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Laser Light Re-creates 'Black Holes' in the Lab
yodasz writes "The New Scientist reports that a team of researchers from the UK were able to recreate a black hole's event horizon in the lab by firing a laser pulse down an optical fibre. The team's observations confirm predictions made by cosmologists and now they are trying to prove Hawking's hypothesis of escaping particles, dubbed Hawking radiation. 'The first pulse distorts the optical properties of the fibre simply by traveling through it. This distortion forces the speedy probe wave to slow down dramatically when it catches up with the slower pulse and tries to move through it. In fact, the probe wave becomes trapped and can never overtake the pulse's leading edge, which effectively becomes a black hole event horizon, beyond which light cannot escape.'"
I'm not a physicist by any means, but I thought Hawking radiation had something to do with the force of gravity at the event horizon. This seems to me is just a bending of light.
Not to be picky, but you do know there's a little bit more to the event horizon of a black hole than the fact that light can't get out of it? Let's not confuse interesting optical effects with singularities. They are...different.
They aren't simulating a black hole, the title is misleading. They're simulating the optical properties of a black holes event horizon. Subtle but very important difference.
Yeah, your way of describing it doesn't generate NEAR as many hits on the ads...um, article.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
FTA:
This makes me wonder how they're differentiating between light produced by their optics cable being on fire, and falloff from the laser. Or do optic cables not ignite at 1000 degrees centigrade? Regardless, it seems that there would be conflicting noise in a (presumably) non-vaccuum, lighted environment.
After a cursory glance thru TFA, it sounds like light waves are just interfering in a way that prevents the lagging, faster wave from propagating past the slower, leading wave. Can any physics people out there explain how this could possibly be interpreted as "we created a black hole in a lab environment"?
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
... Or do you think that they must be being suppressed by someone.....
Sort of, similar to the way the scientific establishment has suppressed radical ideas until the later, sometimes much later became mainstream.
Scientists are human and as such often do care for dogma more than data. This always been and will always be.
Presently, mainstream cosmological theories largely ignore the electric force as a major, often dominant factor in the operation of the large scale universe. There are two forces at work in the large scale universe. One is gravity and the other is the electric interaction. The latter is mostly ignored in today's cosmological theories. This is why modern space probes deliver so many puzzling "surprises" that have no good explanation if the electric interaction is ignored.
All theory is gray
I wish people would stop posting comments about New Scientist not been a credible source of news. WE ALREADY KNOW THAT. And, even if you don't believe this, WE CAN DISCERN, WITHOUT YOUR HELP, about the credibility of the ULTIMATE source New Scientist is citing. Haven't you notice that some news refers to articles in credible sources?