He does talk a lot about theory, a lot of it interesting and novel to me, but by the end of the video, most of this theory suggests a different-looking image!
https://static.projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/styles/os_files...
Taken from here: https://eventhorizontelescope.org/science (the official site of the project).
On the left is how it would look like if we weren't so far -- we are 55 million light years far from that. You know the distance from us to our Sun, which you see on the sky but can cover with your own thumb? That object is 3,500,000,000,000 times farther than the Sun is far from us.
On the right is what we can reconstruct from the signals measured because we are so far and we have "only" the telescope the size of the Earth. More details would be visible (the picture would look more like the one on the left) either if we had even much bigger telescope than the Earth, or if the black hole of the same size were much closer to us, which it is not.
He doesn't need to give a reason. The reasons why it would look like a "fuzzy coffee mug stain" are well known since Hawkings...
Here's the image from the movie: https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ut_interste...
Now imagine that image being taken far away by several ground-based telescopes put together at the edge of their capabilities and using math to error correct and stitch together the final result. What you get is what we saw.
Here is another prediction: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/here-s-what-scientis...
I just wanted to know why he went with that one because his prediction was really accurate. And I thought him saying 'just trust me' was bad form.
He did talk some about this, but he didn't really say anything about why he thought his illustration would be so accurate compared to a lot of other stuff seen in the press.
I dont care (or have any idea why) how many downvotes or insults I get. It is a perfectly reasonable question and criticism.
The only changes in the image depend on what angle the black hole is being viewed at which would influence whether we see a band across the middle and the slimmer inner ring.
There is some groupthink going on here affecting people like you and others. The above is obviously plain.
Perhaps you should post exactly what image you're talking about and what you think is different.
In the veritasium video the "coffee stain" was not really as blobby as the real image, but it seemed a lot closer than the smooth-gradiant, no blobbiness and no irregularities predictions.
I dont just mean the fuzziness from low resolution.
This isn't really a big deal, but it's also obvious that I am just stating plain facts about what is in these images.
At the time I saw this video when he said "you can be confident, because... (no reason given)" was really the thing that I thought was annoying.
I think you can see the differences in the images. They're not huge but the smooth gradiants vs irregularities/coffee stain/blobbiness is plain to see I think.
Edit: from the horses mouth himself, one of the lead researchers says he didn't expect the image to look like it did: https://youtu.be/ZrDhHDBHkQY
Some of the people here in other parts of this thread have been really offensive for this. It's honestly pretty ridiculous.
All the models are the same, and the real picture is "blobby" only because of the process in how it was taken. I think you are refusing to accept that but there's nothing else to say about it. It wasn't a direct photo, it was a complex assembly of several different radio telescopes around the world stitching data together. If we were actually next to it, it would very much look like the one from interstellar.
The video you linked isn't about the prediction being wrong, more that he just didn't expect to really see a black hole at all. Even though black holes are generally understood for decades, there's a certain shock and awe to seeing it real for the first time.
Also, my complaint was in fact that I didnt know why Veritasium was confident in their prediction. This complaint is for a matter of fact completely consistent with one of the lead researchers outright saying they didn't know what to expect. I never said I was exclusively complaining about there being simulated models which have some differences. You and others criticized me after I said he should have substantiated why he was confident in his prediction. I gave what I believed was my the foremost reasoning for saying that.
I had little idea what the picture would look like...
I have no idea why you're so intent in disagreeing with me. I'm substantiating my ideas with facts. And saying 'just bbelieve me' I think is also bad form.
At this point I feek like your disagreement has to do with psychological or social biases unless you are able to address the factual content of my comment.
But the one thing you said that was interesting was about the blobbiness. I think what you are trying to saya is that it is fully expected by the researchers to be error. Do you have a good interview or other source on this?