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Published online 15 October 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1007
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Researchers create portable black hole
Mini-hole made of metamaterials ensnares microwave light.
Physicists have created a black hole for light that can fit in your coat pocket. Their device, which measures just 22 centimetres across, can suck up microwave light and convert it into heat.
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Having the property of absorbing all light is not sufficient to be a black hole, any more than having the property of emitting light is sufficient to be a star. This remarkable object could more reasonably be called a perfect black body. Or rather an imperfect black body, since it only absorbs in the microwave frequencies.
Instead of a "portable black hole" this sould be called a "portable microwave oven photo-thermal conversion lense" because it absorbs microwave energy, focuses it in the center, and converts it to thermal radiation. It does not draw in energy from the periphery of the disk as it has no attractive force toward light, and the light energy can escape in the form of heat energy. I think the media should stop discussing this as some form of an analogy to black holes because it will cause confusion and fear... but, unfortunately, it will also cause increased viewership and ratings so I doubt anyone in the media would heed this advice.
I hope that they can find a way to use this invention to create some sort of shielding device to protect people from the effects of microwave energy being beamed around for all the wireless communication devices.
Alex and Eli, I agree that this device does appear to be "a portable microwave oven", and if used to create solar cells for space solar power satellites as author David Kagan described in his book Sunstroke, then we'll be faced with gigantic orbiting microwave ovens that could fry entire population centers, and every living thing on Earth. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency wireless power transmission from space to Earth would create major biohazards for humans, animals and plants--far worse than those caused by wireless communication.
I am wondering, since they do not mention the microwave energy input to heat energy output, what the specs are?
Good Science. Bad Science Reporting. Leave that to the tabloids. PLEASE! Science gets a bad enough press anyway and headlines like this will only make things worse. Vide LHC hysteria.
When I was in primary school I used some long wire, a sharp spring loded needle, a piece of "crystal" (something very magic – a piece of germanium), a simple coil of conductive wire, an adjustable capacitor and a connection to ground (a conductive connection to the metal pipes of our central water heating system). In addition I used a very simple earphone. When connected properly this device was attracting radio waves (from our local MediumWave and LongWave stations, through the long wire, even selectively, more or less the stations could be separated), concentrationg them in the device and finally converting them into energy, mostly heat, but some of it first into magntic, electric and audio energy. But all ended up as heat – a very small percentage of it generated in my ear.
Did I have a black hole? Except for the wire this device was much smaller than the one described in the article.
With modern technology such a device could be made smaller than a few cubic millimeters.
Shouldn't it be called a "perfect black body" rather than a mini-black hole?
I agree with Dave Lermit: stop talking widely and inappropriately of 'black holes', there were enough buzz like this one year ago when the LHC was turned on... some people even wanted to go to the courts to make it stop – and save the world from black-hole induced self-destruction... one has to be careful when using such words for reporting science to broad (and usually non-scientfic) audience.