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WHEN THE WORLD was getting to see the first ever image of a black hole, Katie Bouman could hardly believe that her work had led to such an incomparable achievement.
What she perhaps found even more incredible was that her name trended across the United States in recognition of her efforts and those of whom she worked alongside.
Yesterday’s red-letter day for astronomy was built as part of a global collaborative effort and Bouman had led the team which developed an algorithm to bring all that collaborative work together.
Bouman is a former PhD student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her work involved helping computers see through images and video.
While at MIT she led a project to develop the algorithm, assisted by a team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
No single telescope is powerful enough to capture a black hole so the image the world saw yesterday was assembled from data gathered by eight radio telescopes around the world.
The data was gathered two years ago, over four days when weather conditions in the eight worldwide locations were just right.
Completing the image was an enormous undertaking, involving an international team of scientists, supercomputers and hundreds of terabytes of data in hundreds of hard drives around the world.
The task of sorting through that data was enormous and the algorithm created by Bouman and her team at MIT was a crucial part of that effort.
Bouman details her work in a 2017 Ted Talk titled: How to take a picture of a black hole.
Then yesterday, as that work was finally coming to fruition, Bouman posted to Facebook about how she felt.
“Watching in disbelief as the first image I ever made of a black hole was in the process of being reconstructed,” she wrote alongside an image of her face as the image came up on the screen.
MIT CSAIL / TwitterLeft: MIT computer scientist Katie Bouman w/stacks of hard drives of black hole image data.
— MIT CSAIL (@MIT_CSAIL) April 10, 2019
Right: MIT computer scientist Margaret Hamilton w/the code she wrote that helped put a man on the moon.
(image credit @floragraham)#EHTblackhole #BlackHoleDay #BlackHole pic.twitter.com/Iv5PIc8IYd
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez / Twitter
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez / Twitter / Twitter
Boumon’s image of herself has itself gone viral along with one taken 500 million trillion km away but speaking to CNN, the computer scientist said the credit was not all hers.
“No one of us could’ve done it alone,” she said. “It came together because of lots of different people from many different backgrounds.”
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What an absolutely STUNNING achievement. Well done to Katie Bouman and everybody else who made it possible!
@The Risen: She seems like an incredible scientist and obviously very smart but it seems like a lot of the attention she’s receiving is because she’s a women. There was a huge team involved and no doubt she played an important role but the extra attention she’s getting just seems patronising.
@Toomasu Sumitsu: A pale male called Andrew Chael wrote 850’000 of the 900’000 lines of code but he doesn’t fit the progressive narrative I’m afraid.
@Mejo: he had a face for radio though poor lad and the same skin complexion as Julian Assange due to spending too much time in a dark room staring at lines of code. Katie was heavily involved as well anyway. She is a very smart cookie. It’s not like they just hired her for her looks and she never said she did it single handedly.
@Mejo: Chael has denied this. He’s also gay by the way so he doesn’t fit your typical white male demographic
(Also I did not write “850,000 lines of code” — many of those “lines” tracked by github are in model files. There are about 68,000 lines in the current software, and I don’t care how many of those I personally authored)
Iontach an rud é chun poll dubh a fheiceáil
@Séan Ó Nuanáin: there’s always one wha
@Séan Ó Nuanáin: Umm what?
@Séan Ó Nuanáin: An dóigh leat g’rbh fíor é go raibh sí ag iarraidh griangraf ospidéal éigin i mBaile Átha Cliath a thógáil…?
@Dotty Dunleary: It’s Irish, it’s bad enough a lot of us aren’t able to speak our native tongue but not even being able to recognise it? Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam.
@Diarmuid Hunt: Completely irrelevant and pointless to comment in a different language. This is an English speaking news site, the subject of the article is an American Scientist therefore doubly irrelevant.
@Fachtna Roe: por favor solo comente en ingles!
@Séan Ó Nuanáin: you’re speaking a peasant language.
