English

The subtle unphysical hypothesis of the firewall theorem

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2019-10-02 v3

Abstract

The black-hole firewall theorem derives a suspicious consequence (large energy-momentum density on the horizon of a black hole) from a set of seemingly reasonable hypotheses. I point out the hypothesis which is likely to be unrealistic---a hypothesis not always sufficiently made explicit--- and discuss the subtle confusion at its origin: mixing-up of two different notions of entropy and misusing of the entropy bound.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1902.03631,
  title  = {The subtle unphysical hypothesis of the firewall theorem},
  author = {Carlo Rovelli},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.03631},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

6 pages, 2 figures. Revision:minor editing and important references added

R2 v1 2026-06-23T07:37:03.041Z