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>But so far, as I have said, we have not seen any such evidence. So, if there is evidence that the fuzzball theory is not accurate, then why did you say it's n

>But so far, as I have said, we have not seen any such evidence. So, if there is evidence that the fuzzball theory is not accurate, then why did you say it's not testable? Please be clear - I don't know if it's testable, nor if it's been (explicitly or implicitly) tested. My point is that I think the correct application of Occam's razor in the absence of evidence would be to prefer theories that don't involve unlimited collapse providing they are consistent with known physics outside the extreme conditions in a black hole. I have no expertise in physics, but this is a philosophical issue/opinion. Even without any theory that prevents total collapse, due to relativistic time dilation, we can't see that total collapse in any amount of time, so it's always going to be premature to declare the matter settled.

pdonis 6y ago
> if there is evidence that the fuzzball theory is not accurate That's not what I said. I said we have no evidence that gravitational collapse of an object over the maximum mass limit for any stable state other than a black hole, stops short of the event horizon of a black hole. In other words, we have no evidence that would require us to modify our best current theory of gravity, GR. That is not at all the same as saying that we have evidence that the fuzzball theory is not accurate. To have such evidence, we would first have to have some actual predictions made by the fuzzball theory as to what we should expect to see in gravitational collapse of objects over the maximum mass limit for all other known stable states (neutron stars, etc.). I am not aware of any such predictions from the fuzzball theory. All I am aware of are hand-waving speculations that have not led to any testable predictions. That's why I said the fuzzball theory is not testable. > I think the correct application of Occam's razor in the absence of evidence would be to prefer theories that don't involve unlimited collapse providing they are consistent with known physics outside the extreme conditions in a black hole. Even if I were to accept this claim for the sake of argument, it would still require that we know fuzzball theory is consistent with known physics outside of a black hole event horizon. We don't even know that much; string theorists have yet to prove that string theory actually matches the predictions of our best current theories in all regimes outside of the extreme cases under discussion. They believe that string theory does match those predictions, but believing is not the same as proving.

pdonis 6y ago

> if there is evidence that the fuzzball theory is not accurate That's not what I said. I said we have no evidence that gravitational collapse of an object over the maximum mass limit for any stable state other than a black hole, stops short of the event horizon of a black hole. In other words, we have no evidence that would require us to modify our best current theory of gravity, GR. That is not at all the same as saying that we have evidence that the fuzzball theory is not accurate. To have such evidence, we would first have to have some actual predictions made by the fuzzball theory as to what we should expect to see in gravitational collapse of objects over the maximum mass limit for all other known stable states (neutron stars, etc.). I am not aware of any such predictions from the fuzzball theory. All I am aware of are hand-waving speculations that have not led to any testable predictions. That's why I said the fuzzball theory is not testable. > I think the correct application of Occam's razor in the absence of evidence would be to prefer theories that don't involve unlimited collapse providing they are consistent with known physics outside the extreme conditions in a black hole. Even if I were to accept this claim for the sake of argument, it would still require that we know fuzzball theory is consistent with known physics outside of a black hole event horizon. We don't even know that much; string theorists have yet to prove that string theory actually matches the predictions of our best current theories in all regimes outside of the extreme cases under discussion. They believe that string theory does match those predictions, but believing is not the same as proving.