CRUISER
Sep 09 2008, 04:36 PM
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24556999/?GT1=43001

james_mccaine
Sep 09 2008, 07:16 PM
So for you physicists out there, if it does create black holes, how will it end for us? Would it end in an instant, where all existence is wiped out in a flash, with no time to even comprehend what is happening, or would it be a slow chinese torture type of thing?

mugilcephalus
Sep 10 2008, 09:34 AM
Slow torture. As you fall into the singularity time becomes infinitely slower. From your perspective you never reach it. Or so I was taught at one point in time.

mikeP
Sep 10 2008, 10:51 AM
The only people worried are those that fear due to lack of understanding. And since we're dealing with quantum physics, misunderstanding is the norm rather than the exception. Hopefully the accelerator will fill some of the gaps in the theory and lead to greater understanding, acceptance, and ultimately education on the nature of the universe.

Lets remember that Gallileo was jailed, nearly killed, and banished for suggesting that the world was round and revolved around the sun, even though he had more evidence for his idea than anyone had against it.

sciencet_cher
Sep 10 2008, 11:16 AM
The only people worried are those that fear due to lack of understanding. And since we're dealing with quantum physics, misunderstanding is the norm rather than the exception. Hopefully the accelerator will fill some of the gaps in the theory and lead to greater understanding, acceptance, and ultimately education on the nature of the universe.

Lets remember that Gallileo was jailed, nearly killed, and banished for suggesting that the world was round and revolved around the sun, even though he had more evidence for his idea than anyone had against it.



Must be a high school science teacher! Middle school science teachers understand the nature of the universe, entropy! :D

Alacrity
Sep 10 2008, 11:29 AM
If they were to create a small black hole, it would eat it's way through any containment device and be pulled toward the center of the earth. As it passed through the mantle it would create a man made volcano. Once it passed through the mantle, picking up mass as it moved it would sling shot back and forth, possibly creating several more breaks in the mantle. Finally it would swallow all the mass on the earth. You would of course be long dead due to volcanic activity. If it was a large one, it would do something similar, but with much more flair.

Pizza God
Sep 10 2008, 11:37 AM
That could put a bigger damper than Ike on this weekends tournament. :D

Lyle O Ross
Sep 10 2008, 12:53 PM
If they were to create a small black hole, it would eat it's way through any containment device and be pulled toward the center of the earth. As it passed through the mantle it would create a man made volcano. Once it passed through the mantle, picking up mass as it moved it would sling shot back and forth, possibly creating several more breaks in the mantle. Finally it would swallow all the mass on the earth. You would of course be long dead due to volcanic activity. If it was a large one, it would do something similar, but with much more flair.



Yes, but could I still get my round in?

Lyle O Ross
Sep 10 2008, 12:56 PM
If they really wanted this thing to be useful, they'd set it up to create a black hole that we could roll right through Washington, maybe Moscow too?

skaZZirf
Sep 10 2008, 01:13 PM
anti-matter.
Dan Brown actually used the accelerator in a book about 4-5 years ago.

tbender
Sep 10 2008, 01:24 PM
The only people worried are those that fear due to lack of understanding. And since we're dealing with quantum physics, misunderstanding is the norm rather than the exception. Hopefully the accelerator will fill some of the gaps in the theory and lead to greater understanding, acceptance, and ultimately education on the nature of the universe.

Lets remember that Gallileo was jailed, nearly killed, and banished for suggesting that the world was round and revolved around the sun, even though he had more evidence for his idea than anyone had against it.



Must be a high school science teacher! Middle school science teachers understand the nature of the universe, entropy! :D



I never saw a high school science teacher set his hand on fire...

CRUISER
Sep 10 2008, 01:49 PM
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26439957

stack
Sep 10 2008, 02:25 PM
its easy to understand if you watch the LHC Rap!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM

kkrasinski
Sep 10 2008, 04:32 PM
I'm no physicist, but here I present three different scenarios. I leave it to you to determine the most plausible:

1) Microscopic black holes are created which grow rapidly and exponentially thus destroying the earth very quickly. You get your wish to be taller as you cross the event horizon.

