Black holes may hide the gate to the new foundations of physics. General Relativity, our current description of gravity and of spacetime, breaks down at their centre, where it needs to be replaced by a more fundamental theory that somehow incorporates the quantum properties, and maybe a new microstructure, of spacetime itself. There are many proposals for such a more fundamental quantum theory of gravity, and all of them, in different ways, point to a radical revision of our understanding of spacetime and matter, and thus of the very foundations of our picture of the natural world. Theoretical physicists look for the answer, and the key to building new foundations, inside and around black holes, the darkest and most mysterious place in the universe.
Erik Curiel forscht am Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy der LMU und ist Senior Research Fellow bei der Black Hole Initiative in Harvard. Dieter Lüst ist Professor für Mathematische Physik an der LMU und Direktor des Max-Planck-Instituts für Physik. Marlene Weiß leitet das Wissenschaftsressort der Süddeutschen Zeitung.