Capitalogix

Photographing a Supermassive Black Hole: The Gravity of This Situation is Immeasurable

The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing. - Frodo seeing Sauron through the Mirror of Galadriel in The Fellowship of the Ring

The Event Horizon Telescope just released the first-ever image of a black hole ... specifically a supermassive black hole with a mass 6.5 billion times heavier than our sun. This behemoth of a black hole is over 50 million light-years away in a galaxy we call M87. The little blob (in the picture below) is 25 billion miles across, and the bright part is brighter than all of the billions of other stars in that galaxy combined.  To put it in context ... the black hole, shown below, is larger than our entire Solar System. 

Here's a link to the original RAW (183 mb) image. 

 

via National Science Foundation

The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun

In my opinion, the black hole image is even more amazing when you zoom out and see the entire m87 galaxy. The little black dot inside the orange is the black hole.

 

via NASA/CXC/VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY/J. NEILSEN 

To take a step back, a black hole is a celestial object that has a gravitational field so strong that light cannot escape it and that is believed to be created especially in the collapse of a very massive star.  It warps spacetime and superheats all surrounding materials. 

“In space no one can hear you scream; and in a black hole, no one can see you disappear.” 
― Stephen Hawking

Before today, black holes had only been observed indirectly. We had math that "proved it."  Now, we have direct, observable, and corroborated evidence for everyone to see.

Do you understand the gravity of that? 

In my lifetime, Black holes have gone from a fringe theory to a possibility, to a probability, and now, to reality.  

It is amazing to think about how right Einstein's theory of general relativity was ... especially considering that he did the math in 1915, before we had the technology and science to back it up.  The basic idea is that the relative velocity of light doesn't change, therefore it must be a constant in our universe. Using his math, we were able to predict how a black hole would "look", and it was supported by the Event Horizon Telescope's image. 

Veritasium puts understanding the image into better perspective. Check it out. 

 

via Veritasium 

For a side note, the first proposal of black holes actually goes back to John Michell in 1784

"If there should really exist in nature any bodies, whose density is not less than that of the sun, and whose diameters are more than 500 times the diameter of the sun, since their light could not arrive at us; or if there should exist any other bodies of a somewhat smaller size, which are not naturally luminous; of the existence of bodies under either of these circumstances, we could have no information from sight; yet, if any other luminous bodies should happen to revolve about them we might still perhaps from the motions of these revolving bodies infer the existence of the central ones with some degree of probability, as this might afford a clue to some of the apparent irregularities of the revolving bodies, which would not be easily explicable on any other hypothesis; but as the consequences of such a supposition are very obvious, and the consideration of them somewhat beside my present purpose, I shall not prosecute them any further." 

It took a massive amount of work to produce the photos of the black hole shown in this post. The ingredients: 200 researchers, 20 years, over 9 petabytes of data, 8 telescopes, and immense vision. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, it also took the 104 years of research since Einstein's theory. 

Powerful stuff. 

For more:

• Here's a Reddit "Ask Us Anything" with the scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope 
• Here's a TED talk from Dr. Katie Bouman in 2017, about taking a photo of the black hole.  Katie went to MIT and led the creation of a new algorithm that helped produced today's image.
• Here are the six published papers by the EHT on today's achievement
• Here's another great video from the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics on today's image 

Sardines in a Tincan Hurtling Through The Air

I fly a lot.

In fact, I just hit five million "butt-in-seat" miles on American Airlines. 

 

 

I don't expect to continue at this place forever ... but now is the time to push.

I have a different workflow when I travel, and it works for me.

Ultimately, I believe that good things happen when you are in motion! 

Many people, however, are focused on the hassle.

The practical realities of travel mean I spend some time thinking about the things airlines do well or poorly.  Nonetheless, I appreciate the benefits more than the frustrations.

Yes, it is true ... Status means much less today than it used to.  Every week it feels like they make the space between seats smaller while the time for finding overhead luggage space gets shorter. 

Yet, the planes themselves are getting better.  Here, for example, is what an empty 787 looks like. 

 

 

It looks more like a set from Star Trek then the hellscape passengers complain about on a regular basis. 

What about the boarding process? 

Here is a video that presents the findings from studies on experimental boarding methods that work better. 

 

via CGP Grey

If you really don't like commercial flying, you can fly on any of the "economical" private options like JetSmarter or WheelsUp. Or, better yet, you could be like this guy and buy the world's only private Boeing 787 Dreamliner. 