2) The whole thing, like all big science, is just a scam. Physicists and other scientists around the world are conspiring with fake discoveries and "peer reviewed" articles just to keep that grant money rolling in. After all, no science is valid after the last book of the Bible was written!

3) If microscopic black holes are created, they will rapidly (near instantaneously) dissipate. How can they dissipate? After all, a black hole's gravitational field is so strong that nothing can excape, right? Well, actually Stephen Hawking, following the work of Zeldovich and Starobinsky predicts that thermal radiation is, in fact, emmited from black holes due to quantum effects. This is known as "Hawking Radiation". Due to the equivalence of mass and energy, Hawking Radiation results in a loss of mass within a black hole.

kkrasinski
Sep 10 2008, 04:35 PM
Test Run Of CERN's Large Hadron Collider Swallows Up Swiss Village (http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i38089)

"Scientists working in Switzerland have admitted that a test run of The Large Hadron Collider, housed next to Lake Geneva at the headquarters of Cern resulted in the total annihilation of a Swiss village a few miles from the site.

"We did a small test run - using just 10% of the power - it all went well, or so we thought, until one of our scientists returned home to his village close by - the whole place just disappeared - it was swallowed up by a black hole!" said one scientist.

The small village of Greten, with a population of 200 has indeed been wiped of the map - scientists say that they are sorry and regret the loss of life.

Many, especially in the US, say it is still worth the risk to turn the thing on using its full potential."

kkrasinski
Sep 10 2008, 04:38 PM
If you're worried about black holes, you worry is misplaced. Instead, you should worry about strangelets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelets). :D

kkrasinski
Sep 11 2008, 05:18 PM
Webcams from CERN and the LHC. Really pretty interesting if you watch for more than a second or two:
http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

CRUISER
Sep 11 2008, 05:20 PM
:D

tbender
Sep 11 2008, 05:24 PM
I saw a program on the LHC this week on the History Channel (now I know why it was on) and I picked up on the fact that they encourage pictures and video being taken by visitors. Very cool, IMO.

Pizza God
Sep 11 2008, 06:09 PM
That was pretty good

circle_2
Sep 12 2008, 03:15 AM
Indeed!

Alacrity
Sep 12 2008, 11:13 AM
If you were caught by the pull of a black hole, you would be sent into free fall toward its center. The pulling force would increase as you moved toward the center, creating what's called a "tidal force" on your body. That is to say, the gravity acting on your head would be much stronger than the gravity acting on your toes (assuming you were falling head-first). That would make your head accelerate faster than your toes; the difference would stretch your body until it snapped apart, first at its weakest point and then disintegrating rapidly from there as the tidal force became stronger than the chemical bonds holding your body together. You'd be reduced to a bunch of disconnected atoms. Those atoms would be stretched into a line and continue in a processional march. As Tyson described it, you would be "extruded through space like toothpaste being squeezed through a tube." No one knows for certain what happens to those atoms once they reach the center, or "singularity," of a black hole.

In a small black hole�like the one predicted by the LHC doomsayers�this dissolution would occur almost immediately. In fact, for all but the largest black holes, dissolution would happen before a person even crossed the event horizon, and it would take place in a matter of billionths of a second.

The more matter�and people�a black hole gobbled up, the bigger it would get. That could have the effect of making it less spectacularly deadly. As a black hole increases in size, the differences in gravitational force inside become less dramatic. If you fell into a truly gigantic black hole, the rate of change�and resulting tidal force�might not be enough to rip your body apart until after you'd crossed the event horizon.

If you fell into a large enough black hole, your last moments would be a little bit like being on the inside of a distorted, one-way mirror. No one outside would be able to see you, but you'd have a view of them. Meanwhile, the gravitational pull would bend the light weirdly and distort your last moments of vision.


Explainer thanks Ted Bunn of the University of Richmond and Edwin Taylor of MIT.