 Explaining what these microstates are that are counted by the Bekenstein entropy has been a challenge that has been eagerly pursued by quantum gravity researchers. In 1996, superstring theorists were able to give an account of how M-theory (an extension of superstring theory) generates the number of string-states underlying a certain class of classical black holes, and this number matched that given by the Bekenstein entropy (Strominger and Vafa 1996). At the same time, a counting of black-hole states using loop quantum gravity also recovered the Bekenstein entropy (Rovelli 1996). It is philosophically noteworthy that this is treated as a significant success for these programs (i.e., it is presented as a reason for thinking that these programs are on the right track), even though no quantum effect in the vicinity of a black hole, much less Hawking radiation itself, has ever been experimentally observed. (Sadly, we have no black holes in terrestrial laboratories, and those we do have good reason to think we indirectly observe are too far away for anything like these effects to be remotely detectable, given their minuscule temperatures.) It is also the case that all known derivations held only for a very special class of black holes (“extremal” ones), which everyone agrees are unphysical. There are no convincing derivations for more general, physically relevant black holes. 