When black holes collide they do give off gravitational waves. When this happens, does it affect the information contained in the black holes? I can appeal to another one of these theorems that was proven by Stephen Hawking and friends, the area theorem of black holes. And then you let the black holes collide and they give off energy and gravitational waves, but they haven't shrunk overall. So if you think that the information is proportional to the event horizon area, it does not go down when you take two black holes and squeeze them together.
Welcome to the March 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable number — based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the questions themselves are good — and sometimes group them together if they are about a similar topic. Enjoy!
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