Black Hole Information Paradox

Editorial / Science Illustration • Cover & Spread • Scientific American • 2022
3D art of a black hourglass containing a central, white wormhole. Inside the hourglass, galaxies fall from the top bulb, through the wormhole, and land in the bottom bulb.
Scientific American cover. Title: Black Hole Mysteries Solved. Featuring 3D art of a black hourglass containing a central, white wormhole. Inside the hourglass, galaxies fall from the top bulb, through the wormhole, and land in the bottom bulb.

FOR
Scientific American, September 2022, Volume 327, Issue 3. Thanks to CD Michael Mrak.

WORK
Concepts, cover & interior illustrations

TOOLS
Cinema 4D, Redshift, Photoshop

INFO
Related article: Black Hole Mysteries Solved - Clara Moskowitz

In the issue, George Musser covers the black hole information paradox — that information cannot be destroyed, and yet black holes appear to swallow it, leaving no trace when they evaporate. But new research confirms that black holes are reversible after all, conserving information. (the principle of reversibility). Thus the cover concept: a black hole encased in an hourglass. When you turn to the interior spread, the black hole's reversibility is revealed: what goes in comes back out.

Photos of a Scientific American cover and spread. Title: Black Hole Mysteries Solved. Featuring 3D art of a black hourglass containing a central, white wormhole. Inside the hourglass, galaxies fall from the top bulb, through the wormhole, and land in the bottom bulb.
Closeup photo of a credit in Scientific American print magazine: Illustration by Olena Shmahalo.
Sketches of an hourglass containing galaxies that are falling in the top and spilling out the bottom of a white wormhole or two-sided black hole.
3D art of a black hourglass containing a central, white wormhole. Inside the hourglass, galaxies fall from the top bulb, through the wormhole, and land in the bottom bulb.

© Olena Shmahalo