Could a Judge Save the World from a Black Hole?

[thewise1]

Originally Posted by Scrum

hey, we wouldn't have to worry about the economy, amirite?

[nbiggershaft]

A black hole with the mass of fart. Oh no! Some people need to be removed from scientific discussion forever with a bullet to the head.

[7960]

Originally Posted by nbiggershaft

A black hole with the mass of fart. Oh no! Some people need to be removed from scientific discussion forever with a bullet to the head.

but they're arguing that it won't evaporate, so eventually it'll grow.....can you prove hawking is right or wrong?

[thewise1]

[nbiggershaft]

Originally Posted by 7960

but they're arguing that it won't evaporate, so eventually it'll grow.....can you prove hawking is right or wrong?

how would it grow, it has no significant gravitational field

[JTankers]

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.

[JTankers]

The arguments that cause an increased heart rate for me, in CERN/Rebuttal form...


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

[7960]

I see so much appeal to authority and appeal to fear I'm getting dizzy.

[nbiggershaft]

Originally Posted by 7960

I see so much appeal to authority and appeal to fear I'm getting dizzy.

Well it's hard not too, this stuff is only truly understood by a tiny population. But this kind of physics is somehow feared by all. Hence we have very few nuclear power facilities in this country. You can spot out various fallacies in his arguments though. For example, the statement "particles colliding at double light speed" clearly ignores relativity. Also the idea that disproving hawking radiation means that these miniscule reactions would inherently be dangerous is a hell of a leap.

[JTankers]

nbiggershaft writes "particles colliding at double light speed clearly ignores relativity."

To be more precise, the particles in the Large Hadron Collider crash head on in a large circular ring. Paricles travel at 99.9999991% of the speed of light, on set in one direction and one set in the other. They then collide in the middle, the net collission speed is calculated by adding the speeds of the head on colliding particles. (Same calculation used in head on car crashes).

I am not ignoring relativity, in fact I was the only student in my high school physics class 25 years ago to get a perfect score of the relativity test. The facts are correct.

From and article written by By: Theunis Bates: The Big-Bang Machine « P@radyZ-ine

• The particles will be guided around the tunnel by more than 1,600 superpowerful, cylinder-shaped ELECTROMAGNETS, some of which weigh more than 30 tons. The protons will zoom around the ring up to 11,245 times per second, reaching 99.9999991% of the speed of light.
• At four points in the ring, magnets will push the beams together, causing up to 600 million PROTON COLLISIONS per second. If all goes as planned, these high-speed, high-energy crashes will create bursts of rare forces and particles that haven’t been seen since the big bang 13.7 billion years ago.
• Four huge PARTICLE DETECTORS — the biggest, ATLAS, is 150 feet long, 82 feet high, and has more than 100 million sensors — will track and measure the particles at each collision. Filters will discard all but the 100 most interesting crashes per second. This will still produce enough data to fill a 12-mile-high stack of CDs per year.

[JTankers]

Originally Posted by nbiggershaft

the statement "particles colliding at double light speed" clearly ignores relativity.

Actually the math is correct... Particles (either proton to proton or proton to anti-proton) travel in opposite directions, each set traveling at 99.9999991% of the speed of light. They then collide head on. The calculation for net impact speed is to add the speeds of the particles involved in the head on collisions. (Same calculation is used for head on car crashes).

And no, I did not ignore relativity, in fact I was the only student in my high school physics class 25 years ago to get a perfect score on the relativity test. I understand the basic concepts of time dilation, etc. In fact I am reading a book on Einstein quotes from his later years now... The math above is correct.

• The Big-Bang Machine « P@radyZ-ine
  • The particles will be guided around the tunnel by more than 1,600 superpowerful, cylinder-shaped ELECTROMAGNETS, some of which weigh more than 30 tons. The protons will zoom around the ring up to 11,245 times per second, reaching 99.9999991% of the speed of light.
  • At four points in the ring, magnets will push the beams together, causing up to 600 million PROTON COLLISIONS per second. If all goes as planned, these high-speed, high-energy crashes will create bursts of rare forces and particles that haven’t been seen since the big bang 13.7 billion years ago.
  • Four huge PARTICLE DETECTORS — the biggest, ATLAS, is 150 feet long, 82 feet high, and has more than 100 million sensors — will track and measure the particles at each collision. Filters will discard all but the 100 most interesting crashes per second. This will still produce enough data to fill a 12-mile-high stack of CDs per year.

[JTankers]

Originally Posted by nbiggershaft

You can spot out various fallacies in his arguments though. For example, the statement "particles colliding at double light speed" clearly ignores relativity.

Not so fast nbiggershaft...

The Large Hadron Collider will collide proton to proton (and sometimes proton to anti-proton) in head on collisions with each set of particles travelling at 99.9999991% of the speed of light. The net collision speed is additive (same calculation as head-on car collisions). The kinetic energy per particle is determined by how close to the speed of light each particle travels. (That is why cosmic rays can have more energy even when the collision is moving to stationary rather than head on at same speed. The difference is how the energy is focused. Head-on collisions of same mass, same speed, exact opposite vector and center mass impact will focus the energy to a single point).

