44 replies to this topic

[freethinker]

I am writing this in regards to the effort of raising awareness on the operational safety concerns of the Large Hadron Collider located along the French-Swiss Border. Questions regarding it's operational safety have been raised regarding the possibility that during it's operation it may create a Miniature Black Hole (MBH). Although CERN has addressed such issues prior, they have relied on a theory of Hawking Radiation to model the dissipation of a MBH.

Hawking Radiation is however an unproven theory, also since the project was first commissioned new discoveries and theories have been made that question the verity of Hawking Radiation and the requirements for the creation of a MBH.

Unfortunately, without Hawking Radiation being verified we believe that the precautionary principal should take precedent until these concerns can be addressed, the danger of a Black Hole being created and it's accretion of mass pose a danger to everyone. In theory if a Black Hole did not dissipate would continue to grow at an exponential rate. There is no accurate model that would actually predict rate of accretion of a Black Hole, so in this scenario there are far too many unknowns to be certain.

I thank you for your time, and ask that you please look into this matter. ( http://www.lhcconcer...er Template.pdf )

--Links for further information--
* http://www.risk-eval...m.org/index.htm
* http://www.lhcconcerns.com/
* http://www.lhcdefense.org/

Video - http://www.ted.com/i...lks/view/id/167

[JohnDoe1234]

Jean, As soon as I had first heard of that news (possibility of creating MBH), I was in a slight state of confusion, since I don't have the mathematical prowess yet needed to understand the problem in its entirety... HOWEVER, one explanation of the situation that puts my mind to rest is that the energies dealt with at the LHC are *nothing* compared to the energies of other collisions which happen all around the earth and in fact across the universe.

So, if MBHs haven't swallowed up the universe by now... what we are doing here with our little fisher-price toys shouldn't harm anything.

Though, there is still a possibility that it is so unlikely it has never occurred, and that the first time it happens could be here on earth, but that is very unlikely.

[niner]

Though, there is still a possibility that it is so unlikely it has never occurred, and that the first time it happens could be here on earth, but that is very unlikely.

I looked at a couple of the websites that Jean posted, and in one of them they said that if an MBH formed and didn't evaporate, it could convert the Earth to a 1cm sphere in 50 months! Can you imagine what a poop-fest that would be? Four Years to think about it!?! Someone would immediately suggest blowing up the slowly growing black hole with an atomic bomb, but other people would say NO!!!! THAT WILL JUST SPREAD IT AROUND!!!! A lot of people would adopt a real live-for-today attitude. Cigarette sales would skyrocket. Or maybe cigarette thefts, since no one would really care about obeying laws anymore. Cops would have enough trouble just keeping the rapes and murders under control, so you could probably walk into a 7-11 and take all the Slurpees and cigarettes you could carry. You wouldn't have to worry about the clerk, he would have been long gone anyway. Politics as usual would probably cease; people would say Hillary? Obama? screw that! They would elect Michael Jackson to the presidency. Despite the troubling times, he would prove to be the finest president of the modern era. And totally the best dancing president. Ever.

[Brainbox]

The ideal vacuum cleaner?

[Brainbox]

On a more serious note, didn't they warn about the same issues when other accelerators were taken into operation?

[freethinker]

Hi Joseph, thanks for your response. Here are two quotes that address the issue you bring up:

Now hold on, CERN does address some of these concerns...

They do, They address Black Holes, and Strange matter, however if you read their arguments they unfortunately use a lot of faulty analogies. They use the argument classically referred to as the "Cosmic Ray" Argument, this states that energies produced at the LHC are far less than those produced in cosmic rays, but also that Black Holes that would be theoretically created from cosmic rays pass through our planet everyday.

So what's wrong with this analogy

First off these are moving so fast, if they exist they are not given enough time accrete mass as they are traveling at near c, meaning actually that they would only grab a few protons as they sped through our Planet, the analogy falls apart at speed, whereas all MBH production on earth would be moving far slower than near c, thus giving it a chance to accrue. We are also referring to fundamental particles on a quantum scale, the Schwarzchild radius(size in which matter would need to be compressed to become a black hole) on such smaller particles would of course then be lower, and since they are being forced (protons) in clumps, this also increases the likelihood of MBH production at lower speeds. The argument has an obvious rational flaw.

