The photo’s reach did not stop there. Another repost of the photo was retweeted 155,000 times. Soon, Dr Bouman’s excited expression was splashed on news sites around the world.
Katie Bouman posted a photo of her reaction to witnessing the processing of an image of a black hole, which was screen-shotted, copied and then tweeted from the social media account of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab.
Dr Bouman’s team, along with three others, independently processed shared data to render a separate image in a series of trials designed to allow the teams to compare their results and produce a final, unbiased product.
It is believed the photo that went viral showed her reaction to her team’s image.
Dr Bouman was a PhD student at MIT, with the social media team highlighting the involvement of one of the university’s own in the project — which is common for universities.
Her image, which embodied the pure glee and awe many were feeling about the momentous development in science, was retweeted more than 17,000 times.
A story from the ABC, for example, featured her image and referred to her as “the computer scientist whose algorithm made the historic image possible”.
“This code was a key step in synchronising the signals from eight scattered radio telescopes…” the story explained.
Tamy Emma Pepin✔@TamyEmmaPepin
Congratulations to Katie Bouman to whom we owe the first photograph of a black hole ever. Not seeing her name circulate nearly enough in the press.
Amazing work. And here’s to more women in science (getting their credit and being remembered in history)
Another image of Dr Bouman, this time featuring her with the stacks of hard drives containing the data from the project, went viral after it was compared to a similar image of revered computer scientist Margaret Hamilton.
That single tweet was retweeted more than 19,000 times, a figure that does not count the multitude of different posts containing that image.
Flora Graham✔@floragraham
Computer scientist Katie Bouman and her awesome stack of hard drives for #EHTblackhole image data
— reminds me of Margaret Hamilton and her Apollo Guidance Computer source code.
Dr Bouman’s wholesome reaction struck a chord with many, despite there being more than 200 people who contributed to the project.
Heino Falcke@hfalckeThe people behind the black hole image. Here are (almost) all the heroes of the @ehtelescope. (From our last collaboration meeting in Nijmegen, Nov. 2018.) #EHTblackhole
Many social media posts neglected to mention Dr Bouman was part of a team of dozens and dozens of bright minds, or that her code was “a key step in synchronising the signals from eight scattered radio telescopes” to produce the black hole image.
While many praised Dr Bouman for her role in the project, a section of the internet interpreted the researcher’s newfound internet fame as an attempt on her part to take credit for the entire project.
Shortly after the story broke, Dr Bouman told the New York Times she had to turn off her phone because of the overwhelming number of messages she was receiving.
“I’m so glad that everyone is as excited as we are and people are finding our story inspirational,” she said.
“However, the spotlight should be on the team and no individual person.
“Focusing on one person like this helps no-one, including me.”
Sara Issaoun@SaraIssaounIt was not one person, but a team of 40 scientists of different gender, backgrounds and career stages working together toward this image. Katie is an important force of that part of the project! This is part of an effort of more than 200 people on multiple aspects!
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez✔@AOC
Take your rightful seat in history, Dr. Bouman!
Congratulations and thank you for your enormous contribution to the advancements of science and mankind.
Here’s to #WomenInSTEM!
https://twitter.com/TamyEmmaPepin/status/1116014974508371971 …
She posted a photo of some members of the team who worked on the project with her on Facebook, praising their efforts.
“No one algorithm or person made this image, it required the amazing talent of a team of scientists from around the globe and years of hard work to develop the instrument, data processing, imaging methods, and analysis techniques that were necessary to pull off this seemingly impossible feat,” she said.
The MIT social media account posted a clarification thread, making it clear Dr Bouman was not billing herself as a sole creator of the black hole image.
MIT CSAIL✔@MIT_CSAIL
We at @MIT_CSAIL are so proud of the role our alum Dr. Katie Bouman played in the development of the first-ever picture of a black hole. She’s been psyched about all the #blackhole interest & just wanted to clarify a few things. (1/7)
Yet, this acknowledgement did little to stop the trolls.
Some set up fake social media accounts pretending to be Dr Bouman, while videos on YouTube ridiculing her for only doing “6 per cent of the work”.
Two days later, a report from The Verge said Dr Bouman was no longer speaking to the media.
This came after a Reddit post, which featured a photo of one of Dr Bouman’s collaborators, Andrew Chael, and falsely claimed he had written 850,000 of the 900,000 lines of code required for the algorithm, went viral.
Mr Chael, a PhD candidate, took to Twitter to blast the people using his story to smear Dr Bouman.
Andrew Chael@thisgreyspirit(1/7) So apparently some (I hope very few) people online are using the fact that I am the primary developer of the eht-imaging software library (https://github.com/achael/eht-imaging …) to launch awful and sexist attacks on my colleague and friend Katie Bouman. Stop.
achael/eht-imaging
Imaging, analysis, and simulation software for radio interferometry – achael/eht-imaging
github.com
“While I wrote much of the code for one of these pipelines, Katie was a huge contributor to the software; it would have never worked without her contributions and the work of many others who wrote code, debugged, and figured out how to use the code on challenging EHT data,” he said.
