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Black Holes From the LHC Could Last For Minutes
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Jan 23, 2009 12:05 PM
from the becoming-greyer dept.
from the becoming-greyer dept.
KentuckyFC writes "There is absolutely, positively, definitely no chance of the LHC destroying the planet (or this way either) when it eventually switches on some time later this year. And yet a few niggling doubts are persuading some scientists to run through their figures again. One potential method of destruction is that the LHC will create tiny black holes that could swallow everything in their path, including the planet. Various scientists have said this will not happen because the black holes would decay before they could do any damage. But physicists who have re-run the calculations now say that the mini black holes produced by the LHC could last for seconds, possibly minutes. Of course, the real question is whether they decay faster than they can grow. The new calculations suggest that the decay mechanism should win over and that the catastrophic growth of a black hole from the LHC 'does not seem possible' (abstract). But shouldn't we require better assurance than that?"
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News: Why the LHC Won't Destroy the World 508 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Most people are aware of the recent articles contending that the Large Hadron Collider at CERN might destroy the world. While most scientists have no such concerns, a recent preprint released to arxiv systematically dismantles the notion. The gist of the argument is this: Everything that will be created at the LHC is already being created by cosmic rays. If a black hole created by the LHC is interactive enough to destroy the world within the lifetime of the sun, similar black holes are already being created by cosmic rays. Such black holes would be stopped by dense cosmic objects (neutron stars and white dwarfs). A black hole stopped in one of these objects would eventually absorb it. We see sufficiently old neutron stars in the sky, thus any black hole that could be created at the LHC, even if it is stable, would have no effect on the earth on any meaningful timescale."
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Another Way the LHC Could Self-Destruct 367 comments
KentuckyFC writes "Just when you thought it was safe to switch on the LHC (though it won't be for a while yet), another nightmare scenario has emerged that some critics worry could cause the particle accelerator to explode. The culprit this time is not an Earth-swallowing black hole but a 'Bose supernova' in the accelerator's superfluid helium bath. Physicists have been playing with Bose Einstein Condensate (BECs) for over 10 years now. But in 2001, one group discovered that placing them in a powerful magnetic field could cause the attractive forces between atoms to become repulsive. That caused their BEC to explode in a Bose supernova — which they called a 'Bosenova,' a name that fortunately did not catch on. This was little more than a curiosity when only a microscopic blob of cold matter was involved. But superfluid liquid helium is also BEC. And physicists have suddenly remembered that the LHC is swimming in 700,000 liters of the stuff while being zapped by some of the most powerful magnetic fields on the planet. So is the LHC a Bose supernova waiting to go off? Not according to the CERN theory division, which has published its calculations that show the LHC is safe (abstract). They also point out that no other superfluid helium handling facility has mysteriously blown itself to pieces."
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Miscalculation Invalidates LHC Safety Assurances 684 comments
KentuckyFC writes "In a truly frightening study, physicists at the University of Oxford have identified a massive miscalculation that makes the LHC safety assurances more or less invalid (abstract). The focus of their work is not the safety of particle accelerators per se but the chances of any particular scientific argument being wrong. 'If the probability estimate given by an argument is dwarfed by the chance that the argument itself is flawed, then the estimate is suspect,' say the team. That has serious implications for the LHC, which some people worry could generate black holes that will swallow the planet. Nobody at CERN has put a figure on the chances of the LHC destroying the planet. One study simply said: 'there is no risk of any significance whatsoever from such black holes.' The danger is that this thinking could be entirely flawed, but what are the chances of this? The Oxford team say that roughly one in a thousand scientific papers have to be withdrawn because of errors but generously suppose that in particle physics, the rate is one in 10,000."
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It's Crazy (Score:5, Funny)
Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:5, Funny)
1. My Barber
2. My urologist during my vasectomy.
3. The LHC scientists during the first collisions.
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. At some point in the future, I'm fine with the universe unfolding like so:
Mother: Tottle, do NOT do that!
