Re: off list burble

From: Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Date: Tue May 22 2001 - 01:56:09 MDT


Damien Broderick wrote:

> Why does this particular item get yr knickers in a (n-dimensional) twist?
> Because it *proves* the reality of black holes and Other Places? Is

Well, it's as close to a seeing an event horizont as it gets (actually,
you see it by not seeing it, as the hot matter nugget in question not
only does the Doppler dance, but passes behind the event horizont,
which of course intercepts the radiation (I must go reread that article,
the numbers are not exact, but ballpark).

> potential cause for alarm like GRBs? Is source of energy? Is basis for
> propulsion technique? Just looks so goddam cool? Other?

Oh, it's goddamn cool because instrumentation and signal processing has been
becoming so good, even if though our instruments are still mired on
the dirtball. What an array of spaceborn instruments could see in a
few decades is going to be a lot better.

The actual point I was making that I cited three random items from a single
publication, or a couple of them. If you see them ramping up over the
years, and so matter-of-factly. The results are important for themselves,
but even more important is the trend.

I would like to see the faces of a few distinguished looking people, if
I gave them any such particular issue, say, in 1980. Anyone still remembers
how it was in 1980? It's not as bad as 1950, or something, but it's getting
there.



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