And no, I did not ignore relativity, in fact I was the only student in my high school physics class to obtain a perfect score on the relativity test, and I continued to study physics in college for two additional semesters, and independent cosmology study after. (I am currently reading a book on Einstein quotes from his later years… and refreshing my knowledge of relativity with a few other books...) I tend to have my work reviewed by more qualified professional physicists to make sure that I am accurate.

The math above is correct…

The particles will be guided around the tunnel by more than 1,600 superpowerful, cylinder-shaped ELECTROMAGNETS, some of which weigh more than 30 tons. The protons will zoom around the ring up to 11,245 times per second, reaching 99.9999991% of the speed of light.

At four points in the ring, magnets will push the beams together, causing up to 600 million PROTON COLLISIONS per second. If all goes as planned, these high-speed, high-energy crashes will create bursts of rare forces and particles that haven’t been seen since the big bang 13.7 billion years ago.

Four huge PARTICLE DETECTORS — the biggest, ATLAS, is 150 feet long, 82 feet high, and has more than 100 million sensors — will track and measure the particles at each collision. Filters will discard all but the 100 most interesting crashes per second. This will still produce enough data to fill a 12-mile-high stack of CDs per year.

[7960]

ELECTROMAGNETS and PROTON COLLISIONS and PARTICLE DETECTORS o my!



Safety at the LHC

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can achieve energies that no other particle accelerators have reached before. The energy of its particle collisions has previously only been found in Nature. And it is only by using such a powerful machine that phyicists can probe deeper into the key mysteries of the Universe. Some people have expressed concerns about the safety of whatever may be created in high-energy particle collisions. However there are no reasons for concern.

Modest by Nature's standards

Accelerators recreate the natural phenomena of cosmic rays under controlled laboratory conditions. Cosmic rays are particles produced in outer space in events such as supernovae or the formation of black holes, during which they can be accelerated to energies far exceeding those of the LHC. Cosmic rays travel throughout the Universe, and have been bombarding the Earth's atmosphere continually since its formation 4.5 billion years ago. Despite the impressive power of the LHC in comparison with other accelerators, the energies produced in its collisions are greatly exceeded by those found in some cosmic rays. Since the much higher-energy collisions provided by Nature for billions of years have not harmed the Earth, there is no reason to think that any phenomenon produced by the LHC will do so.

Cosmic rays also collide with the Moon, Jupiter, the Sun and other astronomical bodies. The total number of these collisions is huge compared to what is expected at the LHC. The fact that planets and stars remain intact strengthens our confidence that LHC collisions are safe. The LHC's energy, although powerful for an accelerator, is modest by Nature's standards.

TGVs and mosquitoes

The total energy in each beam of protons in the LHC is equivalent to a 400 tonne train (like the French TGV) travelling at 150 km/h. However, only an infinitesimal part of this energy is released in each particle collision - roughly equivalent to the energy of a dozen flying mosquitoes. In fact, whenever you try to swat a mosquito by clapping your hands together, you create a collision energy much higher than the protons inside the LHC. The LHC's speciality is its impressive ability to concentrate this collision energy into a minuscule area on a subatomic scale. But even this capability is just a pale shadow of what Nature achieves routinely in cosmic-ray collisions.

During part of its operation, the LHC will collide beams of lead nuclei, which have a greater collision energy, equivalent to just over a thousand mosquitoes. However, this will be much more spread out than the energy produced in the proton collisions, and also presents no risk.

Microscopic black holes will not eat you...

Massive black holes are created in the Universe by the collapse of massive stars, which contain enormous amounts of gravitational energy that pulls in surrounding matter. The gravitational pull of a black hole is related to the amount of matter or energy it contains – the less there is, the weaker the pull. Some physicists suggest that microscopic black holes could be produced in the collisions at the LHC. However, these would only be created with the energies of the colliding particles (equivalent to the energies of mosquitoes), so no microscopic black holes produced inside the LHC could generate a strong enough gravitational force to pull in surrounding matter.

If the LHC can produce microscopic black holes, cosmic rays of much higher energies would already have produced many more. Since the Earth is still here, there is no reason to believe that collisions inside the LHC are harmful.

Black holes lose matter through the emission of energy via a process discovered by Stephen Hawking. Any black hole that cannot attract matter, such as those that might be produced at the LHC, will shrink, evaporate and disappear. The smaller the black hole, the faster it vanishes. If microscopic black holes were to be found at the LHC, they would exist only for a fleeting moment. They would be so short-lived that the only way they could be detected would be by detecting the products of their decay.

[nbiggershaft]

Originally Posted by JTankers

Not so fast nbiggershaft...

The Large Hadron Collider will collide proton to proton (and sometimes proton to anti-proton) in head on collisions with each set of particles travelling at 99.9999991% of the speed of light. The net collision speed is additive (same calculation as head-on car collisions).

