Chinese scientists build "working black hole"

[Cain]

This is a little odd, if true.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,566322,00.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a4:g4:r4:c0.000000:b0:z5

Researchers theorized how to design a table-top black hole earlier this year. Now two ambitious Chinese scientists have actually built one—using the same materials that made invisibility cloaks possible.

The theoretical model for the black hole aped the properties of a cosmological black hole, whose intense gravity bends the surrounding space-time, causing any nearby matter or radiation to follow the warped space-time and spiral inwards.

The working Chinese model consists of a cylinder, made up of strips of a special material that increasingly affects electric fields. As rays of light approach the device, they curve inward towards its center, where the permittivity (a characteristic that describes how the material affects an electric field) is such that the light cannot escape. The device then converts the light into heat energy.

To affect light in such a way, the black hole uses so-called meta-materials that "bend light" to mimic the properties of a cosmological black hole. Meta-materials can deflect microwaves around a three-dimensional object, essentially making it invisible to the waves. Researchers themselves made waves by proposing that such materials may lead to the creation of an invisibility cloak.

[Brotep]

Clearly this is serious, legitimate and hard-hitting news.  Quickly, my countrymen!  We must build an invisibility cloak before the Russians!


Linked from that page:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,566100,00.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g2:r1:c0.194273:b28307864:z10

Internet's Inventor Regrets the Whole Backslash Thing
The inventor of the World Wide Web has revealed his one regret—adding slashes at the start of links.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee said typing "//" wasted people's time and required them to use more paper.

"I could have designed it to not have '//'. Really, if you think about it, it doesn't need the '//'," he admitted. The prefix "http://" ended up just making people overuse their index finger, waste time and use more paper, he said.

Slashes were a computer programming convention when Sir Tim developed the first web server while working at the CERN physics laboratory in 1990. They are now added automatically by most web browsers so that users only need to type in "www".

Sir Tim made the comments after being asked by the New York Times what he would change if he could turn back time.

According to the Daily Telegraph, at a Washington DC technology meeting, Berners-Lee said: "I could have designed it not to have the //. Boy, now people on the radio are calling it 'backslash backslash'. People are having to use that finger so much."

In fact the '/' symbol is a slash, while '' is a backslash and is rarely used in web addresses.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Clearly this is serious, legitimate and hard-hitting news.  Quickly, my countrymen!  We must build an invisibility cloak before the Russians!


Linked from that page:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,566100,00.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g2:r1:c0.194273:b28307864:z10

Internet's Inventor Regrets the Whole Backslash Thing
The inventor of the World Wide Web has revealed his one regret—adding slashes at the start of links.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee said typing "//" wasted people's time and required them to use more paper.

"I could have designed it to not have '//'. Really, if you think about it, it doesn't need the '//'," he admitted. The prefix "http://" ended up just making people overuse their index finger, waste time and use more paper, he said.

Slashes were a computer programming convention when Sir Tim developed the first web server while working at the CERN physics laboratory in 1990. They are now added automatically by most web browsers so that users only need to type in "www".

Sir Tim made the comments after being asked by the New York Times what he would change if he could turn back time.

According to the Daily Telegraph, at a Washington DC technology meeting, Berners-Lee said: "I could have designed it not to have the //. Boy, now people on the radio are calling it 'backslash backslash'. People are having to use that finger so much."

In fact the '/' symbol is a slash, while '' is a backslash and is rarely used in web addresses.

[Reginald Ret]

i got interested and almost clicked that link, but then i read the url

[Template]

i got interested and almost clicked that link, but then i read the url

How about this one:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17980-first-black-hole-for-light-created-on-earth.html

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

i got interested and almost clicked that link, but then i read the url

How about this one:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17980-first-black-hole-for-light-created-on-earth.html

Well, New Scientist is a step up from Fox.


Barely.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

I think this is a misuse of the term 'black hole'. I don't think it counts if it only sucks in light, and doesn't do it using gravity.

[Brotep]

Well it sounds a hell of a lot better than "vortex thingy that sucks in light in a manner resembling a black hole only not as a result of gravitation."  Okay, maybe not.

[Shai Hulud]

I think this is a misuse of the term 'black hole'.

I knew there was something fishy about this story.  Leave it to faux news to claim they're creating "black holes" when really what they are really creating is "darkness."

When I reread it I noticed the tacit admission in the last paragraph: "mimic the properties of a cosmological black hole"

"Vortex thingy that sucks in light in a manner resembling a black hole only not as a result of gravitation" is clearly the only accurate name yet proposed for this device.  I wonder how you say that in Chinese.

[Template]

"Light Sink"

[Brotep]

在有些类似一个黑洞的光吮不只由于万有引力的漩涡装饰物

[Shai Hulud]

在有些类似一个黑洞的光吮不只由于万有引力的漩涡装饰物

According to Babelfish that means:
"Sucks not only in somewhat similar black hole's light as a result of the gravitation eddy current widget"

[KopyKat253]

在有些类似一个黑洞的光吮不只由于万有引力的漩涡装饰物

According to Babelfish that means:
"Sucks not only in somewhat similar black hole's light as a result of the gravitation eddy current widget"

Brilliant! send it to fox.