The supernova effect of Michael Jackson's death

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The death of a star may create a supernova explosion. A massive shock wave radiates throughout the whole star, which heats up and then explodes. This flash is as bright as a whole galaxy and leaves behind a rapidly spinning neutron star.

The death of Michael Jackson caused a similar supernova effect on the web this week. Initially, when news of his sudden death spread, people at Google thought they were under a cyber attack. You can see why from the graph in this blog.

Millions of people who searched for the star's name on Google News were greeted with an error page: "your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application". Or the impact of a dead star.

Comments

  1. Lázaro BarbosaThu Jul 16, 05:31:00 pm

    Hahaha, the supernova idea describes very well that phenomenon. I'm a Brazilian undergraduate student of philosophy and like your work on philosophy of information. I'd like to translate this post and publish it in my blog (with the necessary references, of course).

    Lázaro Barbosa

    ReplyDelete
  2. Luciano FloridiFri Jul 17, 08:49:00 am

    Obrigado!
    Yes, please, do go ahead with the translation, if you like
    cheers
    Luciano

    ReplyDelete

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