LHC switches on tomorrow

[Ian Pearse]

So, just a day to go until they fire up the Large Hadron Collider for the first time at the high energy levels, though I read they won't be doing any actual collisions until later in the year. Are you excited? Intrigued? Bored with it all already?

[echnaton]

Isn't that the machine that will doom the world to be sucked into a balck hole?

[Jason]

I heard someone on the radio yesterday was suggesting we leave a note on the moon that says "If there is a black hole next to this moon instead of a planet, DON'T BUILD A SUPERCOLLIDER".

[BertL]

Sept 9, 2008 11:05:16 GMT -4 Jason said:

I heard someone on the radio yesterday was suggesting we leave a note on the moon that says "If there is a black hole next to this moon instead of a planet, DON'T BUILD A SUPERCOLLIDER".

That's probably a good idea. I mean, you never know, right?

[gillianren]

Oh, hey, yeah! Tomorrow's my sister's birthday. What better present than a supercollider destroying the Earth?

And my poor friend Mele's birthday's the day after.

[Ian Pearse]

Stephen Hawking says that if, by some remote chance, a black hole is produced in the experiments, it will be so small that it will evaporate instantly, and produce a spectacular shower of particles. And who am I to argue? ;D

he also mentions that collisions at similar energy levels occur millions of times a day in the atmosphere, and they haven't destroyed the Earth yet....

[Al Johnston]

Brian Cox was rather more scathing than that ;D

[Jason]

Maybe supercolliders are the answer to Fermi's paradox and dark matter. Mini black holes consume all the civilizations that get to supercollider stage and then the black holes are the dark matter everyone was looking for.

I seem to remember that Earth was destroyed by a supercollider experiment that created a black hole in the novel Hyperion. IIRC it took years between the failed experiment and the point at which the Earth became uninhabitable.

[echnaton]

I've never quite understood the mechanism these litigants propose for how a black hole a with just a few protons of mass would absorb the earth. No mater how dense, it is still just a few protons of mass.

Besides, I've always wanted my very own particle shower. Think of the water that could be saved.

[Jason]

Well, it would start as just a few protons of mass, but as it absorbed more and more matter it would grow, wouldn't it?

Now that I think about it, didn't Larry Niven write a story about a tiny black hole being used as a murder weapon and eventually destroying Mars?

[Al Johnston]

At that size they dissipate through Hawking radiation within millionths of a second.

[Jason]

Ah. I seem to recall the black holes in Hyperion and Larry Niven's story were somewhat larger.

[Al Johnston]

As Niven himself notes in some of his writings on the Known Space series, theoretical physicists (and NASA space probes) have a way of making some of his stories obsolete... ;D

[Ian Pearse]

Yes, it's a bit of a shame when advances in science and technology catch up and overtake some of your favourite stories. Oh well, they're still good stories.

[Ian Pearse]

Sept 9, 2008 13:59:47 GMT -4 Al Johnston said:

Brian Cox was rather more scathing than that ;D

I've just seen Brian's comment on the BBC site - nice one! ;D