MetaFilter posts tagged with blackhole

Uh oh.

strangeguitars — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:21:24 -0800

It's armageddon all over again. Chinese have created a black hole.

What Would It Look Like To Fall Into A Black Hole?

panboi — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:55:13 -0800

New Scientist looks at what it would be like to actually fall into a black hole.

Sagittarius A*

Kronos_to_Earth — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:02:07 -0800

A sixteen year long astronomical study, led by Dr. Reinhard Genzel of the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, has provided what is considered to be the best empirical evidence yet of the existence of supermassive black holes, specifically one a relatively cozy 27,000 light years away.... "The stellar orbits [QT] in the Galactic Centre [QT] show that the central mass concentration of four million solar masses must be a black hole, beyond any reasonable doubt." A video describing the study; more photos and video here.

R.I.P. John Wheeler, physicist

ikkyu2 — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:22:40 -0800

R.I.P. John Wheeler , theoretical physicist. Famous for the Wheeler-Feynman equations and the term "black hole," which he coined to describe a singular point mass, he has died at age 96. The NYT usually gives pretty good obituary but they outdid themselves this time. .

Quantum Mechanics: Myths and Facts

XMLicious — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:21:29 -0800

Quantum Mechanics: Myths and Facts (pdf), a recently-updated paper on the Cornell arXiv peer-review site. By Hrvoje Nikolić of the Rudjer Bošković Institute in Croatia. Note: the presence of a paper on arXiv does not necessarily mean it has been reviewed and is not equivalent to having been published in a journal.

Information Salvation

Songdog — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 20:25:29 -0800

It would seem that black holes may not lose information after all, in which case Stephen Hawking has lost another bet.

The biggest subwoofer in the universe

wobh — Thu, 11 Sep 2003 04:22:13 -0800

Listening through a telescope the Chandra X-ray observatory hears a black hole.

Talk about Johnny One-Note

GreyWingnut — Wed, 10 Sep 2003 08:20:49 -0800

In space, you can hear a black hole sing (WaPo link). Using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, astrophysicists have detected a supermassive black hole in the Perseus Cluster which has been "playing" a B-flat for 3 billion years.

Fascinating as this seemingly counterintuitive discovery (sound carrying through space) is, the real significance lies in that these "sound waves" may explain why the superhot gases in such regions aren't cooling down and forming more stars.

Massive explosion rocks NASA

kewms — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 06:55:31 -0800

Massive explosion rocks NASA And Pasadena, and a few other places, too. It's not every day you get to watch a black hole form. Includes cool animation (.mov file). Seems the gamma ray burst detector picks up two or three significant events every month or so.

stuporJIX — Sat, 26 Jan 2002 03:36:52 -0800

Wot, no black holes? Those wacky boffins in science land have already had a pop at the Higg's boson, but now they're moving on to everybody's favourite theoretical singularity, with a new theory about what happens when a star kicks the astral bucket.

KirkJobSluder — Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:36:04 -0800

Astronomers claim a massive black hole orbits our galaxy sweeping from the outskirts to the core while cryptozoologists claim bigfoot was documented on a 1930s vegetable packing crate.

Steven Den Beste — Wed, 20 Dec 2000 22:21:27 -0800

The stars in the core of our galaxy are moving damned fast. [more]