In a much heraldedappearance recently, Hawking claimed to be wrong about something WRT black holes. If I recall It was coveyed by dumbed down media that he was reversing his stance that information is permanently destroyed by a hypermass. Namely, that he now believes it is the case that information concerning the original material in a black whole can be obtained at some point in time (hawking radiation?) as the black-hole ages.

Intuitively, it would seem that some information about the 'hidden' mass would be derivable from the hawking radiation... So I don't see that as particularily important- or is it?

While this is far from my field (no pun intnded), what I heard from other publically 'popular' theoreticians sounded like the reception in the community ranged from non-plussed to ho-hum. Like this was all a big to-do about nothing very important.

Can anyone here explain to me what exactly Hawking was arguing, and what the import of it is? Or is Hawking just past his prime and missing the spotlight?

Davin L.