https://static.projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/styles/os_files...
Taken from here: https://eventhorizontelescope.org/science (the official site of the project).
On the left is how it would look like if we weren't so far -- we are 55 million light years far from that. You know the distance from us to our Sun, which you see on the sky but can cover with your own thumb? That object is 3,500,000,000,000 times farther than the Sun is far from us.
On the right is what we can reconstruct from the signals measured because we are so far and we have "only" the telescope the size of the Earth. More details would be visible (the picture would look more like the one on the left) either if we had even much bigger telescope than the Earth, or if the black hole of the same size were much closer to us, which it is not.
The problem here is your expectation does not match the product. It's like you went to a car dealer and are upset they didn't sell you an airplane.
It isn't surprising to me that Derek focuses on one form, since Veritassium is providing content for the armchair consumer, that he chooses what he believes to be the best model and presents that. This isn't a PhD defense, after all, it's just a timely video so that folks can appreciate the image that the EHT group has released (is going to release, at the time of Veritassium's video.)
Did you have some other models in mind?
Interesting to me is that Veritassium's presented model doesn't explain the corona-like features, nor any attempt at explaining the "blobs" although he does say that blobs would be exiting to see. And there they are! What fun.
>why can you expect it to look like this? well because it's just going to look like this.
Now, I'm not trying to say his prediction was unwise. I just think it's first of all bad form to say something like "the reason is just trust me," in scientific discussions (even if you are correct)... but second I actually do want to know at least some explanation to that question. Granted, I'm not saying the video does not explain anything about the image. I wanted to know: why can we be sure it will look like this, and not other simulated images?
That's all.
You can see on the EHT's own website a gallery of other simulated models of what could be expected from a radio image.
And the second part of my criticism, was that by the end of the video, he was using images inspired by other models, and particularly of one where the accretion disk dominated the image.
I dont care how many downvotes I get, I know the difference between right and wrong and this is a perfectly reasonable criticism.
Anyways, since my posts lost 60 karma in 1 hour somehow (almost uniformly coming from posts in other threads, wtf?) some other opportunistic types see it as a chance for bullying. Even writing stuff like 'you've obviously got your jimmies rustled mate!' or other extremely bad faith assumptions like 'if you cant understand why it's fuzzy, it's far away!' The best is the troll bait comment, 'do you really think one person is downvoting you?' Groupthink, bullying, and authority define right and wrong for some people--they can't even write something that even addresses an actual comment or argument. People are crazy. Eventually they just start addressing the negativity itself, abandoning any substantive argument, and focusing on the negativity itself. The next step is using the negativity as its own justification (you deserve negativity because otherwise you wouldnt be receiving negativity kind of assumptions implicig in the above troll bait comment).
But still all that I dont think explains why comments in unrelated posts (even ones that were being complimented) got the same time-unform mass-downvotes?? I think I haven't experienced anything like this before on this site until recently. I lost 60 karma in the a few hours.
Look at this image for yourself. The article is titled: "Here is what scientists think a black hole. Looks like:" https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/here-s-what-scientis...
There are not massive differences in the images, but the Vetiasium prediction was (and this is very plain) much more accurate.
This isn't controversial at all.
I also thought the particular statement, "why is it like this, because it is just going to look like this" was bad form.
This is very plainly reasonable.
I think the fact that you and a few other users turned this into an opportunity to go through the effort of writing belittling comments and even put downs and troll bait over something as plain and ordinary as this is indicative of some bad qualities of humanity expressing themselves here.
Of course, your only response will be further negativity as bad people dont possess the ability to admit when they were wrong.
And the statement about Assange is very widely expressed. See here(1). There are articles all over the media, just like that one, echoing the same exact view. They are literally everywhere.
Finally, I noticed over the last 30 minutes all my recent comments went down by -1 each. That really makes it look like I'm engaging with some quite petty and insecure people.
Edit: see, right after I wrote this comment, all my recent comments each, in perfect synchronization, down by -1 again haha.
