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Is the CERN Miniature Black Hole Debate Dead?
Yet another group of scientists don’t think so.
Still worried that the Large Hadron Collider will create a black hole that will destroy the Earth when it’s finally switched on this summer?
Um, well, you may have a point.
Three physicists have reexamined the math surrounding the creation of microscopic black holes in the Switzerland-based LHC, the world’s largest particle collider, and determined that they won’t simply evaporate in a millisecond as had previously been predicted.
Happy Friday, everyone! We’re all going to die again!
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12 Responses to “Is the CERN Miniature Black Hole Debate Dead?”
Thanks for bringing back the CERN topic! Everybody being so stuck on the end of the financial world, or maybe the whole N. Korea blowing up S. Korea with nuclear weapons things! Wrote a few posts last year…
http://theendisalwaysnear.blogspot.com/search/l…
Yee Haw!
Funny the difference just a few months can make in the “math”.. Wonder what a few more will show up? Oh, wait a minute…by then it'll be a done deal already.
It's kinda like removing a gene or two from anthrax and then dumping on the populace of earth from crop dusters just to see if their theory is right, that the new strain is rendered benign.
OMG
what is the matter with these people did they not read the paper they are citing?!?
The paper this article is citing says that exact opposite than what they are implying.
Its says there is no NO possibility of creating a stable black hole. please note the last statement in the abstract.
Geez fox ppl learn to read.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.2948
Sil – this project has NOTHING to do with fission research.
Oh, then what is is for?
Sil -
Basic research into the fundamental nature of matter.
From the CERN website -
“CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.”
Now, nuclear is an all-inclusive term, and does not mean, in this case, fission. That is a very well understood phenomenon, and advances in that area of physics do not require this type of massive collider.
I predict that Elvis and Natalie Holoway will emerge from the CERN black hole with a love child and robins will chirp. Then all blond American girls will be safe from the evil French existentialists and their butter sticks.
But why? Why risk a black hole just for the quest of knowledge? Why is there so much money being dumped into this project and what is its tangible goal(s)?
At one level it is knowledge for knowledges sake, to move our understanding along, and continue the process of intellectual enlightenment that drives civilization. The hope is that that basic knowledge leads to some deeper understanding, and that understanding leads eventually to improvements for everyone.
History is filled with leaps forward from basic research, often years or even generations later, and even more often in completely unexpected ways. Basic research of electricity and magnetism lead to the Electromagnetic theory, which led to electric generators, motors, lights, etc., and even special relativity. Basic research led to the transistor.
Heck, basic research by distant ancestors led to 'how to make fire'.
But I refuse to believe you don't not understand the nature of basic research and its role, though, and are just 'acting up' again.
Oh, and don't kid yourself – as the 'easy' stuff has been done, and the new advances require such gigantic machines. They don't just make them that big 'because'.
Now, the initial desire by the scientists involved is for the sake of learning, and proving their theories. That of course also may lead joining the pantheon of Great Scientists, which of course also drives them (human nature being human nature)
The governments get involved now, because no on else can possibly afford to build these things. The politicians see them as great big job creation machines, and contracts to give out in exchange for 'campaign donations'. (human nature being human nature)
So, nothing in life of this magnitude is pure and simple and done for just the goodwill of it (see U.S. Stimulus Bill of 2009), but that doesn't mean elements of it didn't start that way, and once it starts running, it gets back to being more of a science tool than a political boondoggle.
Now, the black whole question. There is a non-zero chance it can make a black whole. But there is a non-zero chance that a black whole can spontaneously form from the quantum foam. The science and math in fact says that it happens all the time. The non-zero value for each possibility is in the same rough order of magnitude. Yet we still exist.
Man's technology has exceeded his grasp. – 'The World is not Enough'
(“I'm slightly irritated, because this non-story is symptomatic of a larger mistrust in science, particularly in the US, which includes things like intelligent design. Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat.” Arrogant, deluded douchebag and CERN spokesmodel, Brian Cox.)
(September 19, 2008 – 'LHC loses liquid helium' – PhysicsWorld.com: “The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has lost up to a tonne of liquid helium after some of its superconducting magnets inadvertently heated up this morning, physicsworld.com has learnt. A log entry written by the current LHC co-ordinator at 11:27 am CET (10:27 am BST) states that there has been a “massive quench” in sector 3–4. Quenches occur when superfluid helium in the magnets rises above its operating temperature of 1.9 K, and can be caused, for example, when a proton beam veers off course.”)
