What to make out of a Picture of "Black Hole".

What was the last time a media coverage of path breaking discovery was lost in head scratching and
total perplexity. On Thursday 11.04.19 morning, many found it much to their dismay that a smudged
and relatively blurred incomplete circle was said to have created history. Never before Humankind was
able to snap a picture like this!! Few were intrigued by the simplicity of the picture and confused why
somebody can't give a sleek version of it especially if it had to be seen on the front page of tabloid.

This led to a serious consequence as creativity took an interesting dimension and it ensued a series of
memes of "Black hole" streaming in social media and appeared more than the original picture, validating
the fact that in the age of consumerism people are starved of fancy image sparring no excuse that it was
actually taken at a distance of 52.3 million light years away from Earth. Many are in zealot of satisfaction
as their smart phone gives better picture and resolution.

So in the interest of all concerns let me shed a layman view on hard to comprehend Black hole and a
genuine take away for all of us who are just in fray to take a sneak peek into it just because it made a
headline.

To understand "Black hole" we must understand "Singularity". Literally "Singularity" means condition of
being singular, however in physics, it is a one-dimensional point which contains a huge mass in an
infinitely small space, where density and gravity become infinite and space-time curves infinitely, and
where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate. It's like falling into a pit that has no
bottom. If you take it on face value, it’s the best place to fall into. However falling with the speed of
light sends chill down the spine. No one has experienced it so far but it is said that body cells would
disintegrate like a deodorant fumes diffuse into air.

Singularity is not black hole, in fact it's nothing. It's just an idea! Imagine our Earth which has about 6371
km in diameter. Let's suppose you have got the power to squeeze it to the size of a Tennis ball keeping
its mass intact and volume reduced (means an earth of diameter 6371 km when shrunk to a size of
tennis ball should weigh equal.). In that state time and space graph will bend infinitely creating an
infinite gravitational pull near its vicinity called "Event Horizon"

Event horizon is also a concept that help to understand "Black hole". In layman's terms, it is defined as
the shell of "points of no return", i.e., the boundary at which the gravitational pull of a massive object
becomes as great as to make escape impossible. Now combine singularity and event horizon and
imagine a planet of size Jupiter shrunk to a size as small as tennis ball (keeping the weight same) will
bend the time and space infinitely and any object in vicinity of that curvature will fall with more than
speed of light towards infinitely small Jupiter (Singularity). It makes sense if that object has to come out
it should create a thrust equivalent or more than the speed of light which is practically not possible.

Except the picture very few articles have mentioned the name of the black hole. "Powehi" is the name
of the black hole that was photographed and it is not from our galaxy "milky way" but it resides at the
center of the galaxy "M87". Just to give a sense of the size of black hole "Powehi" is more or less the
size of our solar system.

Woven into the fabric of daily life we often tend to neglect or sway away with these information.
Nonetheless knowing "Black hole" is neither part of our KRA nor does it impact our health. Why waste
time and energy knowing something which has no role in our wellbeing. Is this penchant really true?

In contrast to this, a deluge of political propaganda and Bollywood gossip in newspaper and social media
seems to strike an emotional chord with us and we discuss, meditate on it as if our very survival hinges
on the result that which political party is going to be in power. An inference is drawn here that human
brain likes to engage in things that are full of emotions and characters. It is evident how people
negotiate and convince that one political party is better than others in a discussion that often lead to
some sort of discord or even violence.

Politicians would advocate that election is a very important event and it does determine the fate of the
people. It is true to some extent but the fact remains that media and events in politics are mutually
exclusive to each other and they perpetuate aggressively that it doesn’t make way for other piece of
information to take precedence. There aren’t enough choice for readers who fed into any channels be it
social media or print media. The news on black hole or recent launch of PSLV - C45 emisat mission, PSLV-
C39/IRNSS-1H Mission is evident that these important events die premature death at the hand of
political fester and media propaganda garbage. How many of us know what these satellite mean for
human life? It shows the commitment and sheer lack of will to present these information with as much
creativity in narration as it is done for Bollywood and politics.

In essence there is a strong hegemony of garbage news over the larger narrative of print, Tele, and
social media that feeds the conscious of more than 600 million people in this country. In another word
media is in a complete drunken orgy with political banter and tinsel town gossips. Media and news
agency holds the conduit of information which helps masses to leverage that to their wellbeing. The
role of Media is that of an eye opener instead it's creating illusion all the more.

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