This actually brings me back to a second point raised, referred to as the mosquito analogy, where CERN describes the collisions as having the force of a mosquito, however this also logistically differs from CERN's own analogy of the LHC as "recreating the conditions shortly after the Big Bang Singularity", but this also affects the size and force requirements of such MBH's, so that analogy falls apart as well.

-- http://www.lhcconcerns.com/

3) It is claimed that cosmic rays can energy exceeding that of colliders, and they have not caused trouble, suggesting that colliders will not cause trouble either. However, the analogy is not precise. It assumes two things that may not be true. First, cosmic ray center of mass energy exceeding that of colliders has never been measured directly. Measurements that seem to show this are based on showers of secondary particles. Second, the product of a collision between a cosmic ray and an earth particle will always be moving at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. If it has a small capture radius, it will always pass right through earth like a neutrino. The product of a collider collision can (sometimes) be moving at less than escape velocity from earth. If so, it will fall into earth where it will have forever to accrete other matter. Some calculations show rapid accretion.

-- http://www.risk-eval...um.org/prob.htm

niner, this would indeed cause a huge mess! Which is why we have to stop this before it's too late. According to Wikipedia, the first beams are due for injection mid June 2008 with the first collisions planned to take place 2 months later. So we have about 3 months left.

brainbox, here's a quote from the LCH Concerns Website ( http://www.lhcconcerns.com/ ):

Why We're Concerned

To explain the concern thoroughly and accurately it has to be stated that the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva is not the first particle accelerator in history. In 1929 the Cyclotron, invented and developed by Ernest O. Lawrence, was the first particle accelerator, and from that initial invention over several decades we have come into a new breed of Larger and More Powerful Particle Accelerators. Although we have had particle accelerators in the past, The luminosity at which these operate has increased dramatically, in fact it is true that prior to the construction of the RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) such theories as MBH Production, Strangelets, and several other theories were placed on the table as relevant possibilities.

So, what's different this time?

this is the point that has to be emphasized, this time things are quite different, a study was conducted after initial concerns for the RHIC were explored, and to their conclusion the amount of energy necessary for these scenarios was not sufficient. The Large Hadron Collider operates at a total combined energy of 14TeV, which is a lot higher than the energies generated by the RHIC, as such the possibility of Black Hole creation is a reality, in fact on CERN's own web site they admit it could create Black Holes [...]

Finally, here are some things we can do to make sure the LHC doesn't start operating until it can be demonstrated to be reasonably safe:

1) Write to our local officials ( http://www.lhcconcer...er Template.pdf )
2) Spread the news any way we can
3) Get involved with people/organizations already involved

David

[freethinker]

CERN predicts the creation of up to 1 micro black hole per second in the Large Hadron Collider and references the 1999 RHIC safety study as proof of safety. (But the 1999 RHIC safety study only ruled out any possibility of colliders creating micro black holes based on knowledge at that time.)

CERN's web site predicts that micro black holes will evaporate. (But Hawking Radiation has been disputed by no less than 3 peer reviewed studies that found no basis in science for such conclusions).

CERN's web site and Steven Hawking state that much greater energy cosmic ray impacts with Earth prove safety. (But higher energy cosmic ray impacts with stationary particles have net collision speeds less than the speed of light and send all particles created safely into space, while head-on collider collisions have net collision impact speeds at almost twice the speed of light and are designed to focus all the energy to a single point in space and particles created may be captured by Earth's gravity).

CERN promised to create and release an new safety report before the end of 2007. (CERN's LHC Safety Assessment Group has concluded that particles created by cosmic ray impacts with Earth's atmosphere are safely ejected into space and that micro black holes will evaporate, but CERN never released any safety reports created by their LHC Safety Assessment Group.)

Professor Otto Rossler calculates that a single micro black hole could accrete the Earth is as few as 50 months and Dr. Rossler is world recognized as one of the most prestigious, most eminent, award winning scientists alive. (But CERN has not scientifically refuted his calculations that I am aware of, CERN only promised Dr. Rossler that if they create stable micro black holes that they will stop the experiment. Will that be too late?)