(September 24, 2008 – 'LHC on hold until spring of 2009' – PhysicsWorld.com: “The magnet failure last week at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) means that the accelerator will not be up and running again until early spring of 2009, say officials at CERN. To keep the project on schedule, the team running the accelerator near Geneva have decided to skip a planned test run at an intermediate energy and re-start the LHC in 2009 at the full beam energy of 7 TeV.”) And begin creating Black Holes.
Zealous, jealous, Nobel Prize hungry Physicists are racing each other and stopping at nothing to try to find the supposed 'Higgs Boson'(aka God) Particle, among others, and are risking nothing less than the annihilation of the Earth and all Life in endless experiments hoping to prove a theory when urgent tangible problems face the planet. The European Organization for Nuclear Research(CERN) Large Hadron Collider(LHC) is the world's most powerful atom smasher that will soon be firing groups of billions of heavy subatomic particles at each other at nearly the speed of light to create Miniature Big Bangs producing Micro Black Holes, Strangelets, AntiMatter and other potentially cataclysmic phenomena as described below.
Particle physicists have run out of ideas and are at a dead end forcing them to take reckless chances with more and more powerful and costly machines to create new and never-seen-before, unstable and unknown matter while Astrophysicists, on the other hand, are advancing science and knowledge on a daily basis making new discoveries in these same areas by observing the universe, not experimenting with it and with your life. Einstein used Astronomy to prove his landmark general theory of relativity that, ironically, decribes, among other things, the Black Holes which the LHC is designed to produce at the hoped for rate of one per second.
The LHC is a dangerous gamble as CERN physicist Alvaro De Rújula in the BBC LHC documentary, 'The Six Billion Dollar Experiment', incredibly admits quote, “Will we find the Higgs particle at the LHC? That, of course, is the question. And the answer is, science is what we do when we don't know what we're doing.” And CERN spokesmodel Brian Cox follows with this stunning quote, “the LHC is certainly, by far, the biggest jump into the unknown.”
The CERN-LHC website Mainpage itself states: “There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions,…” Again, this is because they truly don't know what's going to happen. They are experimenting with forces they don't understand to obtain results they can't comprehend. If you think like most people do that 'They must know what they're doing' you could not be more wrong. Some people think similarly about medical Dr.s but consider this by way of comparison and example from JAMA: “A recent Institute of Medicine report quoted rates estimating that medical errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 people a year in US hospitals.” The second part of the CERN quote reads “…but what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator,…” A molecularly changed or Black Hole consumed Lifeless World? The end of the quote reads “…as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe.” These experiments to date have so far produced infinitely more questions than answers but there isn't a particle physicist alive who wouldn't gladly trade his life to glimpse the “God particle”, and sacrifice the rest of us with him. Reason and common sense will tell you that the risks far outweigh any potential(as CERN physicists themselves say) benefits.
This quote from National Geographic, “The hunt for the God particle”, exactly sums this “science” up: “If all goes right, matter will be transformed by the violent collisions into wads of energy, which will in turn condense back into various intriguing types of particles, some of them never seen before. That's the essence of experimental particle physics: “You smash stuff together and see what other stuff comes out.” Read about the “other stuff” below;
http://www.SaneScience.org
http://www.risk-evaluation-forum.org/anon6.htm
http://www.LHCFacts.org/
http://www.LHCDefense.org/
http://www.LHCConcerns.com/
Popular Mechanics – “World's Biggest Science Project Aims to Unlock 'God Particle'” – http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/extreme…
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Its says there is no NO possibility of creating a stable black hole. please note the last statement in the abstract.
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Ummmm … _who_ needs to learn to read? The last statement in the abstract says: “Based on this analysis, we argue against the possibility of catastrophic black hole growth at the LHC.”
A campaign of massive contact must be developed. A campaign in which millions of people simply say: “You have no right to do this.”
This statement — “You have no right to do this” — is unanswerable. It avoids the trap of buying into endless debates, debates on questions such as … “Is the chance one in 10^n where n is … 5? 8? 15? Will it happen every second, or every day? Will the black holes be spinning?” etc etc etc.
Such arguments miss the point. The point is:
FsubH >> BsubP >> BLACS where
FsubH = Fallibility (human)
BsubP = Benefits (potential)
BLACS = “Bloody Little Academic Careers at Stake, oh my.”
They. Have. No. Right. To. Take. This. Risk.