@Dotty Dunleary: risteard ceann
@Dotty Dunleary: It most definitely is not pointless to comment in Irish, I understood it and so did others, there is nothing in the guidelines about not speaking Irish. This is an Irish news site, I’m pretty sure we can use either of our nation’s official languages while commenting.
@Diarmuid Hunt: I’ve seen comment threads on this site in Spanish, French, German, Catalan and Russian. Not a peep from Dotty and cohort. One guy leaves a comment in Irish and Dotty and cohort get all up in arms about it. Why the double standards, Dotty?
@Dotty Dunleary: Dún an doras i do dhiadh, Sasanach.
@Fachtna Roe: Níl a fhios againn go bhfuil sé Sasanaigh, ach aontaím leat ar do chéad líne.
@Earl of Daventry: hee hee, only an Earl could cite that as a fault.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Да Бог добио гљивице на јајима/Da Bog dobio gljivice na jajima!
@Fachtna Roe: Pasko kahvikuppiin!
@Kingof Kerry: Runkkari!
@Dotty Dunleary: Careful now, the goats will cross your bridge if you spend too long here.
@Dotty Dunleary: думаю что по-сербски пишите. Не понимаю сербский язык, но если хотите, давайте поговорим по-русски. Czy jeśli pan chce, możemy rozmawiać po polsku? Ny, ayns Gaelg Vanninagh my vel oo jargal ee y lhaih as y screeu? An mbeadh ceann de na teangacha sin agat? Or are you just going to continue mocking those who speak Irish, even if they have multiple languages at their disposal?
Why are the comments closed on the Assange story??
@Greg Dunne: ik so annoying
@Greg Dunne: assange is a hero that’s why
@Greg Dunne: they always disable comments on cases which are before the law.
You can take your tin foil hat off now.
@Earl of Daventry: how is he a hero exactly? Genuine question.
@Arya: half a million documents released, including footage of unarmed Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists being gunned down by American Apache helicopters and documents showing US commanders had a policy of ignoring allegations of rape and murder by Iraqi police and soldiers. Basically the stuff we weren’t supposed to see, he exposed. Free press. Free assange.
@Deirdre O’Byrne: No Deirdre, they don’t. Go back through the journal’s articles. Now, you know where you can stick your tin foil hat love
@Greg Dunne: sure the tinfoil will reflect off the sunshine out of deirdres arse forming a new black hole
@Earl of Daventry: which can be pictured using 10,000,000 gigabytes of computer memory
@Greg Dunne: I’ve spent the past hour looking. Can’t find any.
@Earl of Daventry: did anyone ever tell you that you are a nice person?
They were lying.
@Greg Dunne: thank you for your intelligent insightful response. It’s a true reflection of your character.
@Deirdre O’Byrne: nobody has ever told me I’m nice, it would be an insult.
@Earl of Daventry: oh well in that case let me give you the warm assurance of calling you an utter prk who will hopefully die alone.
Scientists: We have captured a black hole millions of light years away on video for the first time in history.
People: Wow! That’s amazing!
Scientists: Human behaviour is causing climate change.
Some of the same people: I don’t believe science it’s all fake news!
Amazing achievement!
Great achievement, well done.
We can comment on Black Holes but sorry no comment ( keep your mouth shut ) about the arrest of Julian Assange and Garda Whistleblowers .. shhhhhhh
@Noel Kelleher: they always disable comments on cases which are before the law.
You can take your tin foil hat off now.
@Deirdre O’Byrne: no, they don’t
@Earl of Daventry: Yes they do. I’ve spent the past hour looking. Can’t find any that aren’t blocked.
She quite correctly says that it was a team effort, and she played a relatively small part in it.
But still, Dr. Bouman, your enthusiasm is infectious, and you are that rare bridge between us and that cold world of algorithms and differential equations.