Even though the Large Hadron Collider will create conditions not seen in Nature since the first fraction of a second after the big bang, CERN asserts that there is no risk to the planet. (But the legal action contends a 75% probability of risk with very high degree of uncertainty calculated by a scientist with a masters degree in statistics, and alleges that Chief Scientific Officer Mr. Engelen passed an internal memorandum to workers at CERN asking them regardless of personal opinion to affirm in all interviews that there were no risks involved in the experiments, changing CERN's previous assertion of minimal risk).

We could delay the experiment until the promised safety studies are completed and per reviewed, and this might prevent a catastrophy. (But then some scientists may not be the first to discover new science and some Nobel prizes may be lost.)

JTankers
LHCConcerns.com

http://www.lhcconcer...r...hp?f=2&t=19

[freethinker]

Recent developments in physics suggest the possibility that an experiment, scheduled to begin at the European research facility at CERN in the summer of 2008, will destroy the Earth. CERN is installing a new high-energy particle collider, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is expected to produce particles scientists have not seen before. Two of these particles could be dangerous.

Black Holes
Several string theorists have published papers predicting (if their theories are true) that the LHC will produce mini black holes. In the worst case, a mini black hole could swallow Earth.

Strangelets
Strangelets, another potential collider product, might catalyze conversion of normal matter into more strangelets, turning Earth into a small ball of strangelets.

Safety Factors
CERN has published a paper asserting several safety factors. Black holes are supposed to dissipate via Hawking radiation. A collection of strangelets is supposed to be electrically positive on its surface, and therefore not attract other matter. However, new studies have put these safety factors in question. New physics papers question the existence of Hawking radiation. A recently published paper finds that a collection of strangelets can be negative on its surface. Other safety factors also seem subject to question. For more details, see our discussion and reference sections.

Risk Management
Proper risk management requires a formal risk assessment. CERN has done this for radiation in their tunnels, but not for black holes and strangelets. Further, a proper risk assessment requires updates when new information becomes available. We encourage CERN to do a formal risk assessment. Recently CERN established a new, mainly anomymous group to "monitor current speculations" and produce a new safety study.

What You Can Do
Readers can help by thinking about, discussing, and publicizing the issue. Contact us to help with our initiatives. We also encourage more physicists to work on the issue, and we encourage funding to help them to do so. (Physicists quickly see model limiters. Consider if candidate model limiters are reliable enough to protect something as valuable as Earth. If you think you have found a sufficiently reliable model limiter, please let us know.)

http://www.risk-eval...m.org/index.htm

[Andrew Shevchuk]

This all sounds like a strongly Luddist position to me. If the world cannot bring itself to embrace a particle physics experiment which has a very small chance of creating a stable micro black hole (because there is zero evidence that the string theory predictions of one per second are true, so we should not assume they are), then it sure as hell isn't going to be able to handle the possibility of out-of-control autonomous self-replicating machines or superhuman artificial general intelligence. In any case, I can find published peer-reviewed literature to support just about any position I want. If I want to say there's no such thing as dark matter, there is published peer-reviewed literature saying that. If I want to say there's no such thing as Hawking Radiation, then there's literature that would support that position. Both sides can't be right. And, if three papers have been published against Hawking Radiation, how many have been published in favor of it? If scientists genuinely believe it doesn't exist, why have they published so many papers on it? A quick search reveals over 1000 papers published in peer-reviewed journals that contain the term "hawking radiation" in their abstract.

It must seem strange to you that the Lifeboat Foundation, the organization on the planet the most dedicated to preserving our species, seems to be okay with the LHC.

[JohnDoe1234]

I apologize in advance because I didn't check to see if this board supports LaTeX, and even if it does, I don't know the syntax... so I just wrote it on a piece of paper and scanned it. But here is my justification for not being scared:



These MBHs just evaporate too quickly for them to do any harm, even if they are AT REST RELATIVE to our location in space!

[JohnDoe1234]

In addition, assuming the MBH has a mass on the Planck scale (which is what would be expected under this particular quantum interpretation), even if it were to be traveling at the speed of light, it would only move a distance roughly equal to 2x10^-31 m... And since that distance is smaller than the radius of a single protium atom, the only matter it could pick up would be any other resulting daughter particles from the collision, which wouldn't amount to much...

