In a particle accelerator you increase the weight of the particle when you accelerate it to near-light velocities. Does the "density" of a particle increase or do they swell, am I making sense? And if it is the former, as I guess it is, wouldn't you be able to create a black hole just by adding enough energy to a particle?
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Can you create black holes?
#1
Posted 19 November 2006 - 03:33 PM
In a particle accelerator you increase the weight of the particle when you accelerate it to near-light velocities. Does the "density" of a particle increase or do they swell, am I making sense? And if it is the former, as I guess it is, wouldn't you be able to create a black hole just by adding enough energy to a particle?
#2
Posted 19 November 2006 - 05:10 PM
#3
Posted 19 November 2006 - 07:26 PM
I personally cannot, and I doubt I'll be able to afford my own particle accelerator for quite some time.
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#4
Posted 20 November 2006 - 12:23 AM
#5
Posted 20 November 2006 - 12:36 PM
I looked at CERN's website and they clearly said that they would look for hawking radiation with the LHC. Any info out there about how they plan to do? Like what energies they plan to try with etc? These black holes should be extremely small, how could they do to make them larger?
Micro-singularities are the ticket laddie.
What you mean by that?
#6
Posted 20 November 2006 - 05:10 PM
#7
Posted 20 November 2006 - 05:58 PM
#8
Posted 20 November 2006 - 06:26 PM
They are the ticket to a whole new physics and way of understanding the universe. They can make them larger by adding matter, say electrons for example.
Oh, of course they'll do it by adding matter, how stupid of me to ask. It must have occured to me as too improbable with such precision at the time.
This new physics, could you elaborate on this? I know I've heard a little about this, but it'd be kind of you or anyone else to perhaps sum it up for me.
Edited by siberia, 21 November 2006 - 09:09 AM.
#9
Posted 20 November 2006 - 09:42 PM
What I'm wondering about is if they actually do manage to create tiny black holes, will they start gobbling up matter like the big ones do? Personally, I think either they will fail or tiny black holes will turn out to be unable to absorb matter. If it was that easy to do, they would be created on jupiter or the sun all the time. Can you imagine a small but reactive black hole landing here on earth? It would in time gobble up the entire planet and us too. It would be interesting if they did create some and did find hawking radiation. It would be the first confirmation of this radiation. Up to now, it's been just a theory.
Don't worry, if they do create black holes, they're creating them with a set amount of mass. They'll have the equivalent gravity field of (say) a bowling ball - not enough to attract anything before it dissipates.
#10
Posted 20 November 2006 - 10:48 PM
Don't worry, if they do create black holes, they're creating them with a set amount of mass. They'll have the equivalent gravity field of (say) a bowling ball - not enough to attract anything before it dissipates.
Actually, what I heard was that they would have the mass of a few protons or a few atoms and not much more than that. As for dissipating, we have no idea if they will do this or not. Hawking predicts they will and this will be a test of his theory if indeed we manage to create a BH. I'm not worrying about a BH eating the world. If it could happen that easily it would already have happened. Conditions on the sun or jupitor are much more extreme than any we are likely to create on earth.
The quote bug is fixed by inserting a line break before the final /quote Just hit enter before it.
#11
Posted 20 November 2006 - 11:08 PM
No sir. Particle accelerators on earth accelerate particles to energies millions of times greater than anything in the core of the sun.Conditions on the sun or jupitor are much more extreme than any we are likely to create on earth.
The most intense collisions in the solar system happen not in the core of the sun, not in particle accelerators, but actually at the top of the earth's atmosphere when cosmic rays with 10**20 electron volts smash into it. Of course the center-of-mass of such collisions is moving so fast that formed black holes would shoot right through the earth and back into space at near-light-speed, if they lived long enough (which they might because of extreme time dilation).
Edited by bgwowk, 20 November 2006 - 11:33 PM.
#12
Posted 21 November 2006 - 01:13 AM
xanadu wrote:
No sir. Particle accelerators on earth accelerate particles to energies millions of times greater than anything in the core of the sun.Conditions on the sun or jupitor are much more extreme than any we are likely to create on earth.
But then you wrote:
The most intense collisions in the solar system happen not in the core of the sun, not in particle accelerators, but actually at the top of the earth's atmosphere when cosmic rays with 10**20 electron volts smash into it. Of course the center-of-mass of such collisions is moving so fast that formed black holes would shoot right through the earth and back into space at near-light-speed, if they lived long enough (which they might because of extreme time dilation).
Then why would this not occur on jupiter or the sun? How can you say the earth has the most powerful collisions? I never said the core of the sun. In addition to that, there are conditions on jupiter that may produce a natural particle accelerator larger than anything we have. Both the sun and jupiter have intense magnetic fields and radiation. Of course we also have other planets to consider.
Oh, it's fun to argue.
#13
Posted 21 November 2006 - 02:03 AM
Yes, cosmic rays can hit Jupiter and the sun as well, but they wouldn't be "more powerful" than those that already hit the earth, except insofar as the larger cross section increases the likelihood that the largest ones ever to hit were there. But there's nothing special about the sun or Jupiter, other than the aforementioned larger cross section (size, if that's a more natural way to put it).Then why would this not occur on jupiter or the sun? How can you say the earth has the most powerful collisions? I never said the core of the sun. In addition to that, there are conditions on jupiter that may produce a natural particle accelerator larger than anything we have. Both the sun and jupiter have intense magnetic fields and radiation. Of course we also have other planets to consider.
And yes, I've read that Jupiter can produce some fairly intense particles under the right circumstances, though the last I read anything about it, it was still very theoretical work and it was speculative at best if Jupiter could produce anything rivalling what we receive from cosmic rays.
#14
Posted 21 November 2006 - 02:14 AM
I should have said that cosmic rays produce "collisions on Earth as powerful as any in the solar system". Sorry for the lack of clarity. To be even more precise, the most energetic cosmic ray collisions will happen most often not on Earth, but on objects in the solar system that expose heavy nuclei, like iron, to space without an atmosphere. Viewed from the center-of-mass frame, the most energetic collisions happen when you hit a heavy target.Then why would this not occur on jupiter or the sun? How can you say the earth has the most powerful collisions? I never said the core of the sun. In addition to that, there are conditions on jupiter that may produce a natural particle accelerator larger than anything we have. Both the sun and jupiter have intense magnetic fields and radiation.
I couldn't figure out why you were singling out the Sun and Jupiter, so I assumed you were thinking about their extreme core conditions. They do indeed also have the most powerful natural magnetic fields in the solar system. But those fields only trap and accelerate particles to energies of millions of electron volts, not the trillions of electron volts of particle accelerators on Earth.
To put things in perspective, an ordinary hospital MRI scanner has a magnetic field of 15,000 gauss, which is more than 10 times stronger than the strongest natural magnetic fields in the solar system.
http://www.astronomy...ask/a11654.html
Edited by bgwowk, 21 November 2006 - 06:30 AM.
#15
Posted 23 November 2006 - 11:24 PM
QUOTE (siberia) |
<!--QuoteEBegin']They are the ticket to a whole new physics and way of understanding the universe. They can make them larger by adding matter, say electrons for example. [/quote] Oh, of course they'll do it by adding matter, how stupid of me to ask. It must have occured to me as too improbable with such precision at the time. This new physics, could you elaborate on this? I know I've heard a little about this, but it'd be kind of you or anyone else to perhaps sum it up for me.[/quote] We'll just have to see what happens when Dr Mallett turns on his time machine! 1 user(s) are reading this topic0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users |