You are an imaging specialist, and you’ve played that small part in producing the picture. But what’s more special is the part you play in the picture you’ve painted in our minds today.
@Earl of Daventry: The perfect example of being at the opposite end of the intelligence spectrum to Katie Bouman.
@Joe McDermott: good man joe.
There are still people to believe that we went to the moon?
@Eric Vdc: Even more shocking, there’s still people who believe we didn’t!
Thank fu@k for clever people!!!!
There is a place for science yes, but the greatest questions of the universe cannot be answered by science. There must be a divine creator that set everything in motion.
@Mike Conway: Why must there be a “divine” creator?
@Mike Conway: Grow up FFS.
Photoshopped
To be fair Sean, there are a few things that we have no solid proof ever existed,,, now why I mean ;)
@Devilsavocado: It’s your chouce toto ignore a book full of eye witness testimony and unprecedented fulfilled prophecies…I hope for your sake you eventually see sense. That’s the stuff that really matters to all of mankind not some computer generated image of a theoretical mirage needed to hold another grand theory together.
@Seán Ó Fearghaille: name one fulfilled prophecy that can be independently verified.
More fiction from the Science Fiction community. Right up there with the artist renditions of exo-planets. The oort cloud is a fraction of the distance away than this theorized black hole yet we have never seen a picture, nor confirmed the existence of this fictional meteor generator (without it the whole theory of evolution evaporates….literally). People have lost the power to think for themselves and will believe any horse manure organisations like NASA put out. This lady is nothing more than a Science Fiction writer, right up there with the H.G Wells of this world. Waiting for the usual who are you comments from the baying mob…I’ll tell you what I’m not…a gullible fool.
@Seán Ó Fearghaille:
*Claims to not be a gullible fool.
*Believes in Jesus.
Mmmmhmmmm.
@Ajax Penumbra: Your choice to ignore recorded history mate…I hope you see the light before it’s too late….a little tip for you…the answer is not to be found in a galaxy far far away.
Just because you don’t understand it, does not make it fiction. The fact you are able to leave that comment is testament to the works of these very scientists. Just for your information, black holes emit radiation in many different spectra due to their high velocity and destruction of particles, high mass and gravitational effects and superheating of particles turning them into plasma. The accretion disc literally shines like a star. The Oort Cloud is a cloud of dust and small ices. It is light in weight, has no significant gravitational pull, does not effect other particles and emits no radiation, heat or light. Technically, we did not take a picture of a black hole. We took a picture of an event horizon’s shadow across its accretion disc.
As for evolution: What happens when a black man and a white woman have a baby? Yeah, that’s evolution right there. Ever wonder why you look like your parents and siblings? Evolution. Why do you need a different flu shot every year? Because the flu mutates. What’s mutation? Evolution. Ever wonder where our bananas come from? That’s genetic selection which is only possible because of evolution. Poodles? Evolution. As for saying you’re not a gullible fool. You follow inaccurate translations made by poorly skilled linguists of a 2000-3000 year-old book written by malnourished, dehydrated and uneducated dessert-dwellers trying to explain why it gets dark at night.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: blah dee blah….desert dwellers….illiterate….blah dee blah….believe my unprovable scientific theories and ignore thousands of years of recorded history and what my conscience is telling you or else you’re nothing more than a cave dweller too. Face it….modern scientific THEORY is coming apart at the seems the more they learn about God’s amazing creation. Hence the need for sensationalist press releases like this and ridiculous theories like multi-verse generators, simulations…..etc
@Seán Ó Fearghaille: modern scientific theory is being proven correct and expanded upon on a daily basis. There is not thousands of years of recorded history in the bible. For example, the bible records a census in the Gospel of Luke which he alleged occurred under the reign of Caesar Augustus. However, there is no record of any such census having taken place. Even the background events of Jesus’ life actually occurred over a period of approximately 180 years, yet the bible says Jesus was crucified at approximately 32-35 years old. In other words, they get basic facts of the lead character wrong. The scientific theories are provable. You just don’t understand the word “theory”.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Backing up your arguments with outrageous fallacies is not a winning formula..
