Black Holes From the LHC Could Last For Minutes 672
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?"
Um...freudian slip? (Score:0, Funny)
"Black holes...a few niggling doubts..."
Yes, it is well known that niglings begin life by coming out of black holes, but wouldn't it be wiser to provide birf control to the black holes given the state of the economy? Fortunately Obama recently authorized abortion funding [foxnews.com] to ass-backward savage lands which are not specified officially but are known to be Africa, proud motherland of the apes, chimpanzees, macaques, baboons
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.
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Funny)
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?
Advanced Alien Civilizations (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:2, Funny)
How can an LHC scientist say oops if their vocal cords have entered another dimension of space and time?
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*
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
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?
Finally! (Score:3, Funny)
Finally, we may have resolved the Fermi Paradox [wikipedia.org].
Absolutely, positively, (Score:5, Funny)
The Quantum Make a Wish Foundation (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone wins a free trip to France.
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:4, Funny)
How can an LHC scientist say oops if their vocal cords have entered another dimension of space and time?
At the LHC's first collisions, a black hole forms....
scientist: Oops... OMFG! Call the President!
evil voice from inside the black hole: What good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?
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.
Screw mini-black holes. (Score:5, Funny)
It's the ice-9 strangelets that have me worried.
I say "go for it!" (Score:5, Funny)
If they're right the benefit to humanity could be enormous.
If they're wrong then it's the end of the economic crisis, unemployment, conflict in the Middle East and world hunger.
So, on balance ... I think they should do it.
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:5, Funny)
I said it before: Lake Hadron. New shoreline real estate for sale, soon.
Don't mind the Schwarzchild radius, come on in!
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:0, Funny)
I, for one, will bet my life savings on it NOT destroying the world.
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:5, Funny)
I'm just glad... (Score:3, Funny)
Actually this is great! Being across the pond, I should have the benefit of at least a femtosecond to be the first to write and publish a paper on the effects of gravity waves before I go. After all, those Europeans are going to be pretty much getting all the glory and making it much harder for us on this side to be recognized for any new discoveries. With this type of discovery, and it being so close to home, they likely won't even see it coming. And for a Scientist there is surely nothing like getting really embedded into your work to make you forget to publish. But face it, sometimes its just better to distance yourself for a more objective look at a situation.
Re:I say "go for it!" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:seconds and minutes (Score:3, Funny)
You're not. That poor SOB is going to get banned.
Re:Not so fast there old chap! (Score:5, Funny)
In theory.
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:5, Funny)
Enrico Fermi, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938 for his work on nuclear fission, offered side odds on the bomb destroying all life on the planet.
Assuming he's betting on the "No" side, he probably should have got a prize for economics too. If you're right -- you win money. If you lose -- everyone's dead anyway so you don't have to pay! Its a win-win proposition.
(Ok maybe win-win isn't the right term here)
"Answer first, experiment second" -- the FRAK? (Score:5, Funny)
I find it hilarious how people say, "Before we run an experiment, we need to know what will happen!" Hello, McFly! You run experiments to FIND OUT WHAT WILL HAPPEN. That's, uhm, the whole FRAKING DEFINITION OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD! You can do the math, you can form theories, you can hypothesize... but you never know FOR SURE until you flip the switch.
People like the OP were probably standing around in caveman days, saying, "Ugh. No make fire. What if fire is monster, kill everyone? Bad thing. Not make fire unless know not monster."
Re:cosmic rays (Score:3, Funny)
Well, ok, since you said so, I just did.
Aw, crap.
Couldn't agree more... (Score:5, Funny)
Small black holes are far less dangerous than made out to be.
A while back we had a family of small black holes living in our basement, and I found that if you didn't bother them, they wouldn't bother you.
The wife wanted rid of them, but I said no, they're not doing any harm to anyone - and anyway we never used that part of the basement.
Eventually they just moved on.
Re:I say "go for it!" (Score:4, Funny)
OK, no more metalocalypse for you!
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:5, Funny)
Four minutes?! I'll be damned if they make black holes that last longer than I do!
Re:cosmic rays (Score:3, Funny)
Thank goodness we built the LHC to provide science fiction authors another MacGuffin.
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:3, Funny)
*Extemely* unlikely (Score:4, Funny)
It's like the odds of a black man becoming President of the United States.
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:4, Funny)
Re:cosmic rays (Score:3, Funny)
I was talking about RHIC fireballs [bbc.co.uk].
When the gold nuclei smash into each other they are broken down into particles called quarks and gluons.
These form a ball of plasma about 300 times hotter than the surface of the Sun. This fireball, which lasts just 10 million, billion, billionths of a second, can be detected because it absorbs jets of particles produced by the beam collisions.
But Nastase, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, says there is something unusual about it.
Ten times as many jets were being absorbed by the fireball as were predicted by calculations.
I was interpreting that to mean a black hole has a larger collective cross-sectional area than if the mass that made it up weren't a black hole. I guess it doesn't mean what I thought it did.
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:5, Funny)
I'm hoping it'll suck more than my wife.
Yeah... me too.
Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score:3, Funny)
Uh, not much of the Manhattan project was "all over the popular press" at the time.