Trolls on the Internet have tried to credit a white man for the image of the black hole



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Bouman, 29, created one of the algorithms behind the groundbreaking black hole image. She also helped develop the imaging and verification process.

However, a nasty corner of the Internet tried to downplay the role of Bouman and began posting articles claiming that Andrew Chael – a white scientist – was actually the brain of the project.

Misleading publications indicate that Chael alone wrote "850,000 of the 900,000 lines of code written in the historical algorithm of black hole images!"

However, the effort quickly turned against us.

Although it may have been nice to receive more recognition, Chael immediately took on Twitter to explain that the trolls online had exaggerated his contributions, and he defended the work of Bouman. In addition, Chael said that as an openly gay man, he is also an underrepresented demographic group in STEM.

Chael disputed the incorrect messages

"I did not write 850,000 lines of code" – many of these "lines" followed by github are in template files, "said Chael." The current software contains about 68,000 lines, and it does not matter the number of those I personally created. "

The graduate student at Harvard University also criticized the sexist attacks against his colleague, especially when science is an area also dominated by men.

"Although I appreciate the congratulations for a result on which I have worked hard for years, if you congratulate me because you have a sexist vendetta against Katie, please go away and rethink your priorities in life, "wrote Chael.

Chael wrote the code for one of three scripted code pipelines used by scientists to turn telescope data into a coherent image.

CNN contacted Chael for a comment.

Bouman has focused on collaboration

Although Bouman received a lot of attention, she maintained that the image of the black hole was the product of a team work.

"Nobody among us could have done it alone," Bouman told CNN. "This has been done thanks to lots of different people from all walks of life."

The Event Horizon Telescope project was made up of an international team of more than 200 researchers.

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