So, don't worry about the thing coming in contact with the walls of the ATLAS detector or anything...

[JTankers]

CERN predicts the creation of up to 1 micro black hole per second in the Large Hadron Collider and references the 1999 RHIC safety study as proof of safety.
(Rebuttal: But the 1999 RHIC safety study only ruled out any possibility of colliders creating micro black holes based on knowledge at that time.)

CERN' predicts that micro black holes will evaporate.
(Rebuttal: But Hawking Radiation has been disputed by no less than 3 peer reviewed studies that found no basis in science for such conclusions.)

CERN' and Steven Hawking state that much greater energy cosmic ray impacts with Earth prove safety.
(Rebuttal: But higher energy cosmic ray impacts with stationary particles have net collision speeds less than the speed of light and send all particles created safely into space, while head-on collider collisions have net collision impact speeds at almost twice the speed of light and are designed to focus all the energy to a single point in space and particles created may be captured by Earth's gravity.)

CERN promised to create and release an new safety report before the end of 2007.
(Rebuttal: CERN's LHC Safety Assessment Group has concluded that particles created by cosmic ray impacts with Earth's atmosphere are safely ejected into space and LSAG stated that they do not assume that micro black holes will evaporate, but CERN never released any safety reports created by their LHC Safety Assessment Group.)

CERN asserts that there is no risk to the planet, even though the Large Hadron Collider will create conditions not seen in nature since the first fraction of a second after the big bang.
(Rebuttal: But the legal action contends a 75% probability of risk with very high degree of uncertainty calculated by a scientist with a masters degree in statistics, and alleges that Chief Scientific Officer Mr. Engelen passed an internal memorandum to workers at CERN asking them regardless of personal opinion to affirm in all interviews that there were no risks involved in the experiments, changing CERN's previous assertion of minimal risk.)

Professor Otto Rossler calculates that a single micro black hole could accrete the Earth is as few as 50 months and Dr. Rossler is world recognized as one of the most prestigious, most eminent, award winning scientists alive.
(Rebuttal?: But CERN has not scientifically refuted his calculations that I am aware of, CERN only promised Dr. Rossler that if they create stable micro black holes that they will stop the experiment. Will that be too late?)

The World might prevent a catastrophy if we delay the experiment until the promised safety studies are completed and peer reviewed.
(Rebuttal?: But then some scientists may not be the first to discover new science and some Nobel prizes may be lost?)

JTankers
LHCConcerns.com

http://www.lhcconcer...r...hp?f=2&t=19

I fixed the post above, had a few errors...

JTankers

[JTankers]

I apologize in advance because I didn't check to see if this board supports LaTeX, and even if it does, I don't know the syntax... so I just wrote it on a piece of paper and scanned it. But here is my justification for not being scared:



These MBHs just evaporate too quickly for them to do any harm, even if they are AT REST RELATIVE to our location in space!

First of all, no less than 3 peer reviewed studies found no basis in science for Hawking Radiation. I'm sure your math is good work, but it can not compare to rigorous peer reviewed studies.

A physicist I greatly respect wrote the following:

"Hawking Radiation" is a hoax. Quantum theory should actually likely require a blackhole to grow larger, not smaller, if it were to effect a blackhole. Here's why.

Separating "virtual particle pairs" into real particles is not difficult, nor is creating antiparticles.

We routinely make antiprotons at Fermilab, etc. We slam high-energy protons into a Nickel target, with kinetic energy of about 2 orders of magnitude more than the rest-mass of a proton [about 0.94 GeV]. Out pop all kinds of particles and antiparticles, including antiprotons, which we magnetically separate, store, and later accelerate and collide into protons.

These scenarios always require an input of energy at least equal to the rest-mass of the particles created. For the radioisotope, this energy comes from the mass of the nucleus itself, which is reduced slightly when the positron is emitted. For making antiprotons, it comes from the kinetic energy of the proton beam striking the target.

Hawking's idea of evaporating black holes does not require input of energy to create particles. Instead, he believes that two particles [the particle and its antiparticle] will come into existence at the 'event horizon' as virtual particles, with one falling into the black hole, the other wandering away [as "Hawking Radiation"]. Because the one that wandered away became real, the one that fell into the black hole must have the equivalent of negative mass, thereby reducing the mass of the blackhole, preserving the total mass of the system.

