Black holes, cheese, cherries and the far side of the moon
Those people at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, seem to know a lot about stars, but doesn’t anyone teach them about expectations management?
This matter of Earth-shattering importance came to my mind on Tuesday as I sat at the breakfast table lapping up a Xinhua News Agency report that said scientists expect to show the world pictures of black holes within a year.
Now, I know we’ve been hanging around for a few billion years waiting for our holiday snapshots of black holes, and I’ll be the last to complain if we have to wait a bit longer, but I swear that as I read this news I was overcome.
As the Earth moved off its axis — ever so slightly — and stardust blew into my face, I struggled to digest my last spoon of cereal, before glancing to the clock on my right to see that I had to be at work in 20 minutes.
First of all, what are these photos being taken with?
A trusty old Leica, a more modern iPhone 10 or the latest Huawei Galaxy (forgive me if I’m mixing up the names — it’s all so technical) that includes the latest gizmos to give your photos a professional look.
No doubt we shall get all these details within the next 360 days or so, when the world’s media gather at the headquarters of the Black Hole Initiative (yes, that’s this mission’s unpretentious title) to hear exactly what these pictures show.
That is where expectations management comes into all of this. Any PR professional worth his or her salt will say that it is always best to keep expectations of a news media audience low so that when the news is eventually released, as they say, there will be widespread euphoria and the joyous masses will rapturously applaud whatever is being announced and whoever is doing the announcing.
So whoever let on to the world through the kind offices of Xinhua that we should expect — “expect!” — pictures of black holes within a year needs a quiet talking to. Not that the time frame is my main concern.
With my wild imagination I expect that what the iPhone pictures of black holes will show is round things that are black. Now, how exciting is that?
So I offer some free advice to the PR flack at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics on how to tantalize the public before this great event, in a manner that can bring only more exposure and greater worldwide prestige to the center.
Put out a media statement that includes this: “Professor Higgsboson said that at the moment the center is working on the theory that black holes are triangular and are a creamy yellow color — but this is far from conclusive — and that cherries may or may not be twirling around in the center of this gigantic mass, kept in place by tremendous gravitational forces.”
As alert readers will know, there has been talk of humans returning to the moon some time in the future, and for such a mission’s PR meisters I have some free advice, too.
Tell the world’s masses that you think the moon is made of camembert, not cheddar.