“So while I appreciate the congratulations on a result that I worked hard on for years, if you are congratulating me because you have a sexist vendetta against Katie, please go away and reconsider your priorities in life.”
He also debunked the claim he wrote 850,000 lines of code.
“There are about 68,000 lines in the current software, and I don’t care how many of those I personally authored,” Mr Chael said.
Kazu Akiyama@sparse_kHello there, I’m an imaging coordinator at the EHT (see http://bit.ly/2v6XuxL ). I would like to provide some facts about our imaging group and my wonderful friend and colleague Katie Bouman for the sake of restoring her credit damaged by many inaccurate articles about her.
Organization
eventhorizontelescope.org
Astrophysicist Kazu Akiyama, who also contributed to the mammoth project, said the vitriol targeted towards Dr Bouman was based on misleading information posted on social media.
“Many articles implied that her algorithm from 2015 was specifically used to get the first reconstruction of a black hole when many of us generated the first images simultaneously with many different techniques,” Dr Akiyama said.
“She is not at fault for these tweets; she was not involved in these tweets and she has nothing to do with them.”
Dr Akiyama explained that Dr Bouman and Mr Chael co-led one of four imaging teams.
He said that while her algorithm was not used in the end, her work was “foundational” in building the imaging pipelines.
“Her contribution to the whole imaging group is indeed tremendous,” Dr Akiyama said.Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
Read more at www.abc.net.au
Trackback from your site.
jerry krause
| #
Hi Dannielle,
You have provided information which I had not yet read.
“Key Point: Dr Bouman’s team, along with three others, independently processed shared data to render a separate image in a series of trials designed to allow the teams to compare their results and produce a final, unbiased product.”
The key words are “independently processed shared data”. For in the academic year (1960-1961) I took a chemistry course: Quantitative Analysis. The first thing we were taught was to begin ‘whatever analysis’ with three identical samples. Three samples so we could ‘see’ the quality of our analysis. The obvious criteria of quality would be minimum differences between pairs of results. But, we were also taught that such a criteria would not validate the absolute ‘quality’ of our results. For, the procedure used could involve a systematic error.
Next, we were taught about a statistical analysis which could be used to justify the elimination of a result which appeared to be an ‘odd ball’ relative to the difference between the other two results. But even if this analysis justified the elimination of the odd ball data, our sample was a standard whose results had been determined by experienced chemists who had done many more samples than three, using our suggested procedure, and we were to be graded on the difference between the average of their results and the average of our results. So we had to make the decision to go with the average of our two results or to analyze at least two more samples. The same would be true if we could not eliminate the odd ball result and therefore had to average all three results.
Actually, all the words of this Key Point are key words. Four identical samples of the same data were independently processed by four teams to render four separate images. But any differences between these four ‘unbiased’ images are not shared with anyone reading their published article. So, a reader of this article, cannot see the ‘quality’ of these four ‘unbiased’ images. And it seems I must pay to read beyond the abstract of this report (article). So, I am now only learning there were four unbiased images which seem to have had differences.
Which apparent fact causes me to ask: If the same data was analyzed independently by four teams, why were there four different images to be combined into ‘one unbiased product’?
The answer seems obvious. The same data was processed by four different computers using four different software codes. My experience with computers is they only do what they are told (programmed) to do. And I consider the reason that the unbiased product (the image) is nearly that predicted by Einstein’s idea of a black hole is that the four different computers had been independently programmed, using Einstein’s theory as a guide, according to four slightly (?) different ‘models’.
And one cannot escape the conclusion that any image is totally dependent upon what each computer has been programmed to do with any data.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
John O'Sullivan
| #
Excellent comment Jerry. Most people will not be aware of the meager evidence relied on to create this ‘photo’ ( a real stretch to make such a claim and possibly a deceptive one, too).
Reply
tom0mason
| #
What scientist would pay attention to what the social media says? And why?
Social media is largely just an echo-chamber of empty opinion, rumors, and untruths. Filled as it is with mostly worthless opinionated comments from those for whom reading a half page of writing is too difficult task to complete.
Nothing of value ever came from twitter twit, except the understanding of how incredibly childish are most people on this platform.
Twitter: –
an extremely widespread rumor-mill run by advertisements twits.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is this computer generated ‘image’ of a black hole valid — we shall see.
What were the differences and commonalities between the models. Were these models mostly based on empirical data, or theoretical assumptions?
What has actually been measured from this very distant, very faint, object?
Reply
William Kay
| #
Usually when the mainstream media posts an image of a “black hole” or some such imaginary being like a “worm-hole” or a “God particle” they usually have the compunction to include the phrase “artist’s simulation” somewhere in the small print. Not here. The picture is clearly a cross-section of a spheroid. Even by their own malarkey the black hole would be completely enveloped with gas not merely around the fringes from one angle. What a waste of public funds!
Reply