The most anticipated Astronomy Event of my life from mm waves:

[soldar]

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying it is not legit.

I am just saying that they have made a big show which is misleading. The discovery may be very significant for the scientific community who have the background to understand and interpret but they made a big show to present it to the general public and it is misleading because the general public has no idea of the meaning of any of all this. Most people on the street will think that is what a black hole actually looks like.

The purpose of this presentation and all the fanfare surrounding it is to gain exposure for themselves and their work and garner support and funding.

Pretty much like the launch of any Apple product: carefully anticipated and choreographed so as to get max exposure in the news.

[magic]

Most people on the street will think that is what a black hole actually looks like.

Point taken, you may be right. I'm a bit out of touch with "most people on the street" to be honest
If they cared about not being misleading to laypeople they probably could have made more effort to stress that it's radio not visible light and the accretion disk rather than the hole itself. But we live in age of clickbait, so "an image of the invisible" fits the fashion, I guess. Yeah, you're right, I think I remember I used to hate it too.

[iMo]

On the other hand it is great we've got the nice picture this week because the black holes evaporate over time.. Soon or later there will be none black holes..

[apis]

[Beamin]

that Katie Bouman video is reasonable since she used most words like assume, infinite number of possibilities, the "algorithm", hope and "we cant see it yet". at least she knows better what a reality looks like.. If you are able to pass through the regions of the heavens (sorry its a tabbo word, change with "sky") and the earth, then pass through; you cannot pass through but with authority ("Quotation" 55:33) they asked for it and they got (are given to) it, a little at a time

What the hell are you talking about? That's not sarcasm. Are you saying it's a fake picture or the science behind it is flawed? Maybe it's because I just watched that flat earth video is why I see this post like that. The flat earth people make the most absurd claims and have no idea how to even for a good debate. Even if you are dead wrong but you understand how to debate you can make it seem like you are right and the other side is wrong. I don't know who the guy in the video was arguing against but it was weak at best. Shows how scientifically ignorant people are in this country or how the internet with vast amounts of free instant information can be ignored and rather found the just plain wrong. Imagine if people like Newton or the ancient Greek thinkers had access to the internet all the ideas they would have come up with?

As to the "false color image" it's mm waves so there is no color and a B&W image isn't sexy or futuristic although probably more realistic. Plus you can't see it close up even if you were 100 AU away as the light's just bent in. They should have explained it more like in that veritasium video to blow peoples minds if they knew what they were actually looking at.  And yes, it's also a PR stunt, but wouldn't you want funding for this sort of thing? With all the absurd things we waste money on this is real cutting edge science that advances our understanding of the universe and brings us one step closer to a star trek civilization... or the great filter/singularity/creating a strangelet as we pursue technology and accidentally destroy ourselves. The fact we saw something that big(small) that far away, opens the door to studying all kinds of things outside our galaxy which was impossible just a few years ago. I'll take a nothing burger, hold the event horizon please. Also who knew it would be orange and not glowing green since it's full of radioactive stuff!!!

[Kyl8145]

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying it is not legit.

I am just saying that they have made a big show which is misleading. The discovery may be very significant for the scientific community who have the background to understand and interpret but they made a big show to present it to the general public and it is misleading because the general public has no idea of the meaning of any of all this. Most people on the street will think that is what a black hole actually looks like.

The purpose of this presentation and all the fanfare surrounding it is to gain exposure for themselves and their work and garner support and funding.

Pretty much like the launch of any Apple product: carefully anticipated and choreographed so as to get max exposure in the news.

But that is what a black hole actually looks like. In fact, from what I have read of one physicist who does simulations regarding how a black hole would look like if you could just look at it, it was almost a bit of a let-down because the simulations, based on general relativity and all that, are apparently so spot-on. I.E., the image didn't show them anything they didn't already know as far as knowledge of current physics, just confirmed it. They didn't go, "Oh wow, now this is something new, we didn't know that THIS is how black holes actually look," instead it was, "Yeah, that's EXACTLY how the simulations we run say it should look." The team that produced the image consisted of multiple separate teams that utilized different methods so that there would be no confirmation bias, and they all got the same result. Then they tried to find ways to "break" the image produced, if-you-will, and couldn't do it.

A black hole looks like a sphere of blackness, with the sphere's shape warped somewhat due to the force of gravity and how it bends the light as it travels. That is exactly how this black hole came out. Normally they are very hard to see because space is generally dark where they are, but this one was of a black hole earlier in its life with a lot of light around it, thus allowing them to be able to image it.

[Beamin]

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying it is not legit.

I am just saying that they have made a big show which is misleading. The discovery may be very significant for the scientific community who have the background to understand and interpret but they made a big show to present it to the general public and it is misleading because the general public has no idea of the meaning of any of all this. Most people on the street will think that is what a black hole actually looks like.

The purpose of this presentation and all the fanfare surrounding it is to gain exposure for themselves and their work and garner support and funding.

Pretty much like the launch of any Apple product: carefully anticipated and choreographed so as to get max exposure in the news.

But that is what a black hole actually looks like. In fact, from what I have read of one physicist who does simulations regarding how a black hole would look like if you could just look at it, it was almost a bit of a let-down because the simulations, based on general relativity and all that, are apparently so spot-on. I.E., the image didn't show them anything they didn't already know as far as knowledge of current physics, just confirmed it. They didn't go, "Oh wow, now this is something new, we didn't know that THIS is how black holes actually look," instead it was, "Yeah, that's EXACTLY how the simulations we run say it should look." The team that produced the image consisted of multiple separate teams that utilized different methods so that there would be no confirmation bias, and they all got the same result. Then they tried to find ways to "break" the image produced, if-you-will, and couldn't do it.

A black hole looks like a sphere of blackness, with the sphere's shape warped somewhat due to the force of gravity and how it bends the light as it travels. That is exactly how this black hole came out. Normally they are very hard to see because space is generally dark where they are, but this one was of a black hole earlier in its life with a lot of light around it, thus allowing them to be able to image it.

I want to know what it would look like if it was in front of an opaque object like a glowing gas/dust cloud. Would it do the strange Einstein rings and what not? Our brains are not good at seeing photons that don't travel in a straight line we actually infer that that's where the photon came from. Our brain is an interferometer that assumes the photon came from where we saw it. You can't see the side of light and once you see it you have interacted with and changed the particle. .

[apis]

[Mechatrommer]

Most people on the street will think that is what a black hole actually looks like.

Point taken, you may be right. I'm a bit out of touch with "most people on the street" to be honest

you have just made contact with one... this thread originator