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Fibre-optic black holes
It seems there's no end to the things you can do with optical fibres. Light can be slowed to a walking pace or even stopped in its tracks, and now, it appears, it's possible to create something akin to a black hole.
A research paper just published in the journal Science describes an experiment in which light in optical fibres was used to mimic the event horizon of a black hole.
Although the actual experiment doesn't appear to be as sexy — or dangerous — as it sounds, it clearly involves some clever non-linear optics and quantum physics (using bigger brains than mine). It could potentially lead to new insights or techniques unrelated to the original problem the researcher were trying to solve — to observe and understand Hawking radiation, which was theorized by physicist Stephen Hawking to stream from real black holes.
This could give a whole new meaning to fibre-to-the-home!
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