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Scientists to mimic black holes in laboratory

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Press Trust of India London
Last Updated : Jan 25 2013 | 5:33 AM IST

A team at Heriot-Watt University on the outskirts of Edinburgh will produce laser pulses whose energy is measured in trillions of watts, The Independent reported.

The laser pulses will be used to simulate conditions found around a black hole as part of a 2.35 million pounds project.

Black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that light cannot escape and the normal laws of physics break down.

"What we are creating is the same space-time structure which characterises a black hole. But we are doing this with a light pulse, so we don't actually have the mass which is associated with black holes," Daniele Faccio, the lead scientist, said.

"Gravitational black holes are generated by a collapsing star. We don't actually have this collapsing star, so there's no danger of being sucked into the black holes we are generating here," Faccio said.

  

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First Published: Oct 05 2012 | 4:25 PM IST

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