(Ghostly sound)
- Black holes are mysterious objects.
They are remarkable
structures of space time
from where nothing can
escape, not even light.
Physicists are able to forecast
everything that happens
in the universe, outside of black holes.
What we would like to understand
is what is happening at its center,
where if matter fell into the black hole.
At which point,
Einstein's theory of gravity
cannot apply, it breaks down.
And so, this raises a lot
of fundamental questions.
Perhaps the collaboration of people
from different disciplines,
will allow us to resolve
some of these puzzles.
My name is Avi Loeb, and I'm
here to discuss black holes.
(clapboard snaps)
- [Narrator] Avi Loeb
is the astronomy chair,
at a little private college
just outside Boston,
called Harvard.
If you have to go to
school on the East Coast,
I hear it's pretty decent.
- That's right.
The problems about black holes
that were not solved as of
yet, and are puzzling to us,
are first the nature of its singularity.
What really happens
when the curvature of
space and time diverges
in the interior of a black hole?
Is that a channel, a
path to another universe?
Is there an object there
where matter collects?
According to Einstein's gravity,
it collects at the singularity,
and so a paradox arises.
- [Narrator] Modern Physics is dominated
by two major theories: general relativity
and quantum mechanics.
By and large, these theories
don't conflict with each other.
But according to relativity,
black holes create
a singularity, a point in space time
with infinite density that
is completely inescapable.
And according to quantum
mechanics, that's impossible.
Black Holes may hold the secret
to reconciling these two theories
in creating a unified
understanding of physics.
- In order to discover the world,
we need to push boundaries.
And the best places to push boundaries,
is under extreme circumstances
in extreme environments.
And the most extreme environments
that we know of in the
universe are black holes,
because they represent places
where space and time themselves
have a puncture, a behavior
that is pathological
that leads to paradoxes within physics.
Black holes do not emit
light, they're black.
But the matter that swerves
around them emits light
as it heats up,
and so some of this light can get absorbed
by the black hole when
it comes from behind it.
And that appears as a silhouette,
a dark part of the image that represents
the region around the black hole
from where light cannot escape.
(camera clicks)
- [Narrator] You've
probably seen this image.
It was pretty much everywhere for a while.
- [Man] With this image,
science fiction became fact.
- [Man] What you are seeing is
evidence of an event horizon.
- Seeing is believing.
A photograph is worth 1,000 words.
- [Narrator] To create this image,
researchers from around
the world collaborated
to build the event horizon telescope,
an array of telescopes
that is literally as big
as our entire planet.
The Black Hole Initiative
helped to process the data,
which would result in the
first direct observation
of a black hole.
Probing the deepest questions
that are raised by black holes
also spurred collaboration
from a diverse set
of disciplines, philosophers,
physicists, plasma scientists,
and astronomers, computer data
specialists, and filmmakers.
You get the idea.
- Every now and then,
physics reaches a point
where a new theory has to be contemplated.
And in thinking about the new theory,
philosophical ideas are
extremely important,
because they provide us
with a broader perspective.
I had a number of occasions
where a philosopher would
challenge my thinking
about the subject.
And as a result of that,
I would come up with ideas
that I would never encounter
if I were to think in my own path.
- [Narrator] The benefits of
cross disciplinary dialogue
might seem obvious, but
it isn't always easy
for ideas to flow between people
with different disciplines
and backgrounds.
My first concern was that it might become
like the Tower of Babel,
that each discipline will pursue its path
without communicating with
the other disciplines.
But then after those early few months,
people started collaborating,
and it became an intellectual heaven
where we would have philosophers
speaking with physicists.
My most important role is
in trying to establish
an atmosphere around me
that tolerates mistakes,
innovation, risk taking,
and a willingness to explore the unknown,
and encouraging diversity,
because I believe
that people coming from
different backgrounds
have a better chance
at cracking a problem.
- [Narrator] The Black Hole Initiative
has led to a number of collaborations,
papers that have been published
and furthered our
understanding of the universe.
Not the least of these,
is the image itself.
This image confirms many
of our existing theories
about black holes.
But what Avi and his colleagues
are really looking for,
is something that forces us
to rethink and reevaluate our theories.
- My hope is that we will find an anomaly,
something unusual in the
image of a black hole
that we have to think
hard in order to explain.
And it's difficult to
forecast what that might be,
because it deviates from what we expect.
Nevertheless, what thrills me the most
is this sense of adventure.
Going into the unknown
and finding something that
nobody thought about before.
- [Narrator] Learn more about
The Black Hole Initiative
at templeton.org/black holes.