@Seán Ó Fearghaille: Could you point out the outrageous fallacies for me?
@Diarmuid Hunt: I think Seán is more about the outrageous phalluses! Wha!? Know’wh’msayin!?
*puts hand up for high-give*
@Seán Ó Fearghaille: No outrageous fallacy from me. What I have said is backed up by the relevant field of study, be that archaeology, written documentation, experimentation, observation and analysis. What you believe in can only be “proven” by cyclical confirmation bias, i.e. writings whose authorship cannot be proven writing about events, most of which did not occur, post factum to “prove” their own legitimacy. Such belief requires the suspension of logic and ability to critically think. Meanwhile, we see the results of scientific inquiry all around us and yet you want us to cast that aside? You disbelieve evolution yet don’t know what evolution is. And, you disbelieve the findings of this woman without knowing what she found.
@Ajax Penumbra: Depends entirely on where he believes the origins of the use of the cross as a symbol in Christianity comes from, but I do get you.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: You believe scientists/scholars that support your world view as do I. Shock horror. Plenty of evidence that disproves evolution, Einstein’s Theory of relativity, the existence of black holes…arc. But you don’t read about these too much because Science is driven by an agenda to create a narrative that doesn’t require a creator God pulling the strings in our universe. They have failed miserably and so have to resort to quack theories to resolve the BIG issues. I’m not denying any measurable scientific discovery that has advanced mankind….God gave us free reign over the earth and gave us our own personal super computers to make these discoveries. What I do object to are the crazy theories that have one agenda…..eradicate the need to call on that pesky God of the Bible. Open your mind and the truth will set you free.
That’s not science’s agenda at all, and your belief in such an agenda shows you don’t know what science is. Science is the careful and systematic analysis of the world around us in an attempt to understand it. It is flexible in that every time new information is presented, it is added to the bulk of knowledge and may, or may not, change current thinking, depending on whether or not it is true and verifiable. There is no agenda to disprove God – indeed many top scientists are religious. As for evolution, it is a verifiable fact, unless you are willing to state that there is no such thing as a mixed race child or that children don’t inherit their parents’ features. That is evolution. Evolution has been proven. Just because science is beyond your comprehension does not make it wrong.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: of course I believe in genetics and micro evolution…just not in putrid sludge evolving into human beings. Or maybe Disney were right… give it enough time and that frog really can change into a handsome Prince. The more we discover scientifically the more it becomes patently obvious there was a grand designer to it all. Praise be to God the Almighty
@Seán Ó Fearghaille: I genuinely hope you are an American. Irish people are not this dumb. The Bible is not recorded history, It’s a claim, And mostly false.. Thrown together at the Council of Nicea by Constantine. That is recorded history. He even used his own image as the character of Jesus. This is why he appears white in a lot of images. Even if everything needed a creator what makes your god any morereal than the thousands of others?
@Rob Cahill: Another lying unbeliever who likes to distort facts to suit their narrative. All of the New Testament has been verified to have been written in the 1st and 2nd century. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide us with written evidence of the much older Old Testament. Not to mention countless secular accounts of the life and death of Jesus. Carry on with your delusion and lead whatever perverse lifestyle you choose to your peril. Confess your sins through Jesus and receive the most wonderful gift that God has given all of those who follow in Jesus footsteps. I denied Jesus for long enough but when you allow him into your heart the transformation is astounding. He is the truth, the light and the only way to receive God’s promise of everlasting life.
She is adorable.
Well done fello computer scientist people don’t have a clue how much work goes into how we write algorithms and the coding we write.
Your washing machine has coding in it. Microwaves ect.
What a great day for science.
It’s all 1s and 0s.
Well done to all involved in this massive achievement..
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