That is the hoax. Negative mass. No such thing. If there were, the negative mass particle would more likely be repelled from the black hole [the opposite sign would make for gravitational repulsion, not attraction], not falling into it. The net result would be that black holes would spontaneously slowly grow larger, not evaporate, robbing via quantum tunneling from nearby matter. However, I believe they would just sit there unless matter directly fell into them. Either way, "Hawking Radiation" would not exist.

It is, of course, utter lunacy to use as a "safety argument" the idea that "Hawking Radiation" will evaporate the microblackholes they hope to make in the ATLAS detector.

[mentatpsi]

Other than knowledge... what would we be gaining from this experiment? I fail to see the necessity to start it without attaining enough conclusive evidence that a black hole does in fact evaporate (which seems impossible). When we experimented with the Atomic weapons of WWII there were also many fears that it would destroy the Earth, but there was still incentive in developing the bomb, and that was because Nazi Germany was trying to attain the same weapons, and they most likely would have used it.

Another issue, if it is scheduled to begin its operation this summer, what possible methods would one pose to delay and even prevent its operation? It seems a bit too late...

Edited by mysticpsi, 04 May 2008 - 10:34 PM.

[JTankers]

(Large Hadron Collider, science marvel or doomsday machine?)

Professor Hawking speculates that it might be possible for particles to travel back in time, Professor Albert Einstein considered such ideas to be paradoxical nonsense, not possible.
Professor Hawking speculates that black holes might sometimes shrink, decay, evaporate, again Professor Albert Einstein considered such ideas to be not possible, against the laws of nature.

Professor Hawking today speculates that it will be safe to create micro black holes on Earth in the Large Hadron Collider, because he believes that quantum fluctuations around black holes will steal energy from the black hole. He seems quite certain about his theory, while at the same time he dismisses and ignores his own peers who write rigorous peer reviewed studies disputing this theory as not supportable by science, disputes Professor Einstein who stated that not even light can escape a black hole, and apparently requires that vacuum energy does not exist. And Professor Hawking was recently quoted as suggesting that he should be awarded a Nobel prize for this idea. (Professor Hawking has never won a Nobel prize).

Credibility of Hawking Radiation is strongly disputed:

2008 ... this prediction is not without its problems... no very good responses to these concerns... completely alters the picture drawn by Hawking... http://arxiv.org/PS_...3/0503052v1.pdf
2008 ... Max-Plank-Institut fur Astrophysik: The results indicate that on average, "low mass" black holes of less than a hundred million solar masses are still growing at a significant rate. http://www.mpa-garch...l2004-7-en.html
2004 ... it may be a long time before we have sufficient knowledge of quantum gravity to be able to calculate the correct answers for the logarithmic terms in the entropy. http://arxiv.org/PS_...9/0409024v3.pdf
2004 ... 9.9% average doubt, ranging from 0% to 50% doubt by 15 physicists polled: http://www.lhcconcer...#James_Blodgett, even before much of the peer reviewed credible rejection of Hawking Radiation was published
2003 ... Yet this prediction rests on two dubious assumptions... no compelling theoretical case for or against radiation by black holes: http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0304042[/list] 1900s ... Albert Einstein's theories require that black holes only grow, they never shrink, not even light can exit a black hole

Recently when asked if the Large Hadron Collider was safe, Professor Hawking said "Particles from collisions far greater than those in the LHC occur all the time in cosmic rays, but nothing terrible happens.". What? (http://www.latimes.c...1,3191870.story)

Even CERN's own LHC Safety Assessment Group has conceded the that cosmic ray impacts with Earth could not endanger Earth, because unlike paricles created by head-on collider collisions, cosmic ray created particles travel too fast to be captured by Earths gravity and are all safely expelled into space at relativistic speeds, and the same LSAG group stated that they do not assume that micro black holes will evaporate. But CERN never released any safety reports created by LSAG.

JTankers
LHCConcerns.com

Edited by JTankers, 04 May 2008 - 10:50 PM.

