The complaint in comment 1 (now that I've gone back and looked at the column and the comment section) is understandable; but the Weekly appears to consider the principles of free expression of opinion[1] to be more important than response to insult[2] and I tend in general to agree with that priority.
[1] I don't say "free speech" as in Amendment 1, because the Weekly is not the government and owns the means of communication; therefore it has the right to allow or disallow such comments at its own discretion.
[2] Insults are different from criminal usages (such as incitement to riot, for example); but this speech being complained about is not criminal.
I'm sorry if this appears to be nitpicking at a low level, but I have to say you really need a science writer on your team. Mr. Gardner's admirable stories on art and popular culture, food and film are not a basis for writing on scientific topics, and as a result I see things like:
"a photon had to leave the black hole from close to the event horizon, just on the lip of the point of no return. The photon then traveled through the hot gas being sucked into the black hole. Not every light wave can do this, but radio waves are small enough to."
This is just so misleading. Photons do not leave the black hole; photons or "light waves" are not of any "size". The light being observed (at radio frequencies) comes from objects behind the black hole and it is the effect of the black hole and the gasses around it as the light passes just outside the event horizon that generate the data used to build the images.
One of the most difficult tasks of a reporter is writing science details in a manner that is understandable without distorting the information or misleading the readers. I would not be surprised if a real astronomer or physicist disputed the description I wrote above, and I would also not be surprised if readers found my description more confusing or difficult to understand than the original text; but neither am I a science writer. But ease of understanding does not justify misleading the reader on the basic science.
If I may pick a nit here, I would like to point out that the creator of this terrific piece of work over 60 years ago deserves to have his name, Robert Reiniger Meredith Willson, properly spelled.
I'm going to suggest that JAWS, from 1975, got away with a PG rating because the rating PG-13 was not invented until 1984 after INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM was released with a PG.
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[1] I don't say "free speech" as in Amendment 1, because the Weekly is not the government and owns the means of communication; therefore it has the right to allow or disallow such comments at its own discretion.
[2] Insults are different from criminal usages (such as incitement to riot, for example); but this speech being complained about is not criminal.
Come on, you ought to at least put a pointer to this in your weekly newsletter!
"a photon had to leave the black hole from close to the event horizon, just on the lip of the point of no return. The photon then traveled through the hot gas being sucked into the black hole. Not every light wave can do this, but radio waves are small enough to."
This is just so misleading. Photons do not leave the black hole; photons or "light waves" are not of any "size". The light being observed (at radio frequencies) comes from objects behind the black hole and it is the effect of the black hole and the gasses around it as the light passes just outside the event horizon that generate the data used to build the images.
One of the most difficult tasks of a reporter is writing science details in a manner that is understandable without distorting the information or misleading the readers. I would not be surprised if a real astronomer or physicist disputed the description I wrote above, and I would also not be surprised if readers found my description more confusing or difficult to understand than the original text; but neither am I a science writer. But ease of understanding does not justify misleading the reader on the basic science.