Physics • Breakthrough

Synthetic Motion Machine Brings Black Hole Physics into the Lab

For the first time, scientists have experimentally confirmed a half-century-old black hole energy extraction theory using a stationary device that mimics motion faster than light.

More than fifty years ago, Nobel laureate Sir Roger Penrose proposed that energy could be extracted from a spinning black hole. The idea was elegant but seemed impossible to test — no laboratory could spin a physical object fast enough to replicate the extreme conditions near a black hole's event horizon.

Now, researchers at the City University of New York (CUNY) have built a device that changes everything. Their synthetic motion machine, described in a paper published in Nature on July 8, 2026, uses a stationary ring of networked electronic resonators to create the illusion of rotation at speeds that would be physically impossible with moving parts.

How Synthetic Motion Works

The device consists of a ring-shaped array of electronic resonators whose properties are rapidly modulated in a precisely timed sequence. This creates a traveling pattern around the ring — the device itself never moves, but electromagnetic waves interact with it as though it were spinning at extraordinary speeds, including effective velocities exceeding the speed of light.

This approach, known as Floquet engineering, allowed the team led by Distinguished Professor Andrea Alù to observe Floquet rotational super-radiance — a phenomenon where waves extract energy from the synthetic rotation and become amplified. This is the experimental realization of what physicists call the Penrose-Zel'dovich process.

From Theory to Practice

Yakov Zel'dovich had expanded on Penrose's original idea, predicting that a sufficiently fast-rotating object could transfer energy to incoming waves. The CUNY experiment confirmed this prediction using purely electronic means, with no mechanical rotation whatsoever.

"This successful experiment moves ideas about extreme rotational dynamics from theory to practice," said lead author Hadiseh Nasari, a postdoctoral researcher at CUNY's Advanced Science Research Center. "The work has implications for advances in fundamental science and in communications, optics, and photonics."

Beyond Black Holes

While the experiment was inspired by black hole physics, the practical applications may be far broader. The synthetic motion technique could enable new types of wave amplifiers, advanced communication systems, and quantum information processing devices. Researchers can now access previously unattainable rotational speeds for experimental physics, opening doors to studying extreme physical phenomena that were once confined to theoretical simulations.