[JohnDoe1234]

Welcome to the board JTankers! (how did you find out about this thread so quickly? being the author of the material Jean posted...)

First,

but it can not compare to rigorous peer reviewed studies.

No doubt that is the case here as I am merely an undergrad freshman, however, please refrain from making generalizations like that because you might end up eating your words someday...

That is the hoax. Negative mass. No such thing

Um, sure ok... if you say so.

the negative mass particle would more likely be repelled from the black hole [the opposite sign would make for gravitational repulsion, not attraction]

Interesting, I could maybe agree with this!

It is, of course, utter lunacy to use as a "safety argument" the idea that "Hawking Radiation" will evaporate the microblackholes they hope to make in the ATLAS detector.

No, it is not. Look, it is good that you are citing papers (it brings you one step closer to legidimacy), however you can't stop there... Since you are obviously using your talents to push this concern into the public eye, you need to start explaining more of what you are citing.

So, tell me, in your own words (since you must be convinced it is the case), why it is lunacy that I use such an argument?

To me, I don't like the idea of vanishing information, and hawking radiation provides a nice little output for information as the BH is aging. So far, these black holes (if your theory is correct) would be the only exception to information entropy laws that I am aware of. As of this point, I don't think you've completed your argument.

Look man, I don't want the earth to be sucked into a black hole as much as the next guy (as shocking as that may sound!), but so far I'm just not buying what you have to say because all you do is throw around names, percentages, and polls... Get some math going here buddy!

[freethinker]

Hi Joseph, I made JTankers aware of your relevant posts. ( http://www.lhcconcer...r...hp?f=2&t=19 )

David

[JohnDoe1234]

Hi Joseph, I made JTankers aware of your relevant posts. ( http://www.lhcconcer...r...hp?f=2&t=19 )

David

Ahh ok,

Hopefully we can keep some good discussion going on this issue, it is very important!

[Ebenonce]

Andrew Svevchuk,

I noticed you referenced lifeboat, actually the have a page about the LHC

LifeBoat LHC/Particle Accelerator shield page

Infact James Blodgett of the Risk Ecvaluation forum has ties with the Lifeboat foundation, they're aware and concerned as well.

Anyway, I actually decided to post here since you have directly linked to our site LHC Concerns .

LHC concerns was created to bring the discussion of the dangers to people out there, from it's operation I have learned of Physicsts, Staticians, and many laypeople who have been following this closely or trying to raise awareness of the dangers, it's important to note that although I can point to people concerns, and find papers to support my views, it's important to also make you aware that not everyone feels the risk is great, however the risk from a statistical sense cannot be "non-zero", although many would argue that there are many other things that could spontaniously end all human life that is decidedly not non-zero as well.

The danger overall is relying on an untested theory (Hawking Radiation) and a bad analogy (Cosmic rays) for safety reassurance, almost every pro-LHC paper or statement seems to contain both of these (or atleast one) and that's just as dangerous as a catastrophic non-evaporating black hole.

of course I felt concerned enough about the dangers to establish LHC Concerns as a website, I welcome anyone here who feels one way or the other to brings your thoughts to the site, the discussion benefits from everyones input.

[Grail]

How do you test a theory without...well...testing it?

By the way, I found this interesting thread over on your forums

Also, there don't seem to be a significant amount of practicing theoretical physicists that support your argument.

Edited by Grail, 06 May 2008 - 06:51 AM.

[Gabled Arch]

How do you test a theory without...well...testing it?

By the way, I found this interesting thread over on your forums

Also, there don't seem to be a significant amount of practicing theoretical physicists that support your argument.

Fair comment and due to the extreme electrically repulsive nature of a micro black hole it would float off your hand if you were to hold one without consuming as much as an atom if it is a micro black hole.

The point is it is a theory and a very good one assuming forces and particle types almost from the moment after the big bang, some 10^-33 of a second. That is an unbelievably short amount of time.

But what if using no forces or particles there was another way to get to where we are now?

For instance:-
It is possible to work from the big bang using just gravity, space and time to simulate all the other forces? The time after the big bang assuming no other forces is an inflating fireball with turbulence which leads to whirlpools. Whirlpools are a form of storm which generate other whirlpools and rage as a storm for 130,000 years until the energy is fully in vortex whirlpool structures and energy balances between the bulk of small whirlpools and a few really big ones swallow the little energy vortices to form the structure of the universe.

