What does knowledge about black holes do for us on Earth?
How can we use that information practically?
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CopperCicada · M
There is two sides of this.
One question is what value does the methodology used in this discovery have. The study used a network of telescopes and thus big data, and special algorithms looking at and correlating small signals.
Who knows. Such methods could be applied to any number of wide array imaging studies from medicine to environmental studies to defense and security.
People often say WTF. Putting people on the moon. The moon aside all of our medical telemetry comes from what was dev'd out in the space program.
You never know how tools and technologies transfer. I have used in my own work image processing algorithms that were inspired by genetics and animal herd behavior. And that is processing images of materials.
The other thing is that this array and algorithm was used to look into deep space at black holes. Surely the next thing will be to turn it to a whole other set of astrophysical problems.
Who knows where that goes. Maybe something massive like discovering life in the universe. Maybe this method of looking at the shadow created around bodies can be used to probe those bodies in some fadhion. Maybe these algorithms can be used to look at things in our solar system using different arrays. Who the fuck knows.
As for the black hole itself-- the general theory of relativity is well tested. But a direct image is something that's never existed. The best we have is gravitational lensing, seeing objects behind a massive object so to speak.
But a direct image of a black hole has a lot more information, and I can see that used for deeper tests of the general theory of relativity. And that becomes a bigger deeper test of fundamental physics.
So it's far from a pfft. Who cares thing.
One question is what value does the methodology used in this discovery have. The study used a network of telescopes and thus big data, and special algorithms looking at and correlating small signals.
Who knows. Such methods could be applied to any number of wide array imaging studies from medicine to environmental studies to defense and security.
People often say WTF. Putting people on the moon. The moon aside all of our medical telemetry comes from what was dev'd out in the space program.
You never know how tools and technologies transfer. I have used in my own work image processing algorithms that were inspired by genetics and animal herd behavior. And that is processing images of materials.
The other thing is that this array and algorithm was used to look into deep space at black holes. Surely the next thing will be to turn it to a whole other set of astrophysical problems.
Who knows where that goes. Maybe something massive like discovering life in the universe. Maybe this method of looking at the shadow created around bodies can be used to probe those bodies in some fadhion. Maybe these algorithms can be used to look at things in our solar system using different arrays. Who the fuck knows.
As for the black hole itself-- the general theory of relativity is well tested. But a direct image is something that's never existed. The best we have is gravitational lensing, seeing objects behind a massive object so to speak.
But a direct image of a black hole has a lot more information, and I can see that used for deeper tests of the general theory of relativity. And that becomes a bigger deeper test of fundamental physics.
So it's far from a pfft. Who cares thing.
SumKindaMunster · 51-55, M
@CopperCicada Excellent response, thank you for your thoroughness.