Black hole a valuable reminder of our insignificance

Friday, 12 April 2019

Albert Einstein figurine At Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in Vienna. Einstein predicted the existence of black holes in his theory of general relativity in 1915.

EDITORIAL: Look up. You might see some clouds, or a passing satellite or stars.

Scientific eyes far more powerful than ours peering in the same direction have, at last, seen and photographed what Albert Einstein postulated more than a century of Earth years ago might exist – a black hole.

This image released last Wednesday by Event Horizon Telescope shows a black hole. Scientists revealed the first image ever made of a black hole after assembling data gathered by a network of radio telescopes around the world.

There have been several breathtaking discoveries in our own solar system in the past year, most notably from the Mars missions and the now defunct Cassini probe's close encounter with Saturn. But the enormity of capturing the first image of a gargantuan black hole eclipses anything else. As European Commissioner for Research Innovation and Science Carlos Moedas put it: 'The history of science will be divided into the time before the image and the time after.'

He also described the image, taken by about 250 scientists using eight upgraded, high-altitude, radio telescopes around the world, as a 'huge breakthrough for humanity'.

The Submillimeter Array, part of the Event Horizon Telescope network, on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

First image to be captured of a black hole has proved true New Zealand mathematician Professor Roy Kerr’s solution of Einstein's equations.

* Highest of titles for Kiwi black hole expert Roy Kerr

* Bright sparks and black holes**

ITwo men dress up to take a photograph with a waxwork figure of Albert Einstein on display at Turkey's first Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in Istanbul.

That is an interesting comment.

Many might wonder how life for more than one billion people living in extreme poverty may actually be improved by this multimillion-dollar photo, and how we will benefit from it, other than through the extra knowledge added to Humankind Inc. This kind of debate is a hardy annual when it comes to attempting to justify the cost of 'big science'.

After a decade-long search for a black hole, the Event Horizon Telescope image shows a dazzling ring of super-heated dust, rock and gas surrounding a dark circle of what is described as 'distorted space-time', about 55 million light years from Earth.

The scale of the black hole at the centre of the Messier 87 galaxy is almost unfathomable, estimated at almost 40 billion kilometres in diameter – about 3 million Earths in a line – and with a mass six and a-half billion times that of the Sun.

The image has proved Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity, which stated that massive objects warp space-time, creating gravity which, in the case of a black hole, is so strong it stops light from escaping.

It also confirms the work of University of Canterbury retired mathematician Professor Roy Kerr, who, in 1963, finally solved Einstein's field equation defining the space outside a rotating black hole, a solution now known as the Kerr Vacuum and on which much astrophysics has since drawn.

Awe-inspiring discoveries do make a difference to us all, even if only to deflate any delusions of grandeur we may have.

It's good to be reminded of our unimportance in the universe and to have put in some perspective that while awful events happen down here, we are mere blips in the grand scheme of things.

It's also good to realise the incredible capacity of humans to think, discover and explore. Even if we are mere blips, it is amazing that the brain of a blip came up with a theory so many years ago predicting what has now been proved to exist. Humans may be insignificant on a cosmic scale, but we can achieve the unbelievable.

In his 1965 protest song Eve of Destruction, Barry McGuire sang: 'You may leave here for four days in space, but when you return it's the same old place.'

It is indeed still the same old place. But, for seeing the black hole photo, we are all just a little better off.