On: Possible detection of a black hole with a mass that was thought to be impossible

[Retric]

Non clickbait headline: ‘Possible detection of Black Hole that grew after formation.’

Honestly, I would have been more intrigued by the less clickbait headline for novelty if nothing else.

[Sargos → Retric]

Maybe this works from your perspective but for everyone else who doesn't immediately understand that "after formation" is something strange and not normal the title helps people understand that this is an interesting and novel topic and worth exploring more.

[pmiller2 → Sargos]

So, stars between 50-130 solar masses don’t directly form black holes because they blow themselves apart at the end of their lives. I got that from the article. Is the idea that a black hole less than 50 solar masses should usually evaporate before it can gain enough mass to fall into that gap?

Edit: or is it just that there shouldn’t be enough around for a smaller black hole to “eat” to become that big?

[Retric → pmiller2]

Black Hole evaporation is incredibly slow in the 1+ Solar Mass range (~2.1 * 10^67+ years). http://xaonon.dyndns.org/hawking/

Also, another astrophysics took the other side of the bet as a 50/50. So, it was not considered all that unlikely.

PS: There is normally a limit to how fast black holes can eat, but that’s irrelevant when two black holes collide.

[mffnbs → asdfman123]

Your comment is oddly confrontational and assumes a lot. Also relies on a societal change that the parent commenter is by no means responsible for.

[sbmassey → mffnbs]

The tone may be confrontational, but the meaning is basically true.

[asdfman123 → mffnbs]

It frustrates me when people complain about the quality of writing they're not paying for.

[eesmith → asdfman123]

Is it not okay for me to complain about the quality of Baum's "The Wizard of Oz", which I downloaded for free from https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55 ?

But, more to the point, Quanta is a nonprofit foundation-funded publication. It doesn't have subscriptions or advertisement. If we take your advice, does that mean it's unacceptable to complain about the quality of any Quanta article at all?

Doesn't their non-profit status means they receive some (indirect) financial support from us already?

[ceejayoz → asdfman123]

I can't find any indication this publication offers a subscription, and I'm not sure how you know /u/Retric doesn't subscribe to various outlets already.