A journey into a black hole7/1/2023 ![]() It's as though you were trying to launch a spacecraft off the surface of this collapsing star and you would have to go faster than the speed of light to escape it. And so what the star does when it collapses, is it creates a curvature in spacetime that's so strong that eventually, yes, when the star gets dense enough, you create what we call an event horizon, a region beyond which not even light can escape it. What the black hole is, is the remnant left behind after a star is totally gone. I love it because people often will say, aren't black holes a dense state of matter? And that's a confusion. Why is that such an important concept to grasp? You spent quite a bit of time making sure that people understand that black holes are actually nothing. I wanted to combat the preconceived notions about black holes to kind of shuck away the veneer and expose the fascinating attributes of black holes that I think are lesser known, but yet are really more core to their definition than the ones that are floating out there.īlack Hole Survival Guide by Janna Levin. Why frame this as a survival guide for black holes? And it turns out, it's a trip that we maybe, possibly, could even survive - at least, briefly.īob McDonald spoke with Professor Levin about her new book Black Hole Survival Guide. In Black Hole Survival Guide, physicist Janna Levin takes us on a virtual adventure through the cosmos, to experience what it would be like to travel to - and into - a black hole. And now, thanks to a new book, we can do just that. While these sinister, perplexing whirlpools of destruction aren't exactly on the top of anyone's must-visit list, sometimes, it's fun to imagine. ![]() There are billions of them in the cosmos, and they shape the galaxies we live in - and yet we can't really see them. Here’s a promo for SPHERES produced by Sundance.Black holes are puzzling entities. They're massive, but somehow they're nothing. The acquisition deal by CityLights was secured on Kaleidoscope’s funding platform, and includes this first chapter shown at Sundance as well as two additional chapters yet to be produced, and will be released later this year by Oculus. I had a chance to sit down with McNitt at Sundance in order to talk about the inspiration for this project, her journey into creative explorations of science, the challenges of depicting gravitational lensing in Unity, what’s known and not known about black holes, how listening to gravitational waves for the first time inspired the sound design, and crafting an embodied hero’s journey story in collaboration with Protozoa Pictures. There were a number of scientific collaborators including the National Academy of Sciences and physicists who study black holes, and so the VR producers had to come up with creative interpretations of mathematical descriptions of the edges of spacetime that push the frontiers of our scientific knowledge. SPHERES made news for being acquired for a 7-figure deal, and it represents a unique collaboration between science and art. It’s a hero’s journey that provides an embodied experience of the evolution of a star from birth to death with a poetic story written and directed by Eliza McNitt, narrated by Jessica Chastain, and produced by Darren Aronofsky’s Protozoa Pictures. Sundance New Frontier had a solid line-up of VR experiences this year with a number of immersive storytelling innovations including SPHERES: Songs of Spacetime, which takes you on a journey into the center of a black hole.
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