Lately, i read various statements of the supposed master scientist, that shake me quite a bit and make me really start wondering, just what happened to his legendary brains... Articles on him claiming there are aliens ready to communicate with us, to him playing politician and advising against Brexit, all the way to him stating that black holes are "Portals" to other worlds (!!??!!?)...

About the rest, okay, we can leave some space for constructive doubt, debate and playing safe; but black holes? Seriously? The very black holes that astronomers the world over can even prove mathematically that they do not even "exist"? The same black holes with the immense values of temperature and pressure in their immediate radius? The black holes that trap anything close to them inside them forever and not even light can escape them (unless a quantic phenomenon occurs), hence they are black? Them, leading in another world? The remnants of a destroyed planet?

Gee, either journalists feed to the crowds fake stuff, or geniuses start loosing it past a certain age...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8642558.stm

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35772714

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3548667/Black-holes-portal-universe-not-eternal-prison-says-Stephen-Hawking-launch-Harvard-initiative-study-strange-phenomenon.html

But:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2769156/Black-holes-NOT-exist-Big-Bang-Theory-wrong-claims-scientist-maths-prove-it.html

Is the man right in his brains? Is the journalist a con? Are there newer discoveries but scientists keep them classified? What the hell? Portals... To other worlds... ?!??!!?

P.S. Typo on name. I meant Hawking.

"Theoretical"

Isn't it fun when laymen with no formal education on the subject think they know more than genius scientists with decades of experience? Especially when they can't even accurately gather information from simple newspaper articles?

Wait till Hawking reads this thread.

All of us except him could be losing it
Only you could be losing it
Only he could be losing it
Or everything he says is true

Perhaps he's going through that 'getting old so better find Jesus/aliens/cure for cancer before it's too late' phase.

First of all, black holes are remnants of star not a planet, if the rest-core after the explosion ist heavier than 3,4 time the sun.
And it is proven in multiple ways they exist i, they can't be obverved directly but their influence can.
As for the link you posted, whoever stated that rest-cores of the neccessary size couldn't exist either made a mistake by calculating it (happens to the best scientists sometimes, either by using the wrong calculation method or by observing numerical artifacts) or is just calling for attention.
If you know how big stars end it's obvious that an rest-core always remains which depends on the size of the actual star, the shockwave of the supernova is not created in the core (one shockwave is created close to the core but it is stoped by the force applyed by the radiation of the outer layers and that way the source of the actual supernova is somewhere in the outer layers) of the star but in one of the other layers around the core and it spreads in both directions destroying the outer layers and compressing the core.

And concerning the hypothesis of them leading to other universes:
It doesn't oppose the fact of them being a trap for everything, beyond the event horizon there are 2 layers, one which can be mathimatically described and a sigularity with multiple mathematical solutions, the hypothesis of the "portal" is one possiblility. It does not mean that you can just use it for traveling but that matter and energy can be transfered in a chaotic way.
There are also possiblities of "countering" or evading the destructive effects of the black hole in theoretical physics, those are just not possible to test with our technology yet.

Funny that laymen without knowledge of someone's past activities and hobbies/interests (had been in astronomy club in highschool once), think they know everything themselves. And never did i say i know more than anyone. I am merely wondering and comparing old with new theories. Where did you get the idea i suggest myself an expert? There is a clash of theories here, the old one about black holes working like "prisons"/"traps" or even them being a paradox which actually doesn't exist and the new Hawking's theory, that they are... PORTALS!!!

Hawking's new theory sounds ultra crazy, so i cannot help but wonder. I didn't say i myself have a say on the matter, i am comparing scientists and scientific theories here. Okay, but with thermal and pressure levels being so high in the black hole's radius, how can something "supposedly going through it", not end up completely evaporated, besides "disappearing"? Or something so crazy, as the "data preservation of things supposedly going through them" that Hawking proposes, can actually happen?

*astronomic facepalm*

Don't go to the Daily Mail for your science news. They might get it right occasionally, but their approach to reporting is just far too black and white / without nuance to do justice to scientific arguments.

Re: His comment on brexit - he was asked and gave his opinion in response. He wasn't meddling in politics, the question was posed to him as part of an interview.

The problems caused by the compressed matter can easily be solved in 2 ways, either you use a black hole which is driftig in the empty space (can be found by searching for the warped space by oserving the light aroud the black hole) you get close from teh right direction which admittedly only works as long as it doens#t sucks in too much matter at onece, the matter is dragged in in shpe of a disc so there are 2 mainly unaffected sites (excepting the radiation).
As for the gravitational effect in front or beyond the event horizon, that's the point where the theoretical physics jump in and which is beyond our technological possiblilities yet.
There are multiple ways like creating a "conduit" towards the singluarity by warping the space with a huge amount of concentrated energy or creating a "bubble" (the space warped around the observer and inside it stays unaffected).
There are other ways too which directly counter the gravity but that's beyond my current level of knowledge (I'm only in my fourth semester yet) I only know those concepts exist.

Makes sense to me. I've long since considered it a possibility (admittedly with a fairly limited knowledge of how it all works)

A black hole is a singularity, our universe is believed to have been created by a singularity expanding (the Big Bang) so why couldn't every black hole be a new universe?
We can travel from ours through the black hole into the new universe, but nothing can come back out.

*shrugs*

I haven't read any of the linked articles (because it's Bradley and I can't be bothered) but the basic premise seems logical enough to me.

So, everybody agrees then with Stephen, that them black holes are... Portals??

That's not how science works.