No the collision is just slightly closer to the speed of light. Like 99.9999999% C. Hence, relativity. But I'll be fair, the energy increase to speed increase near the speed of light is massive.

[JTankers]

LHCConcerns.com will pay $500.00 US to the best proposal that can reasonably prove 5% or less Risk of Planetary destruction from Micro Black Holes.

The contest will conclude in a vote by site visitors on all reasonable proofs received, all proofs will be published and the contest will end not sooner than May 20th.
(LHCConcerns will make the final call on best proposal that reasonably proves 5% or lower risk from micro black holes being created by the Large Hadron Collider).

You may prove that ANY ONE of the following or provide any other reasonable Proof or method to prevent Micro Black Holes from being created by the Large Hadron Collider or prove that they are harmless!
1. The Large Hadron Collider will not make micro black holes.
2. Micro black holes created will be sent safely into space.
3. Micro black holes will evaporate.
4. Micro black holes will take more than 2 billion years to accrete the Earth. (If you can only prove a lesser time frame, then the prize will be reduced proportionately...)
5. Any form of cosmic ray argument that proves 5% risk or lower.
6. Find a way to make the Large Hadron Collider safe from creating micro black holes (we already requested different speed collissions or different mass collisions, LSAG told us it was not possible, they already thought of it).

It is harder than it looks, the LHC Safety Assessment Group (LSAG) could not produce a safety report...
(CERN and LSAG are still using the 1999 RHIC safety report that does not even address what might happen if micro black holes were created, because they did not know that it was possible at that time. We are also being generous on the 2 billion years, we want to be reasonable)

JTankers
LHCConcerns.com

[7960]

Originally Posted by JTankers

LHCConcerns.com will pay $500.00 US to the best proposal that can reasonably prove 5% or less Risk of Planetary destruction from Micro Black Holes.

The contest will conclude in a vote by site visitors on all reasonable proofs received, all proofs will be published and the contest will end not sooner than May 20th.
(LHCConcerns will make the final call on best proposal that reasonably proves 5% or lower risk from micro black holes being created by the Large Hadron Collider).

You may prove that ANY ONE of the following or provide any other reasonable Proof or method to prevent Micro Black Holes from being created by the Large Hadron Collider or prove that they are harmless!
1. The Large Hadron Collider will not make micro black holes.
2. Micro black holes created will be sent safely into space.
3. Micro black holes will evaporate.
4. Micro black holes will take more than 2 billion years to accrete the Earth. (If you can only prove a lesser time frame, then the prize will be reduced proportionately...)
5. Any form of cosmic ray argument that proves 5% risk or lower.
6. Find a way to make the Large Hadron Collider safe from creating micro black holes (we already requested different speed collissions or different mass collisions, LSAG told us it was not possible, they already thought of it).

It is harder than it looks, the LHC Safety Assessment Group (LSAG) could not produce a safety report...
(CERN and LSAG are still using the 1999 RHIC safety report that does not even address what might happen if micro black holes were created, because they did not know that it was possible at that time. We are also being generous on the 2 billion years, we want to be reasonable)

JTankers
LHCConcerns.com

I would put a Hoover in the room with it because we all know black holes are attracted to a vacuum. Then I'd put the Hoover on a shuttle and eject it into space.

100% safe. Where's my money?

[Kytro]

Ok, I am not a particle Physicist and I am using Wiki as a source:

It is believed that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could produce one of these micro black holes, but this is highly unlikely due to the relatively small size of the collider. (It is theorized that to create a micro black hole with currently-available materials would require a circular accelerator roughly 1000 light years in diameter). Although the Standard Model of particle physics predicts that LHC energies are far too low to create black holes, some extensions of the Standard Model posit the existence of extra spatial dimensions, in which it would be possible to create micro black holes at the LHC[2][3][4] at a rate on the order of one per second. According to the standard calculations these are harmless because they would quickly decay by Hawking radiation.

So there is a really small chance that a black hole will be created unless there are extra spatial dimensions, if hawking radiation does not exist it is possible they wouldn't evaporate.

I really don't have the understanding of how mini black holes work to even speculate what would happen in this case, but I find it hard to evaluate risk without knowing if hawking radiation exists or these extra spacial dimensions exist.

[Simius]

About 5 years ago I read a sci-fi book called "hegomony" (or something like that). Anyway, scientists created a black hole in a lab on Earth and within something like 100 years it slowly started to grow until it finally destroyed the planet. It was sort of an aside to the plot of the book... but this thread reminded me of it.

Anyway, IF the black hole didn't evaporate right away it still wouldn't be a threat to the planet. The diameter of it's event horizon would be smaller than a single atom. Even if it persisted forever it would probably never actually suck up any more atoms and gain any mass.

But let's pretend it did slowly grow. It would fall to the center of the earth then come up the other side... then perpetually fall again. Whenever it picked up another atom its velocity would drop... so eventually the black hole would come to rest in the center of our planet... where there is a solid iron core. I guess the end result would be a tiny marble sized hole in the very center of our planet with a teeny hair sized black hole bouncing around in it.

Sounds like fun. When do are they turning this thing on?