 

via Sam Chui

You can rent it out for a measly $70k an hour ... What a bargain!

Avoiding Death By Snowmobile: Part II

Last year, I recounted my humbling via snowmobile. 

I traveled to Saskatchewan, Canada and "sledded" with people who had been doing it since birth. 

When I got there, everyone was in great spirits. Apparently, this is a sport done with day drinking, lots of laughter, and semi-reckless abandon.

We split into groups: Insane, Merely Crazy, and the Turtles. I figured I was relatively safe with the Turtles ... I was wrong. 

 

 

The machines are capable of gliding over the snow at speeds exceeding 120 miles per hour.  I wasn't going nearly that fast ... but the beasts were harder to tame than I expected. 

Despite crashing numerous times, totaling a sled, and being sore for weeks ... I had so much fun on year one that I brought my son with me on year two. 

 

 

Last year, I recognized 2 things: 

1. Humans are deletion creatures. That means they can hold seven things (plus or minus two) in their memory. While they were focused on fun, I was focused on how to stay on the sled
2. You're supposed to stay on the sled, and leaning into the turn helps you do that ... who'd've thunk it? 

This year I learned a couple more: 

1. People don't forget. Everyone remembered my less than skillful sledding. 
2. Youth is wasted on the young. My son picked it up fast and was speeding as if he'd been on a sled his whole life (despite falls that would cause people with skulls that no longer have soft spots to proceed with caution). 
3. When you find the right group of people, the fun gets more fun, and struggles seem less challenging. 

 

While sledding is fun, it's the people that make the trip. 

Likewise, it's the people you take with you through life that makes it so worth it. 

Oh, and I did suck less this time ... Progress!

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 27th, 2019

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links

• Giving Algorithms a Sense of Uncertainty Could Make Them More Ethical.(TechReview)
• How Musicians Communicate Non-Verbally While Performing.(PsychCentral)
• Welcome to the World's Largest Gathering of Humans. (NPR)
• The Evolutionary Advantages of an Addictive Personality. (Scientific American)
• George Orwell Predicted Cameras Would Watch Us in Our Homes; He Never Imagined We'd Gladly Buy and Install Them Ourselves.(OpenCulture)

 

 

Trading Links

• The Weaponization of Artificial Intelligence. (Forbes)
• Apple Named 'World's Most Admired Company' for 12Th Year in a Row.(MacRumors)
• The Government Shutdown May Ripple through the IPO Market for Months. (Quartz)
• Billionaire Ray Dalio Shares a 3-Step Formula for Anyone to Start Investing.(CNBC)
• Ex-Goldman Banker Describes Finance as "Dark Art," Advocates Running McDonalds Franchise Instead. (News)

 

The Pale Blue Dot: Life, Mankind, and the Universe

In 1977, the Voyager 1 launched into space.   Just over a dozen years later, the Voyager 1 spacecraft had traveled farther than any spacecraft/probe/human-made anything had gone before.  It was approximately 6 billion kilometers away from earth.  At that point, the Voyager 1 was "told" by Carl Sagan to turn around and take one last photo of the Earth ... a pale blue dot. 

The resulting photo is impressive precisely because it shows so little in so much.

 

"Every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."  – Carl Sagan

Earth is in the far right sunbeam –  a little below halfway down the image. This image (and the ability to send it back to earth) was the culmination of years of effort, the advancement of technology, and the dreams of mankind.

The resulting speech from Carl Sagan is still profound, moving, and worth a listen. 

 

Carl Sagan via YouTube
 

Here's the transcript:

 

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

 

Today, we have people living in space, posting videos from the ISS, and high-resolution images of space and galaxies near and far. 

We take for granted the immense phase shift in technology. You have more computing power in your pocket than we first used to go to the moon. 

As humans, we're wired to think locally and linearly. We evolved to live our lives in small groups, to fear outsiders, and to stay in a general region until we die. We're not wired to think about the billions and billions of individuals on our planet, or the rate of technological growth - or the minuteness of that all in regard to the expanse of space.  

However, today's reality necessitates we think about the world, our impact, and what's now possible for us.

We created better and faster ways to travel, we've created instantaneous communication networks across vast distances, and we've created megacities. Our tribes have gotten much bigger - and with that, our ability to enact massive change has grown as well. 

Space was the first bastion of today's innovation, but today we can look toward A.I., medicine, epigenetics, and more. 

