The key to the new theory seems to be that, rather than really forming an event horizon at the surface of the black hole, that surface is really some sort of illusion that appears only to us outside observers; for the matter itself the gravitational effects of the black hole in slowing time until the final evaporation make the event horizon disappear. Previously it had been widely thought that passage through the event horizon would effectively transport matter out of our universe (though the mass, charge, and rotational momentum was retained by the black hole) and into a new “baby universe” that was somehow created by the black hole itself. Hawking now seems to be disavowing that idea.
His freedom of speech greatly slowed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Hawking apparently gave few details at the lecture and was only able to answer two questions; skeptics remain, but a full paper is scheduled to come out in a month or so. Having long ago made a bet on the loss of information question with Caltech physicist John Preskill, Hawking officially conceded at the lecture and presented Preskill with an encyclopedia (of baseball).
The interesting thing about Hawking’s reversal is it means black holes can be far more diverse than once thought – that diversity may show up only in tiny fluctuations at the event horizon itself, but it is still there. Or as your typical physicist would exclaim: “Black holes have hair after all”!
[Apologies for those who see this as a repeat – I only just noticed kryptothesuperdog’s report last week…]
No probs – the story was only a preview really and needed a follow-up with more information.