A guest speaker coming to UMD next week will attempt to answer the question: “How much does a black hole know (that it won’t tell us)?”

Cynthia Keeler is coming from Arizona State University as part of a four-day conference on quantum gravity. The public is welcome to her talk at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 11, in Montague Hall 70 on UMD’s campus.

Claire Zukowski, an assistant professor in UMD’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, said no prior knowledge of physics is required. Even so, she gave a basic explanation of black holes in preparation.

“Roughly speaking, they’re very dense objects that exist in the universe,” Zukowski said. “And as a theoretical physicist, one thing that is very important, the way I think about black holes is it’s a region of space and time that nothing can get out of. So even light, if it falls into a black hole, can never escape.”