The little whirlpools are atom size and as a long energy structure they are called wormholes and are extremely stable. Each end appears to have an incredible force holding it together, that is the strong nuclear force. A wormhole gate would be slightly one sided if you could pick the energy difference from the gate force holding the opening together, that’s the weak nuclear force. It would be an energy corridor and interact with energy and have charge, that would be the electromagnetic force.

So from a big bang using gravity, space and time only all the other forces can be known and the wormhole ends would be stable and we would probably call them protons.

Einstein did not like black holes as described by mathematics in 1916 and set about in 1937 with Bose to do the sums again using just energy and got worm holes and was much more satisfied with them. By then the black hole was accepted and worm holes which would look exactly like black hole were not.

I am not worried if a micro black hole is created, fine. The consequences of creating dozens of worm holes would be disastrous. It would make it very hard to live at all.

[freethinker]

from a old thread on a similar subject, Jay did a few calculations. Micro black holes are nothing we need to worry about whether they evaporate or not. It doesn't matter if Hawking radiation is real.

Luckily, such a small black hole would take a very, very long time to swallow the earth. Probably billions, if not trillions of years. At first, its surface area would be smaller than a proton: it would have a hard time swallowing the occasional atom.

By the time the black hole could work itself up to the size of a large atom (say, a nanometer in diameter), it would have a mass oon the order of 10^15 kg, the merest fraction of the earth's mass. At that size, even if we assumed that material was being sucked in at the speed of light, through a surface area of about 12.5 nm^2, the rate of mass consumption would only be about:
1.25x10^-17 m^2 * 3x10^8 m/s = 3.8x10^-9 m^3/s

That's 4 cubic millimeters per second. That's nothing. After a billion seconds, about 30 years, that's four cubic meters. Still nothing. After 30 million years, that'd be 4 million cubic meters, less material than is spewed from a large volcanic eruption.

We don't need to worry about black holes this small, even if Hawking radiation doesn't exist.

Of course it would accelerate. By the time the black hole could double in mass, it would have four times the surface area, so the rate of mass consumption would increase by a factor of four. So four cubic millimeters per second would go up to 16 cubic millimeters per second! To get a lower bound on the time it would take to double in mass from 10^15 kg to 2x10^15 kg, let's assume the full 16 cubic millimeters per second, and let's assume a density of 25 grams per cubic centimeter.

At 1.6*10^-8 m^3/s * 2.5*10^4 kg/m^3, we get 4*10^-4 kg/s. So it would take about, oh, 2.5*10^18 seconds to double in mass, as a lower bound. That's billions of years, to accelerate by a factor of four. The next factor of four would take half the time (twice the mass through four times the surface area), so the acceleration itself would accelerate. But it would take billions of years before the acceleration had any meaningful effect.

The bottom line is, a black hole this small is effectively insignificant, at least as far as the fate of earth is concerned.

from this thread:

http://www.imminst.o...&...st&p=138019

elrond,

Professor Otto Rossler calculates that a single micro black hole could destroy the Earth in as few as 50 months.

See this research paper: http://www.wissensna...NIBLACKHOLE.pdf

I see nothing in that article that refutes any of the above, and no reference to the 50 months you are referring too. His reasoning over all is quite vague.

See this link: http://www.lhcconcer...r...p?f=10&t=52

[freethinker]

from a old thread on a similar subject, Jay did a few calculations.

Not to criticize, but these numbers don't look right. For starters, the atom-sized black-hole would have a mass of around 10^-15 kg, not 10^15 kg.

10^-15 kg is about the same mass as 1000 billion hydrogen atoms, which sounds right if you consider the micro black-hole has no vacuum between its nucleus and electron cloud like atoms do (that vacuum would be all filled with collapsed atoms). "minus" is but a dash, but here it's dash that translates into 30 orders of magnitudes !

By comparison, the mass of the Earth is 6*10^24 kg.

