London - Black holes may have gained an unfair reputation, according to Professor Stephen Hawking, who said that if you fall into one you could simply pop up in another universe.
“The message of this lecture is that black holes ain't as black as they are painted,” the celebrated physicist told a public lecture in the Swedish capital, Stockholm. “They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought,” he said. “Things can get out of a black hole both on the outside and possibly come out in another universe.”
He added: “The hole would need to be large and if it was rotating it might have a passage to another universe.
“But you couldn't come back to our universe. So although I'm keen on space flight, I'm not going to try that.”
Prof Hawking also revealed he had found a mechanism “by which information is returned out of the black hole”.
The Independent