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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 still maintain that Earth by David Brin is one of the best science fiction novels I have ever read. The eradication of privacy, the pervasive recording of everything by retirees, etc. Now we're just one step closer. Just release a few lab-made black holes and let them carve neural pathways in the planet with their decaying orbits.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
So do the white ones. Oh you're talking about interstellar phenomena, never mind.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Well, they can blow up the earth if they want to but PLEASE DON'T LET THEM RECITE POETRY!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I wish I could give you a better response than this but: the important consideration is not whether it would melt or not, but that the shape and Index of Refraction between the fiber's core and cladding are maintained. (That's the easy answer.) Also, fiber is heated to about 1800 kelvins (1527 Celsius) for the purposes of manufacturing the fiber (really detailed but interesting process).
"Little is much when little you need."
cant wait until they implement this on sharks
OK, these aren't the pictures you are looking for. Move along. Here is the black hole on Mars, here is the vortex on Saturn.
Both are as much "black hole" as the one they "reated in the lab". Meanwhile, the last one I met was named JoAnne.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest