14/09/2025
Finally .. đź‘Ť
More than 50 years after Stephen Hawking proposed his black hole area theorem, scientists have now confirmed it with unprecedented precision (99.999% confidence)—thanks to the loudest gravitational wave signal ever recorded.
The event, named GW250114, came from the merger of two black holes, each around 30–40 solar masses, located 1.3 billion light-years away. Detected by an upgraded LIGO observatory with three times the sensitivity of earlier runs, the signal was twice as strong as any previous detection, allowing scientists to analyze the post-merger event horizon in remarkable detail.
Hawking’s theorem, first published in 1971, predicts that the area of a merged black hole’s event horizon can never be smaller than the sum of its precursors—an idea echoing the second law of thermodynamics. Thanks to new analysis of gravitational wave overtones, the theorem has now been confirmed at a confidence level of 99.999%—a major leap from earlier studies.
This milestone also reinforces Roy Kerr’s 1960s theory, showing that black holes are completely defined by just mass and spin.
As gravitational wave detectors become more sensitive, physicists are closing in on the deep quantum-gravity mysteries that bridge Einstein’s relativity and quantum mechanics.
đź“„ RESEARCH PAPER
📌 A. G. Abac et al, "GW250114: Testing Hawking’s Area Law and the Kerr Nature of Black Holes.", Physical Review Letters (2025)
