Maldacena, like most mainstream physicists, dismisses black hole denialism. The real way to make sense of all this black hole madness, he insists, is to address the underlying clashes between relativity and quantum physics. "A full theory of quantum gravity must resolve them," he emphasizes. And that is, perhaps, the ultimate paradox of black holes: They embody our very deepest scientific understanding of how the universe works, and yet in my any ways we do not understand them at all.

I love this statement