Hole for light created on Earth

newscientist.com

28 points·dc2k08··7 comments

As with the "invisibility cloak" and every other "cool" headline in newscientist, nothing close to the actual title has been accomplished.

This has been posted 4 or 5 times by now.

Ha, I used to theorise exactly this as a thought experiment years ago.... wonder if that means the target market for New Scientist is now sixteen year old geeks trying to impress the adopted maternal figures their maths and physics teachers have become

The phrase "black hole" has no place in that article, that's marketing hype.

Black hole works by gravity. Their device works by reducing reflectivity.

Reality: Marketing has a huge place in headline-writing. Headline-writing is a "science" in itself (funded).

What HN can do to serve its members: Omit the marketing/hype when posting a title at HN.

When talking to laymen and writing headlines, it's not the end of the world to speak metaphorically. At least the article itself was fairly clear on what the device did, how it worked, and what some of the future potential applications could be.

That's a lot more than a lot of current medical science or energy journalism which frequently gets even those wrong. Let's be thankful for what we have in this case. :)

True. The "on Earth" at the end implies that this device is something you might find in space, which seems unlikley too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com