by Connor Cyone, and the list of items can be found here (pdf). And yes, as Will Baude mentions, I do make an appearance in item 48: "Retrieve information from a black hole. Must be Sean Carroll certified. [4 points]" Consequently, I have been asked by three different teams to certify that they have indeed extracted information from a black hole, just like Hawking says we can. Accommodating soul that I am, I readily signed my name to various pieces of paper that can now be used to discredit me in the future. All for a good cause.

No more teams are likely to find me, as I am off to Geneva to spend the week at CERN giving lectures on cosmology. Do they have the Internets in Europe? Perhaps I will check in.

~ posted by Sean Carroll at 11:26 PM ~ link ~ ~ ~