Israeli Scientists Create Sonic Black Hole
According to Discovery News, scientists led by Jeff Steinhauer at the Israel Institute of Technology used what's called a Bose-Einstein condensate -- a cloud of atoms chilled to nearly absolute-zero, the coldest temperature there is -- to create a sonic black hole. Essentially, the scientists created two clouds of atoms, separated by a small gap. Between that gap, particles moved so quickly that sound waves could not get through, effectively blocking all sound.
While this result is promising, the sonic black hole lasted for a mere 8 milliseconds before dissipating -- not good news for those of us holding out for black-hole earbuds. Even more unfortunate, if we're honest, is that there's little chance of this tech ever showing up in a retail product. So, go ahead and stick with those headphones unless you've got a doctorate in quantum physics and a knack for tinkering; although your 'phones may not be scientifically perfect at killing sound, they at least exist long enough for you to rock out. [From: Discovery News]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Platinum_Skeet said 11:39AM on 6-18-2009
Fast forward 30 years from now...
Black Hole headphones the hot new craze sweeping the nation!!!
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supermat1 said 1:57PM on 6-18-2009
Let me see, what could the military application of this technology be?
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larrikin01 said 2:03PM on 6-18-2009
Leave it up to the Israelis to invent a SONIC BAGEL and try to pass it off as a black hole- LOL So whats next Sonic LOX and Cream Cheese?..LOL
I'm retired AOL guys, so wasting time is my new occupation. Whats your wasting bandwidth?
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dakan said 3:56PM on 6-18-2009
Israel does not engage in ethnic cleansing. That would be the people who hate them like Adolf Hitler, and the current Iranian President. Those 12 year old Palestinian children are taught from kindergarten to view Jews as dogs who steal, cheat and kill children. They are used as shields by Hamas because they know Israeli soldiers will hold fire with rifles until they get a clear shot, all while Hamas empties clip after clip at Israelies, or fires mortars.
Ask an Israeli child in Sderot what it feels like to have 12 seconds to get to shelter as a Qassam rocket is coming to destroy your kindergarten or day care center.
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A1S15 said 1:24PM on 6-22-2009
@larrikin01 - It's just being explained badly.
"It's like a black hole because waves get sucked in and can't escape," said Jeff Steinhauer, a scientist at the Israel Institute of Technology and the corresponding author of the article recently posted on the ArXiv.org pre-print Web page."
"Since atoms move between the clouds faster than sound, any sound wave trying to escape will fall farther and farther behind, never able to escape the sonic event horizon."
(From the Discovery News article. The idea is that this phenomenon is in some way analogous to a black hole, so that by studying it one can actually make predictions about black holes.)
@dakan... Ok.
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