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Israeli Scientists Create Sonic Black Hole

by Tim Stevens on June 18, 2009 at 11:15 AM


If you find yourself constantly inundated with background noise, be it office chatter, cars driving by, or obnoxious birds in your yard, you may have looked for solutions to escape. Sure, you could buy noise-canceling headphones, but thanks to some new research by a team of Israeli scientists, you might someday be able to buy yourself a black hole -- of sound.

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]

Tags: black hole, BlackHole, israel, israel institute of technology, IsraelInstituteOfTechnology, sonic black hole, SonicBlackHole, sound

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