Talk:Very-long-baseline interferometry

message: The first section could use a rewrite, since it is hard to read for those outside the astronomy field. "Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) is a type of interferometry in which the data received at each antenna in the array is paired with timing information, usually from a local atomic clock, and then stored for later analysis on magnetic tape or hard disk.". A casual reader may wonder: which antenna, which array? Why is timing so crucial that it is mentioned in the very first sentence?
I'm not an expert in this field, so I hope someone else can do this. I suggest to first tell this has (1) something to do with radioastronomy and (2) involves multiple, geographically seperated, telescopes.
Macfreek 12:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: changed wikilink resolution to Angular resolution. please change if you know a better place to point artical too.  STHayden [ Talk ] 01:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  resolution 

message: HALCA is no longer active as of 2005.  Refer to http://www.vsop.isas.ac.jp/ for updated information.
ChrisTracy (talk) 06:35, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Space-VLBI 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: An image of the M87 black hole has been added, with this caption: "VLBI was used to create the first direct image of a black hole, imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope and published in April 2019."
There has been a huge amount of hype from the team behind this effort.
* This is not a direct image of the black hole. You can't make an image of a black hole, only of the matter swirling around it.
* The image is not 'direct' - it's constructed from radio signals, and those do not have an orange colour.
* Using VLBI to investigate cosmic radio objects has been around since the 60s. 
* Gravitational lensing and the presence of axial jets has been used before to conclude that a black hole must be present.
I've watched two  documentaries about this experiment (both Horizon, so both basically pop science). All of the scientists appearing on these programs insisted that they had made a direct image of a black hole.; they're all on-message. I don't doubt that the experiment was momentous; but the puff that appears in newspaper reports and TV documentaries fails to explain why.
As far as I can see, it might be the first time VLBI has been used to observe a black hole at millimetre wavelengths. That would be interesting, but it wouldn't justify all the puff that has been generated. I believe that millimetre wavelengths means hydrogen plasma (i.e. protons); but none of the material I've seen or read goes into that kind of silly scientific detail. I think I read somewhere that the experiment showed that there was a stream of very hot protons orbiting the black hole; I suspect that observation may relate to the claims that EHT has successfully confirmed a prediction made by A. Einstein (but AFAIK Einstein had never heard of a black hole, and didn't believe in singularities).
Can someone who knows more than me about this please strip out some of the puff and pop science, and replace them with some facts?
MrDemeanour (talk) 13:03, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: To be clear: I do realize that the image caption is cited. But that just exposes the weakness of the Wikipedia "citation == truth" policy. It's all very well to try to defend a political or historical position by citing sources; people can legitimately have varying positions on such subjects. But much of science is concerned with facts, such as whether it can ever be possible to image a black hole. The fact that you can't arises directly from the definition of a black hole; it's not an empirical fact that could be falsified, it's effectively a mathematical truth. You can't change a mathematical truth by using 'reliable sources'. MrDemeanour (talk) 13:11, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

text: I agree, the word "direct" is incorrect.  The image was constructed using very indirect means.  However, it is still real and meaningful as if it were "direct".  For most WP readers this is nuance.  How many people know that MRI images are not really "direct" for example?  I will take it upon myself to remove this word.  LaurentianShield (talk) 02:20, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Event Horizon Interferometer