How the black hole puzzles are resolved in string theory

Abstract

String theory has provided a resolution of the puzzles that arise in the quantum theory of black holes. The emerging picture of the hole, encoded in the ‘fuzzball paradigm’, offers deep lessons about the role of quantum gravity on macroscopic length scales. In this article we list these puzzles and explain how they get resolved. We extract the lessons of this resolution in a form that does not involve the technical details of string theory; it is hoped that this form will allow the lessons to be absorbed into other approaches to quantum gravity.