A quantum particle can exist in a superposition — two states at once, akin to a spinning coin that is simultaneously heads and tails. Near a black hole, the event horizon — the boundary where spacetime curvature becomes so extreme that escape is impossible — acts as a one-way gate. A stray photon, skirting this boundary, effectively 'photographs' the coin: the interaction collapses the superposition, forcing the particle into a definite state. The photon then crosses the horizon, carrying this snapshot into oblivion. Black holes store information not in their volume but on their surface, much like a hologram encodes a three-dimensional image on a two-dimensional plate. The photon's record is added to the horizon's area, altering only the electromagnetic field without contributing mass or energy. This process complies with the strict entropy laws formulated by Jacob Bekenstein and Stephen Hawking. The twist: a black hole's memory resides on a two-dimensional surface — a cosmic canvas where quantum possibilities are erased without a trace.
A black hole's information capacity is measured by its surface area, not its volume — a counterintuitive result that emerged from Bekenstein and Hawking's work.