WITH a pull so strong not even light escapes, a black hole is defined by its gravity. But now a model that ignores gravity is proving surprisingly useful.
Black holes are where big ideas in cosmology, such as gravity and quantum mechanics, collide. That makes them great for testing new theories. “A black hole is a bit like the hydrogen atom of quantum gravity,” says Samuel Braunstein of the University of York, UK.
His team modelled a minimal black hole, defined only by having an inside and an outside. To their surprise, this object reproduces a lot of the features…