Also, I don't think it's meaningful to calculate the damage a black hole can do based solely on how much matter per second its surface area allows it to gobble. In case you haven't noticed, demolition explosives do a lot more damage than the dump trucks which carry out the debris. Black holes "in the wild" sort of rearrange matter around them into an accretion disk and THEN suck it down. If we had a black hole on Earth, it would probably break the planet into bits quickly, and then it really wouldn't matter how much time it would take for it to swallow the bits.

But let's assume Jay's assumptions are correct and a micro black-hole won't eat up much of our planet... that'd forgetting the LHC is estimated to generate one black-hole per second. I think we all know the damage difference between a muzzle-loaded single-shot rifle and a belt-fed machine gun.

I can't be bothered enough to whip-up Matlab, but I'm pretty sure everyone talking about the LHC's micro black-holes today are talking out of their @$$es. Need I remind you how much of particle physics is based on theories and indirect evidence ? Or what the Heisenberg principle of uncertainty means ? It's not like we've ever put a black-hole sample under the microscope... actually that's why we need to build and USE machines like the LHC.

So, like I said, let's switch on that bad boy and see what happens and tell me beforehand so I can plug my ears, ya know, just in case.

Nefastor

[freethinker]

Anyone concerned about the operational safety of the Large Hadron Collider should read these pages:

CERN says there are no reasons for concern:

http://environmental...CSafety-en.html
http://askanexpert.w...ckholes-en.html

[JohnDoe1234]

Jean, do you realize what you just quoted is contra to your point?

Nefastor is right... if we are fairly certain that our conceptual framework of the underlying physics is correct, we need to go ahead and test it out.

Besides, all of the arguments you and your friend have brought to the table are hollow at best.

[freethinker]

Yes, I have changed my mind. I am no longer concerned about the LHC. See this thread: http://www.lhcconcer...r...?f=13&t=131

[JohnDoe1234]

Good to hear. I hope we are right.

[Grail]

ImmInst wins!

Edited by Grail, 08 May 2008 - 02:59 AM.

[nefastor]

I looked at a couple of the websites that Jean posted, and in one of them they said that if an MBH formed and didn't evaporate, it could convert the Earth to a 1cm sphere in 50 months!

Meh... unless they've discovered something new about black-holes, I don't think the one centimeter part is even possible. Last I checked, black holes are made of collapsed atoms, that is atoms where the (relatively) immense void between nuclei and their electronic cloud no longer exists.

Bottom line, there is a maximum density to black holes, because you can't squeeze protons and neutrons to be smaller than what they are. That density is roughly equal to that of atomic nuclei (obviously) and it means the mass of one cubic METER of the densest black hole is 10^18 kilograms.

Now, the Earth masses 6x10^24 kg, so the smallest it could ever become if swallowed by a singularity would be 6x10^6 cubic meters, or 6 million cubic meters. it's definitely very small, but it's a heckuvalot bigger than a one centimeter sphere.

There's also something else to consider : over the (supposed) fifty months it'd take for Earth to collapse into a singularity, we'd probably all die in the first few weeks, for a couple million reasons. And because I know I tend to make hugely ginormous posts... I'll spare you the list, this time

By the way, Niner, I loved "NO!!!! THAT WILL JUST SPREAD IT AROUND!!!!" Book me in for five bank robberies and twenty-six hundred hookers ! And I'll get some of those nuclear warheads too before they spoil

You know, people say time travel is impossible because otherwise we'd have gone back in time from the future and met ourselves already. Perhaps the reason that never happened is we all die in four years, before we can find out how to travel in time ?

Nefastor

(Edited for spelling)

Edited by nefastor, 08 May 2008 - 01:22 PM.

[freethinker]

According to "LHC concerns", the micro black holes caused by cosmic rays are not given enough time to accrete mass on Earth as they are traveling at near c, meaning actually that they would only grab a few protons as they sped through our Planet. But, neutron stars we see in the universe have been bombarded by a great number of such cosmic rays and they are 10 thousand billion times (1 followed by 13 zeros) denser than the Earth. How likely is it that hypothetical micro black holes caused by cosmic rays would accrete mass on these neutron stars given their extreme density as compared to the Earth?

We know neutron stars that are as old as a billion years, and they simply could not be there if stable black holes existed!

http://askanexpert.w...ckholes-en.html

David