I moderated my 60th – if I’m counting correctly – Science Cafe New Hampshire this week. It featured three UNH physics professors ( Francois Foucart, James Ryan, and David Mattingly) talking about black holes and other deep-space astrophysics stuff.
Science fans came out to Makris Lobster and Steak House in droves; there were 80 people plus a few against the wall at Makris Lobster House for our monthly tete-a-beaucoup-tetes. The discussion wandered deep and wide, including one question that talked about the first derivative of time, which got the general-relativity specialist all excited.
Here was my favorite takeaway: The famous “photo” of the black hole that prodded this SCNH topic in the first place was taken by combining information from eight radiotelescopes that make up the Event Horizon Telscope. But the digital images from each telescope taken over four days were so massive that they couldn’t be networked – the data had to be hand-carried on hard drives to the central processing center.
“Sneaker-net!” I shouted when I heard this. All the people with white hair in the audience laughed; the rest looked puzzled.
If you’re not in tune with our two monthly Science Cafes – one in Concord, one in Nashua – check the web site. The SEE Science Center has its similar monthly event in Manchester, called Science on Tap.
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