Child: But mom, they are just small ones.
Mother: You remember what happened to the humans, don't you?
Child: They danced funny?
Mother: Besides that...... (hand on hip)
Child: (face frowning slowly) Yes mother, they blew up the southeast quarter of the galaxy experimenting with black holes.
Mother: that's right Tottle. It's all fun and games till chunks of the galaxy go missing. Your father will NOT be impressed if he can't find our house after he gets off work tonight.
Child: yes mother
Mother: now put your physics set away and make your bed.
Child: yes mother
Yes, I'd be happy to be a footnote in the history of the universe as an example of what you really shouldn't do with your Acme Physics set that you got for your birthday.
Parent
Its all okay. Nothing to see here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well its good to know that despite their uncertainty about the the data, they are absolutely certain of their conclusions.
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fire it up, boys!
cosmic rays (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought that this entire line of doomerism had been dispensed with thanks to cosmic rays.
Since cosmic rays are striking the earth all the time, and a decent percentage of them have a much higher energy level than anything the LHC can produce, we should have already seen such a phenomena.
?
Re:cosmic rays (Score:5, Interesting)
If such stable black holes were creatable / existed, we should see rather remarkable things with old white dwarfs and neutron stars, which would be greatly affected by such energy sources.
Parent
Re:cosmic rays (Score:5, Informative)
Jeez - read the abstract. Its a calculation based on a theoretical model using some very speculative physics for which there is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER. Really. Ignore it.
The main thing to keep in mind is, cosmic rays have energies vastly higher than the LHC. If the LHC could produce black holes, then there would be black holes floating around everywhere.
Parent
Re:cosmic rays (Score:5, Interesting)
> What happens if one of these black holes happens to intercept a spacecraft as it leaves
> or re-enters the atmosphere? Does it do significant damage?
No. Try to understand how small these holes would be. They are so tiny that in the unlikely event that they hit the nucleus of an atom they would almost certainly pass through with out interacting at all with any of the subatomic particles there. Your spacecraft is going to be hit by cosmic rays with far more energy and with a far higher probability of interacting.
Parent
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Assurances (Score:5, Informative)
But shouldn't we require better assurance than that?
What better assurance can we get than mathematical formulas? Unfortunately the only other way to find out is to run an experiment, right? I just hope their formulas and the assumptions they are based on are correct.
Space Madness (Score:5, Funny)
And there's no possible way that Stimpy would be stupid enough to press the beautiful, shiny button - the jolly, candy-like button.
and nothing of value was lost?
Storm in a very, very tiny teacup (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, duh! (Score:5, Funny)
those mini black holes were up in the air, not next to the earth you ninny.
sheesh, next thing someone will make a video game with this scenario
Parent
Re:Well, duh! (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Advanced Alien Civilizations (Score:5, Funny)
Bruce Campbell at the LHC (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I would really feel a lot better if the LHC deployed Bruce Campbell, with a shotgun during those Black Hole experiments:
Evil Witch/Black Hole: "I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul!"
Bruce points his shotgun at the Evil Witch/Black Hole:
Bruce: "Swallow this."
*Blam*
seconds and minutes (Score:5, Funny)
when they say seconds and minutes is that in normal earth time or according to the time inside the micro event horizon?
Absolutely, positively, (Score:5, Funny)
The Quantum Make a Wish Foundation (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone wins a free trip to France.
Gravity still applies (Score:5, Insightful)
A black hole is just the gravity well of a given mass compressed into a sufficiently small space. In this case, the given mass is miniscule, so very little (practically nothing, hence the "evaporation" issue) will be drawn to it.
You have more to worry about from the gravitational pull of your shoes.
Screw mini-black holes. (Score:5, Funny)
It's the ice-9 strangelets that have me worried.
Bogus (Score:5, Informative)
Groups of high energy particles striking each other is not rare in nature. It happens all the time, right in our own atmosphere, on the surface of the moon.
This is all Chicken-Little nonsense.
Parent