Trous noirs: Aux confins du savoir

On the very year the documentary was released, the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Roger Penrose "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity".

Yet the name of Penrose is not to be heard once in that movie. And the director (Peter Galison) is not the type to be ill-informed.

On the other side, it also struck me that the Nobel committee waited until the death of Hawking to award a prize for black holes.

Anyone has an insider's view on that?

I would imagine anyone who watches this does so as they too are intrigued by what are one of the greatest discoveries in the universe, Black Holes, and how they play a central role in the formation of galaxies... and more.

The documentary is a build up to the climatic moment when the theory for the existence of Black Holes, based on how they influence their surrounding environment, changes to the discovery of finally seeing a Black Hole! It's an incredible moment.

I enjoyed it.

Not sure what people were expecting to see. The basic concepts of how the image of the black hole was captured and the scientific process to produce the image (separate teams without any contact with each other, etc) are fairly easy to grasph without a strong scientific background. The secondary 'story', about the people working with Dr Hawking on the information paradox was indeed a bit harder to follow - the concept is understandable but their talk was far too advanced and based on mathematics for the viewer to easily follow. But I doubt this is something that can be accurately simplified for the average person. I have a (little-used, if at all) physics degree, and I couldn't understand almost anything apart from the broad concept. I saw this as a documentation of a grand effort for posterity - not something aimed at explaining this effort to everyone else.

And in the end, you don't need to understand everything. If you watch this and you are not even a little moved and carried away by the scientists' genuine enthusiasm and passion for the mysteries of the universe, then the problem is yours.

This show gave me an idea, for the first time, of what the process is like for scientists to bring forth new discoveries. It's not for the faint of heart, but definitely brings you into the world of some of the most intelligent people in the world. For that, I give it and 8 out of 10 stars. Anyone, that has curiosity in space and time should find something out of this production I'd think?

If you're as fascinated by the universe as I am, you'll like it, just because.. Well, it's about seeing a black hole for the first time. But it's a poorly produced film that's actually almost impressively boring in its form. The story here is mind blowing - too bad the movie producers couldn't encapsulate that in a better way.