To your point, it's like taking a picture of Uranus with film and waiting for it to develop. People familiar with the matter can guess what the _image_ will look like not what Uranus actually looks like.
This is all very clear in the first 25 seconds of the video if you actually listen to what he's saying.
Unless I'm misunderstanding your intentions and you just meant that as a condescending insult?
You're ranting about Saturn and Jupiter for some reason. Why don't you calm down and look at page eight of the paper that Veritasium video was based on: https://ve42.co/luminet "Image of a spherical black hole with thin accretion disk Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 75, no. 1-2, May 1979, p. 228-235"
Look at that last image, and squint at it until it gets fuzzy. Lo and behold, a fuzzy coffee mug stain!
Perhaps it was a mistake for him to make the focus of the video on the physics of black holes, rather than the limitations of state of the art radio interferometry... but I don't think so.
He doesn't need to give a reason. The reasons why it would look like a "fuzzy coffee mug stain" are well known since Hawkings...
Here's the image from the movie: https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ut_interste...
Now imagine that image being taken far away by several ground-based telescopes put together at the edge of their capabilities and using math to error correct and stitch together the final result. What you get is what we saw.
Here is another prediction: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/here-s-what-scientis...
I just wanted to know why he went with that one because his prediction was really accurate. And I thought him saying 'just trust me' was bad form.
He did talk some about this, but he didn't really say anything about why he thought his illustration would be so accurate compared to a lot of other stuff seen in the press.
I dont care (or have any idea why) how many downvotes or insults I get. It is a perfectly reasonable question and criticism.
The only changes in the image depend on what angle the black hole is being viewed at which would influence whether we see a band across the middle and the slimmer inner ring.
There is some groupthink going on here affecting people like you and others. The above is obviously plain.
Perhaps you should post exactly what image you're talking about and what you think is different.
In the veritasium video the "coffee stain" was not really as blobby as the real image, but it seemed a lot closer than the smooth-gradiant, no blobbiness and no irregularities predictions.
I dont just mean the fuzziness from low resolution.
This isn't really a big deal, but it's also obvious that I am just stating plain facts about what is in these images.
At the time I saw this video when he said "you can be confident, because... (no reason given)" was really the thing that I thought was annoying.
I think you can see the differences in the images. They're not huge but the smooth gradiants vs irregularities/coffee stain/blobbiness is plain to see I think.
Edit: from the horses mouth himself, one of the lead researchers says he didn't expect the image to look like it did: https://youtu.be/ZrDhHDBHkQY
Some of the people here in other parts of this thread have been really offensive for this. It's honestly pretty ridiculous.
All the models are the same, and the real picture is "blobby" only because of the process in how it was taken. I think you are refusing to accept that but there's nothing else to say about it. It wasn't a direct photo, it was a complex assembly of several different radio telescopes around the world stitching data together. If we were actually next to it, it would very much look like the one from interstellar.
The video you linked isn't about the prediction being wrong, more that he just didn't expect to really see a black hole at all. Even though black holes are generally understood for decades, there's a certain shock and awe to seeing it real for the first time.
Also, my complaint was in fact that I didnt know why Veritasium was confident in their prediction. This complaint is for a matter of fact completely consistent with one of the lead researchers outright saying they didn't know what to expect. I never said I was exclusively complaining about there being simulated models which have some differences. You and others criticized me after I said he should have substantiated why he was confident in his prediction. I gave what I believed was my the foremost reasoning for saying that.
I had little idea what the picture would look like...
I have no idea why you're so intent in disagreeing with me. I'm substantiating my ideas with facts. And saying 'just bbelieve me' I think is also bad form.
At this point I feek like your disagreement has to do with psychological or social biases unless you are able to address the factual content of my comment.
But the one thing you said that was interesting was about the blobbiness. I think what you are trying to saya is that it is fully expected by the researchers to be error. Do you have a good interview or other source on this?
He does talk a lot about theory, a lot of it interesting and novel to me, but by the end of the video, most of this theory suggests a different-looking image!