Prologue: Believing in Science

“Black holes are stranger than anything dreamt up by science fiction writers,” said Stephen Hawking. Photographing a black hole may seem like a contradiction in terms. Produced by the collapse of a star to form a body so dense and concentrated that the force of gravity prevents any light from escaping, it is exactly what its name suggests: totally black. But its effects on surrounding space produce a ring of light around the horizon of the black body. In fact, the dimensions of the ring are an important factor in analyzing a black hole. Its details are obscured by the limitations of technology, such as the resolution of the telescope. This means that the procedures used to analyze the picture of the black body have a crucial effect on our conclusions. The extension of those procedures by using AI (artificial intelligence) may make a great change in the nature of science. Because the way AI works is not entirely understood, its use sharpens the dilemma of modern science: what confidence can we place in our conclusions given the intricacy of the analysis?