How to Build a Black Hole Comes to Simons in New York

How to Build a Black Hole, a Simons Foundation Presidential Lecture on November 11, 2026, will bring physicist Silke Weinfurtner to New York to discuss laboratory analogues of black holes. The in-person talk runs from 6 to 7 p.m. ET at the Gerald D. Fischbach Auditorium, 160 5th Avenue, with registration through the organizer's Eventbrite listing.

Silke Weinfurtner is a Professor of Applied Quantum Technology at the University of Manchester. The lecture will examine how moving fluids and quantum liquids let researchers investigate selected phenomena associated with black holes, opening an experimental route into questions that are difficult to probe directly in space.

For technology readers, the useful connection is the craft of making a physical question measurable. Researchers, instrument builders and technically prepared founders can follow how a carefully chosen analogue becomes an experiment, then consider what its results actually support. The commercial relevance begins with that discipline, particularly for readers evaluating research whose practical applications are still taking shape.

How a moving fluid becomes an experimental horizon

A wave trying to travel against a sufficiently fast flow can lose its route upstream. That boundary supplies an analogue of a black hole horizon, giving physicists a controllable system in which to examine particular relationships between waves and their environment. Ordinary liquid becomes an experimental material for a question that sounds as though it should require a spacecraft.

The distinction between an analogue and the astronomical object matters. Researchers reproduce selected physical behavior in a different system, then investigate how that behavior develops under conditions they can control. An experiment can be valuable precisely because its scope is defined. Readers should ask which mechanism is being represented, what is being measured and where the correspondence ends.

There is a concrete research record behind this approach. In a study of superradiance in a vortex flow, co-authored by Silke Weinfurtner and published in Nature Physics in 2017, researchers reported water waves gaining energy after scattering from a draining vortex. Rotation supplied energy to the waves, offering laboratory evidence for a process linked to black hole physics.

That historical result is useful preparation for the November lecture. It shows how a dramatic theoretical subject can produce a specific experimental question with an observable outcome. The distance between the cosmic idea and the apparatus is where much of the intellectual work sits, and where an attentive listener can learn something about designing tests rather than merely admiring predictions.

Why quantum technology readers should follow the method

The University of Manchester's fundamental-physics research programme places analogue systems within a wider set of experimental approaches. Its research spans quantum fluids, low-temperature physics, sensors and other technologies used to investigate physical laws. The university explicitly describes fluid simulations as a way to explore black hole systems, giving the lecture a clear institutional research context.

For an instrumentation team, this is an invitation to think about the chain between a model and a measurement. A proposed experiment must identify a physical effect, create conditions in which that effect can be studied and obtain a signal that can be interpreted. Those are editorial reasons to follow the talk, rather than promises about the techniques or tools every attendee will take home.

Technical founders and research investors can approach the same material through the assumptions behind a demonstration. Understanding what an apparatus represents helps a reader ask more useful questions about an experimental claim. The lecture offers a scientific setting for that inquiry, with a subject unusually good at exposing the gap between an arresting headline and the careful work underneath it.

The talk offers commercial readers a closer look at experimental reasoning before they attach a market timetable to a scientific result. That order matters when a field combines difficult measurement with ambitious expectations. Silke Weinfurtner's scheduled discussion of Hawking radiation and superradiance gives that reasoning a demanding subject, while leaving the listener responsible for following the evidence through the analogue.

The people and the room behind the November lecture

The University of Manchester's current directory confirms Silke Weinfurtner's professor title and affiliation. Older research papers and biographies place Silke Weinfurtner at Nottingham, so readers researching the speaker may encounter both institutions. For this upcoming event, the organizer's listing and Manchester's directory agree on the current affiliation.

The Simons Foundation is the organizer, and its 2026 Presidential Lectures are described as a free scientific series intended to encourage discussion within New York City's research community. How to Build a Black Hole belongs to the physics programme. That setting makes the event relevant to people who want sustained attention to a scientific problem, including readers whose working lives usually place them closer to engineering or commercialization.

The published announcement identifies a lecture rather than a startup showcase. It supplies no confirmed investor attendance, sponsor roster, curated introductions or networking reception. Anyone deciding whether to attend should make that decision on the strength of the subject and speaker, with professional connections treated as a possibility rather than a promised deliverable.

Within DevCuration's event coverage, this is a gathering for readers who want scientific depth. Eventbrite describes an advanced lecture, so technically prepared listeners are likely to find the scientific framing more useful than someone expecting a general business panel. Preparation can start with the wave-and-flow mechanism and the historical superradiance experiment, giving attendees a concrete result to keep in mind as the November presentation develops.

Registration and arrival details for New York

The event registration page lists November 11 as an in-person, 18+ event and says registration closes at 2 p.m. that day. The scheduled lecture begins at 6 p.m. ET and ends at 7 p.m. Readers should check the organizer's current availability and entrance requirements before making plans; this coverage does not reserve admission.

The venue is the Gerald D. Fischbach Auditorium at the Simons Foundation, 160 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., with no earlier entrance, and admittance closes at 6:20 p.m. The verified listing does not establish a livestream or online participation option, so the confirmed format requires being in the room.

The interesting preparation extends beyond the address. As Silke Weinfurtner traces black hole phenomena through liquids, listeners can follow the choices that make the experiment informative: which waves, which flow and which measurement connect the apparatus to the larger question. That sequence gives the evening something for a technically curious reader to carry back into the next conversation about an experimental result.