{"id":211527,"date":"2025-04-16T01:07:42","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T06:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/optical-device-mimics-both-black-and-white-holes"},"modified":"2025-04-16T01:07:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T06:07:42","slug":"optical-device-mimics-both-black-and-white-holes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/optical-device-mimics-both-black-and-white-holes","title":{"rendered":"Optical device mimics both black and white holes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/optical-device-mimics-both-black-and-white-holes.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the realm of general relativity, black holes are well-known for their ability to trap light and matter by bending spacetime, creating a point of no return. While black holes have fascinated scientists and the public alike, another concept, the white hole, has remained more theoretical. A white hole is thought to be the reverse of a black hole, expelling light and matter rather than absorbing them. Now, a team of researchers has designed a novel optical device with intriguing similarities with both these elusive cosmic phenomena.<\/p>\n<p>The device, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spiedigitallibrary.org\/journals\/advanced-photonics\/volume-7\/issue-02\/025001\/Optical-analog-of-black-and-white-gravitational-holes\/10.1117\/1.AP.7.2.025001.full\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a> in <i>Advanced Photonics<\/i>, functions as an optical black hole or optical white hole, and rests on a principle known as \u201ccoherent perfect absorption\u201d of light waves. Dependent on polarization, this optical device can either absorb or reject light almost entirely, analogous to the behavior of a gravitational black or white hole in space.<\/p>\n<p>The device works by forming a <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/standing+wave\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">standing wave<\/a> from incident light waves, where interactions with an ultrathin absorber lead to perfect absorption or transmission, based on the polarization of the light. In simple terms, it behaves like a cosmic object that either swallows or repels light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the realm of general relativity, black holes are well-known for their ability to trap light and matter by bending spacetime, creating a point of no return. While black holes have fascinated scientists and the public alike, another concept, the white hole, has remained more theoretical. A white hole is thought to be the reverse [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}