Looking at faraway stuff - The Bear and Badger

superflyninja

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

Roujin wrote:

You man are maddddd. That picture is insane! They had to synchronise 8 different telescopes using atomic clocks to get that photo! The effect of which was to create a telescope that is effectively the size of the planet!! And they had to be on standby for when the weather was perfect, they needed clear skies in all locations across those continents to do it! In one evening's measurements, the team produced more data than the LARGE HADRON COLLIDER PRODUCES IN A YEAR. You can also see the black hole in that image, I don't get what people don't understand about it. That black bit isn't "nothing". That black ring is not nothing, that black ring is the extent of the event horizon around whatever is at the centre of a black hole, and in this instance whatever is at the heart if this black hole is of sufficient mass to create a zone of diameter 7x the distance from the sun to Pluto that nothing is able to escape from. For bonus marks this photo is of an object 10 million times further away from us than the closest star. The amount of mind hurting extremes that that photo represents is crazy, and its wasted on people crying because they want a 1080p photo or something. It's also super cool that when they talk about this black hole they have to use language like "this is the best evidence we have for the existence of black holes." Imagine being able to see something that takes everything we know about the universe and gets so weird with it that we don't actually know if these things are even what we think they are because they seem to break rules of the universe as we understand them. ITS ONE OF THE LAST GREAT UNIVERSAL PHENOMENON THAT MANKIND DOES NOT UNDERSTAND BEYOND THE VERY BASICS OF WHAT WE SEE IT DOING TO THE OBJECTS AROUND IT AND THIS IS THE FIRST ACTUAL IMAGE OF ONE YOU PHILISTINES MAKE ME SICK, ETC.

I still don't understand th picture. 1. I think it is a constructed picture. It's what you would see if it was possible to see the black hole 2. I don't know if the halo is the accretiondisk. It only looks like a disk because the light is bent by the strength of the gravity apparently. 3. A heavy object should bend light in towards the gravity, in my book (at least when I imagine a heavy ball on a tarpaulin, I see stuff bending towards the ball, not away) 4. So is the dark area bigger than it appears in the pic or what? 5. Is the accretion disk on a plane? All the artists impression show a plane, then they show the hawking radiation going "up'" and "down". If black holes are in fact a bit "flat" as a phenomenon (like a solar system) are we seeing the black hole "from the top"? Or is the artist impression merely illustrating a concept that is going on all over the place (ie in every direction), 6 in which case, the accretion disk is more like a sphere. So how can we see the event horizon at all? Welcome to ozno ecience

Watch the video I linked earlier it explains it all.

Roujin

superflyninja wrote:

That explains nicely what was expected to be seen in the image.
I think its a pretty major thing. It confirms that Einstein was right again and that black holes actually exist( it was highly suspected but not confirmed I think?).
And a lot of the light surrounding the black hole is matter orbiting at a high speed methinks.

Fixed the link for anyone having difficulty viewing.

The video makes the image even cooler imo.

Armitage_Shankburn

That video is blowing my fucking mind

Armitage_Shankburn

Anyone who has done any maths at basic A level grade I recommend Brian Cox's Why e=mc2. You can solve the equations as presented yourself with just basic algebra, once you understand how the issue is framed.

Einstein is such a genus not because special relativity is complicated, but simply because his mind was so creative he was able to pose a simple question and solve it with his very basic and rather limited mathematical ability.

General relativity is a mindfuck, but anyway, it is amazing that a curious feature of his work, a century old now, is being observed. To my mind that is mind-blowing. We can see black holes, sort of.

Spoiler:

Word

Roujin

Agree, that stuff about the photons going around the edge and coming back round basically allowing us to 'see' the back of the event horizon around the edge of the dark zone was crazy. And the stuff about how even if we are looking directly onto the edge of the accretion disc we would still see the image of the disc around the edge of event horizon because of the light coming from the disc going around the event horizon and some of it being shot our way.

Agree on the impressiveness of minds like Einstein as well, who are able to visualise the maths around complex problems in their minds and propose solutions or give practical demonstrations of the issue such as the heavy object being placed on a blanket to show how space time is distorted around objects.

Vela

Its nice to see Einstein vinidcated yet again, however he's still got some 'splainin to do about wtf is going on at the quantum scale within the event horizon. It just confirms that even though its what was expected, the universe is still too weird and hiding some secrets.

I like the idea of the wave-particle duality analogy that people like Susskind and t'Hooft proposed; anything that crosses the event horizon is both destroyed from an external observer's perspective, and alive within the black hole from their own perspective (until they eventually meet the singularity).

Armitage_Shankburn

t'Hooft

Made up name, he's testing us

Vela

Indeed, it's 't Hooft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_'t_Hooft#Quantum_gravity_and_black_holes

cockbeard

SpaceGazelle wrote:

I suppose an infinite amount of energy might fuck things up.

As energy and matter are interchangable then there cannot be an infinite amount of energy or matter, else the night sky would be light. I know that thought experiment has been debunked by folk in the past but I'm not happy about any of the debunkings

Roujin

It's not that the universe is infinite, it's just that it's currently possibly expanding infinitely outwards from the big bang. I think that means we sort have a sphere of stuff all moving away from the centre point.

But I think the rate of expansion is supposed to slow down over time though as kinetic energy is slowly lost by cosmic bodies.

Eventually things in the universe will "lose" energy and cool down to the point where they are no longer able to overcome the weak forces of gravity trying to keep everything together and we will experience a contraction of everything in the universe being pulled back together by gravity, resulting in a massive singularity and then possibly another big bang?

