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Laser Light Re-creates 'Black Holes' in the Lab

Posted by Zonk on from the i-have-dubbed-my-discovery-zonkinium dept.

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.'"

6 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Black Hole by gammygator · · Score: 5, Funny

    As long as they didn't create a real black hole.

    That would suck.

    --

    No Nyarlathotep, No Chaos
    Know Nyarlathotep, Know Chaos
    1. Re:Black Hole by CSMatt · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well it certainly wouldn't blow.

    2. Re:Black Hole by spidercoz · · Score: 5, Informative

      ugh, dude, did you RTFA? this experiment had nothing to do with black holes, singularities, Hawking radiation, or any kind of mass. It was a trick of optics to produce an ANALOGUE of an event horizon

      it is currently IMPOSSIBLE to produce any kind of singularity. The LHC has a chance, infinitesimal, to do so, but that's still quite a ways off.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
  2. Re:Sounds safe by orclevegam · · Score: 5, Informative

    That sounds safe, to reproduce the effects of the point at which all matter collapses into a virtual singularity. Where were they testing this again? Somewhere on Earth? Alrighty then... Taxi! 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.
    --
    Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
  3. It would blow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It would blow Hawking Radiation

  4. How the universe works by spun · · Score: 5, Funny

    God made the universe 6,000 years ago. If you do not worship him and subjugate yourself to his will, he will torture you forever. He just put in things like dinosaur bones and black holes to mess with your head, to get you to disbelieve in him, so that he can torture you forever without feeling guilty about it.

    He's kinda messed up because he was alone for like, eternity, until he made up some friends in his head, but he's incapable of imagining anything that is actually his peer, so he secretly hates us all for not providing the companionship he needs. That is how the universe works.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton