This man created a 'black hole' in a lab to prove a decades-old Stephen Hawking theory

(Image credit: Paul. E. Alers/NASA via Getty Images)

published 16 August 2016

Black holes remain one of space's greater scientific mysteries, but thanks to the artificial replication of the phenomenon in a lab, we could be a step closer to understanding their strange radiation, first described by Stephen Hawking decades ago.

Independent experimental physicist Jeff Steinhauer of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa created an artificial black hole that appears to emit the so-called "Hawking radiation," named for a theory proposed by Hawking in the mid-1970s. Using ultracold atoms, Steinhauer appeared to be able to mimic a black hole's "event horizon," or "the point beyond which the gravitational pull is too strong for even light to escape," Nature explains. The resulting "artificial black hole" Steinhauer created seems to emit a form of the Hawking radiation:

Real black hole: Quantum fluctuations in the vacuum of space produce virtual photons. Sometimes, one of a pair gets trapped behind the event horizon before the two destroy each other, forcing both to become real particles. The photon that escapes is emitted as Hawking radiation.Artificial black hole: Ultracold atoms in a tube undergo quantum fluctuations that produce pairs of virtual particles — in this case, packets of sound called phonons. If one phonon falls in the supersonic region, it is trapped, leading to a sonic form of Hawking radiation. [Nature]

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.