I think it's the cyclical universe theory or something.

This post is heavily imo and all that, but I find the eventual heat death and contraction of the universe rather beautiful and sad at the same time. It does sort if render the endeavour of all life ultimately pointless though.

hylian_elf

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

That video is blowing my fucking mind

Dinostar77

cockbeard wrote:

Dinostar77 wrote:

acemuzzy wrote:

There was quite a lot of "people used to think you couldn't take a picture of a black hole cos it doesn't emit light - but we've got lots of countries together and been cleverer than that" And then it wasn't really a picture of the black hole (because it doesn't emit light), but just stars round the outside. So I was also a bit underwhelmed.

The detection of gravatational waves by LIGO was amazing, but yesterday was underwhelming.

I can only think that you don't actually understand what happened. Until yesterday black holes were theoretical

Yes everybody took them for granted, and assumed they existed, but not until now has it been shown. So it really is pretty momentous, unfortunately we've become desensitised because they were sexy and so Hollywood

Dude, they weren't theoretical as they had been indirectly observed for a number of years by the pull of stars being sucked into black hole(s) especially in the centre of the milky way.

cockbeard

Well it could have been god then

Roujin

Dinostar77 wrote:

cockbeard wrote:

Dinostar77 wrote:

acemuzzy wrote:

There was quite a lot of "people used to think you couldn't take a picture of a black hole cos it doesn't emit light - but we've got lots of countries together and been cleverer than that" And then it wasn't really a picture of the black hole (because it doesn't emit light), but just stars round the outside. So I was also a bit underwhelmed.

The detection of gravatational waves by LIGO was amazing, but yesterday was underwhelming.

I can only think that you don't actually understand what happened. Until yesterday black holes were theoretical

Yes everybody took them for granted, and assumed they existed, but not until now has it been shown. So it really is pretty momentous, unfortunately we've become desensitised because they were sexy and so Hollywood

Dude, they weren't theoretical as they had been indirectly observed for a number of years by the pull of stars being sucked into black hole(s) especially in the centre of the milky way.

Until yesterday they were theoretical.

That photo is the indisputable proof that einstein's theory of general relativity that predicted their existence was correct.

Even einstein thought that there was no such thing as a black hole that actually existed and that they were just a theoretical object that could exist within the bounds of the theory when he came up with it.

Roujin

I mean for clarity, until the 50's black holes were only known as singularities. A singularity is a point in space where matter has collapsed on itself into an infinitely small point and has effectively punched a hole in space time as result.

It's that hole in space time which is stopping light from coming back out of a black hole.

That's why this photo is mad.

Einstein's theory was right, the are things in this universe that are able to basically break the rules of the universe. That is not a concept that fits anywhere in normal physics where things obey rules. Its why quantum physics is so interesting even though I don't understand a damn thing about it.

If a thing exists, it implies that it is possible for that thing to be created artificially given enough time and resource/materials.

Roujin

I mean, dudes are now free to do proper research into what formed the black holes we now know (as of yesterday) are at the heart of our galaxies. Indeed, the EHT team ate going to try to take a photo of the black hole at the centre of the milky way as their next target.

Think about it lads. Lads. Mankind can now say for certainty that we can look for the maths to understand how matter can collapse into a single point and that the concept of how an infinitely dense point in space is formed.

Dinostar77

So the observations of gas clouds being ripped apart in 2006,2010 and 2016 at the centre of the milky way are entirely theoretical are they?

Does that also mean that observations of exo planets via their transit across their parent star also makes exo planets therorical? Because we haven't taken a direct picture of them?

Roujin

Dino I didn't decide that until yesterday black holes were theoretical, the scientific community at large did.

We have seen the movement of objects and detected the gravitational waves of collisions which INFERRED the presence of a black hole. But we have never actually seen a black hole.

It's like them giant squid that sperm whales fight in the depths. We find sperm whales with injuries and scars consistent with a squid except massive in size. But we've never seen one of these squid. For all we know actual cthulu is down there fucking them up.

cockbeard

You mentioned LIGO, well in my opinion, this is up there with LIGO and the Higgs Boson as one of the greatest discoveries of the decade, seems that despite the anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, and climate change deniers, science is really pulling out all the stops at the moment

Blocks100

The return of that much loved Muppet Show segment:

JEWS IN SPACE!

hylian_elf

Set up on Israel on the Moon, best solution. Can't kick anyone out of their homes and land that way.

Dinostar77

The falcon heavy boosters, landing by themselves was a sight to behold. Like something out of star wars.

GooberTheHat

Every time is see that I have to remind myself it's not CGI.

Blocks100

Anyone got a link to a good clip for that?

Roujin

SpaceGazelle

cockbeard wrote:

SpaceGazelle wrote:

I suppose an infinite amount of energy might fuck things up.

hi

As energy and matter are interchangable then there cannot be an infinite amount of energy or matter, else the night sky would be light. I know that thought experiment has been debunked by folk in the past but I'm not happy about any of the debunkings

The universe might well be infinite, it's just limitations on the speed of light make the observable universe non infinite.

Mainly, matter and energy are not interchangeable. Mass is a measure of energy. It is not a form of energy.

I've posted this before but here you go.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo232kyTsO0&t=409s

SpaceGazelle

I've also posted this before but it's ace so I'm posting it again. If you want to learn relativity start here.

SpaceGazelle

Then this,

SpaceGazelle

Falco Heavy launch in 5 mins over on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPfHHls50-w

SpaceGazelle

Yay they landed the centre rocket too.

Howdy, Stranger!

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