Black Hole in Geneva ???

They are scheduled to start up the Large Hadron Collider on wednesday, september 10th. Anyone worried that it is going to destroy the entire solar system? May as well live out your dreams before then.

-Z

All I know is that I asked a guy getting his PhD in physics about this, and he said not to worry about the black hole thing -- ain't gonna happen.

I'm thinking... not on Sep 10th.

More like October 14th... or some other day when you are least expecting it. :)

Chances are they will not achieve anywhere near the energies needed... and they will ramp up energy over the next couple of years...
Even so- they are ramming tiny teensy itty bitty bits of matter together. A black hole composed of just a handful of protons ( which immediately cease to be protons) would not persist.


According to Hawking, such a black hole would literally evaporate before it could make it to the side wall of the detector.


For a black hole to remain stable, like the one at the center of our galaxy... it needs to be rather large.


Also- just to dispel any weird ideas... becoming a black hole does NOT affect mass., it affects density.

IF the sun could somehow collapse into a black hole Without the huge explosion.... the orbit of the earth and other planets would not be affected in the least. The exact same gravitational pull...

Not to impugn the good doctor Hawking, but what if he's wrong? They're gambling with the lives of the entire planet. Granted the odds might be remote, but I'm not convinced the benefits outweigh the risks. I think the gnomes of CERN need a vastly better PR campaign.

We'd just have no sun and freeze to death within hours. Sorry if I don't feel consoled.

Now I know where swiss cheese will really come from!

Yes, but you'd have eight glorious minutes of sunlight to prepare for the end. This thread so needs a "what would you do with the last 8 minutes of your life" poll.

I can tell ya I'd probably get one last good load off ! scramble a few atoms of my own.

I hate it when that happens.

I think its a pretty safe bet.
People think of black holes the way they think of ninjas- a lot of stupid myth and hollywood malarky.

Black holes are not special- they are simply ultradense objects.

The same math that PREDICTED black holes, and turned out to be right on the money, also proves that quantum sized ones simply can not exist for more than a few nanoseconds.

Ergo... the math that proved to us they were real, proves that they can not be a threat.


Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb, bet Robert Oppenheimer that the A bomb would set the atmosphere on fire.

Oppenheimer looked at him sadly and took the bet... sure money because the atmosphere simply can not be set on fire.


Quantum physics is the most accurately predictive theory humanity has ever come up with. ( evolution is the second )

If you were gonna bet... you had better bet on the science that makes a computer out of sand and clay.

I'm in agreement with everything Phil said above, especially the part about the large amount of myth associated with black holes.