It's hard to comprehend the scale of the universe and the scale of our potential ... but that's what makes it worth exploring!

Onwards!

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 20th, 2019

Most citizens don't have big savings account to buffer them against an unexpected expense or loss of income.

The Government Shutdown is one of the curveballs most workers haven't planned for adequately.

 

Actions have consequences.

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links

• Full Translation: China's 'New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan' (2017). (Newamerica)
• Apple Buys 50 Business Class Seats from San Francisco to Shanghai Every Day. (MacRumors)
• Ford Built a Sweaty Robot Butt to Simulate Your Sweaty Human Butt. (BGR)
• Intimate Portraits of People over 100 Years Old Reveal the Beauty of Aging Bodies. (MyModernMet)
• Costco is Selling a 27-Pound Tub of Mac and Cheese that Lasts 20 Years. (BusinessInsider)

 

Trading Links

• Fear of Algorithm Trading is Really Just the Fear of the Unknown. (Quartz)
• Hedge Funds Suffer Worst Year since 2011. (FT)
• Nearly Half of Workers Earn Less Than $30,000. (Ritholtz)
• Michael Dell Gets $12 Billion Richer with Break from Public Eye. (Fortune)
• The New Impossible Burger 2.0 Won Everyone's Mouth at CES 2019, but That's Just the Beginning. (Forbes)

A Quick Visit to Cuba

I went to Havana with a diverse group of business people, financial professionals and representatives from the US Fed. 

Here is a photo taken with some of the classic cars that proudly dominate the roads despite cheaper Russian and  Chinese alternatives.

 

 

The city was beautiful … dirty and broken, for sure … but still beautiful.  Here is a view from my hotel room.

  

 

I commented that it was almost like seeing a severely wounded elephant. You can tell that it's hurt (and barely a shadow of its old self). Nevertheless, you can see the amazing bone structure. It is easy to imagine what it once was.

In Cuba, the geography and the architecture are amazing. However, money hasn't been spent on the upkeep. Even though people live there, it seems surreal (almost like a post-apocalyptic wasteland).

 

 

In the story of Exodus, the Jews spent 40 years wandering the desert after escaping from Egypt. That means two generations of people, who didn't remember life as slaves, were ultimately the ones who entered the “Promised Land”.

On some level, that's how Cuba is now. Most inhabitants weren’t born (or can’t remember) the 1960s. They have known nothing but this.

Cuba is an interesting place … and I’d bet that it has an interesting future.

The “lack” had a side effect. It produced a mutation. A portion of society grew more resourceful and resilient.

 

 

Like natural selection … nature finds a way.

The rules change, the players change, even the game itself changes ... That is how new ideas and new leaders emerge.

Sometimes, almost no one notices. Sometimes they do. 

Ultimately, change remains the only constant.

Onwards!

A Quick Visit to Park City as a Noobie Skier

Humpty Dumpty tried skiing ... and is leaving with 10 fingers and 10 toes still attached in all the right places!

 

 

Skillful skiers relax and let physics do a lot of the work.  I used muscles way too much and way too often.

When I was done, I was WIPED!!!!  

Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun ... and I plan on doing it again.

Thanks Randy Garn for shaming into trying this. Park City, Utah was beautiful.

 

 

Hope you’re having a relaxing Labor Day weekend

Jennifer and I are in Maine, where it’s getting a little chilly ... and the leaves are starting to turn autumn colors. Probably my favorite weather.

Hope you are having a nice Labor Day Weekend.  

Winter may not be coming ... but fall is near.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - August 5th, 2018

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links

• The 5 Levels of Leadership. (Quartz)
• Your Obsession with Cognitive Biases is Probably Making You Dumber. (Inc)
• Apple Watch Keeps Spotting Cardiac Issues and Saving Lives, this Time in Australia. (AppleInsider)
• What is Intermittent Fasting and is It Actually Good for You? (Time)
• New Radio Telescope Picks up Mysterious Signal from Space. (CNet)

 

 

Trading Links

• Jeff Bezos' Parents Invested $245,573 in Amazon in 1995 Now They Could Be Worth $30 Billion. (Insider)
• The Biggest Thing to Happen in Blockchain since Bitcoin. (Forbes)
• Russia Dumped 84% of Its American Debt. What that Means. (Money)
• Big Pharma Would like Your DNA. (The Atlantic)
• AAPL Gets Even Closer to $1Tn Market Cap, Hits New All-time High in After-hours Trading. (9to5Mac)