Thursday, September 01, 2005

Not with a whimper...

The BBC news website has a story entitled Black holes start with many bangs. Observation of multiple gamma ray bursts by the Swift observatory, designed to detect very short bursts, improves upon previous recordings of a single decaying burst. The bursts are expected to be associated with black hole formation, radiation from infalling material. But from the tone of the article it seems the astronomers are not clear about the causes yet. While you're thinking about black holes go and look at Jillian's Guide to Black Holes, if you haven't already done so, it is a beautiful site.

Also in the news recently is a new "three line" putative proof of Fermat's last theorem. Alexander Ilyin, a "doctor of technical science" who works in automated data processing in Omsk, unveiled his proof at a press conference on 23rd August, and according to this Pravda article
"colleagues in Omsk believe Alexander's proof is flawless and simple"
Furthermore the article continues,
"Omsk-based scientists and journalist have not found any errors so far"
Journalists are obviously of a much higher calibre in Russia. A follow-up article that fails to make it plain whether or not the proof has been withdrawn, but covers the popular history of Fermat's last theorem very nicely is here, and a discussion thread here.

Thanks to the Mighty Emperor of Room 102, Peter McKeag for pointing out this story.

7 comments:

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Unknown said...

Spammed comments will be gleefully deleted.

PlatoHagel said...

"activate your word verification" as Lubos did. I have not yet in Eide, but I have in others.

PlatoHagel said...

Another theory is the material shooting away from the dead star starts to fall back on to itself - in the process heating up enough to produce X-ray light

I sort of find this funny, since gravitatinal collapse is a issue that one might assign "supersymmetical valuation" (the collapse creates the environment) to "possible" symmetry breaking actions?

So how would you see this in swift, and what would be telling about events held too, in fermionic disposition?:)

This is self explanatory from the light we see would it not?

Unknown said...

Dear Plato,
I admire, thank-you for, and have taken advantage of your ancient blogging wisdom and have turned on word verification.

With regards to your second comment, I'm afraid I can't be sure I've understood. In such situations it is my policy to stay silent, and hope that my silence conveys thoughtfulness :) I'm not convinced this policy works well in this medium. Perhaps some other reader might venture a comment in response? I would especially like to know why/if this story is exciting to cosmologists/relativists.

Best wishes,
Paul