Cern 'black Hole Creator'

[pumbles 0]

It's the end of the world! Inside a large Swiss cylinder a black hole is going to be created that will engulf the entire earth and all the people in it!
The above was basically the gist of some folks that love disaster movies. But what they don't know is that one of the greatest machines ever built has started operating two days ago.

This machine is CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest particle accelerator in the world. A historic multi-billion dollar project involving over 8,000 scientists from 85 countries, the LHC took over 14 years to build. It is 27 kms long. And it also happens to threaten the very laws of Physics.

The function of the LHC? To recreate the conditions of the new born universe. The LHC collides proton beams at levels of energy never before produced in a particle accelerator. Those results will then be studied for clues to new forces of nature, and possibly even extra dimensions of space.

Sounds boring? Here's the simpler version - black holes will be created... dark energy will be studied... the fourth dimension might just be viewed... and the Grand Unified Theory will finally be complete.

Is this just a waste of billions of dollars, a valuable scientific experiment, or a genuine risk of creating a chain reaction which will ultimately destroy the earth?

Could this even be the answer to the creation conundrum?

This experiment could perhaps confirm the big bang theory, and the existence of black holes, either of which could have tremendous ramifications. It could justify the belief in God, or further weaken that belief.

Personally, I think it is just a vast toy for scientists to play with.
Edited September 9, 2008 by pumbles (see edit history)

[yordan 10]

This states the big question concerning experimental science.A theory remains a theory until the moment when somebody shows that this theory leads to something you can physically reproduce.Everything we can guess concerning the way heavy particles interact, cannot be proven without touching such particles. And the energies inside the atom nucleus are so huge, that in order to study them you must use a also huge amount of energy.Of course, some people may think that this is a waste of energy.However, remember that you would never have been able to surf the Web on your PC, without the nuclear accelerators which are currently used in order to bury Argon an Phosphor atoms deep under the surface of the silicon wafers which are used in order to create the MOS chips for your computers.So, knowing how our Universe is made allows us to interact with it. And knowing how to interact with the Universe costs a lot. Do we have money enough is another story, but yes, it's useful. A simple way to know that it's useful, is thinking about the fact that a lot of nations put a lot of money in order to be able to work together on such subjects.And, of course, black holes really exist, they are the signature of the ultimate stage of a star's death. We know where they are, but we cannot go there in order to observe them because it would cost a lot of time in order to go there, and a lot of energy in order to be able to survive and come back. And far less energy in order to try to reproduce the phenomena here.And, of course, it's dangerous, but... it's a very small phenomena which will last some picoseconds. So, yes, danger, but less danger than allowing some children play with matches.

[wutske 0]

If this thing fails and creates a black hole, who would care ? We'd be all dead or in another dimension (in the later we traveld trough space and time and THAT would be cool ). It's a waste of time, money and energy if it doesn't produce usefull knowledge. 14 years of work just to know how universes are created or to prove the big bang theory is just stupid. If it gives us a new energy source or a black hole which we can use the dump our waste in another dimension ... then those 14 years of work where worth it, otherwise they should have spend the money on other (more usefull) resource that would certainly return some usefull knowlege.

[darasen 0]

I am rather certain there is going to be no "Black Hole" forming and sucking the planet into it.

 

From Science Daily:

 

The Giddings/Mangano study concludes that such microscopic black holes would be harmless. In fact, he added, nature is continuously creating LHC-like collisions when much higher-energy cosmic rays collide with the Earth's atmosphere, with the Sun, and with other objects such as white dwarfs and neutron stars. If such collisions posed a danger, the consequences for Earth or these astronomical objects would have become become evident already, Giddings said.

Furthermore for whatever reason the terms black hole and singularity seem to be confused in some of the material I have read. A black hole is typically a term used to identify an astronomical object such as the super massive black hole at the center of out own galaxy. Where as a singularity describes a single sub-atomic particle. In the case of the collider they are referencing a singularity that manages to attaract some mass to it before it stops existing and releases it's energy. But this would all take place in 10^-17 th of a second. Also note that this will only occur if certain theories are correct.

 

While I am in science pendant mode allow me to correct another small misconception. The Big Bang Theory is about the expansion of the universe not particularly the creation of the universe. Certain amounts of matter have to exist for there to be any bang in the first place. The theory is generally accepted as fact as it is given the evidence we have of red shifted light and the universal background radiation. This is a misconception that the theory aims to provide for an explanation for all the matter in the universe is simply ill informed.

 

This misconception of the Big Bang Theory is one I have seen, however, in several places leading to uninformed statements like those in the OP about disproving a creator, (No offense intended). Biblically the creation events of the first chapter of Genesis exist not to be a descriptor of the scientific laws and principles used (put into place by God) but establish His authority over all creation. To say that the Big Bang Theory Proves or Disproves the existence of God Is like saying His existence is disproved by discovering the Earth is round or that it circles the Sun. Certainly there were those that thought these concepts were heretical but this was based not on His scripture but because of their own limited understanding. This lack of understanding makes people want to put their limitations on God.

 

Back to the science at hand. The Collider may provide the scientific communities with some outstanding data to further our understanding of the universe. If we could verify the existance of a fourth dimension (5th actually) and come that much closer to figuring out gravity, and why it is far weaker than it should be, we could be that much closer to controlling it someday. Artificial gravity anyone? Every bit of practical science starts off as abstract and less practical. When we learn the science necessary to make these things every day is when we move forward technologically. consider the fact that as science stands we will never be able to visit extra-solar planets, relativistic physics simply precludes being able to travel fast enough and avoid time dilation. But, if we can verify things like string theory or discover newer even more bizarre theories perhaps these limitations can be circumvented. More immediately it is not beyond reason to suppose a greater understanding of quantum mechanics overall could lead to us abandoning the microchip for quantum computers instead. Realistically this is some thing we could see in the next 20 years with the procurement of new knowledge.

 

The possibilities are amazing and I certainly wish all the scientist on this project the best. I can;t wait to see some of the reports on the data as they come out.

[pyost 0]

And eveything went just fine

[Feelay 0]

And eveything went just fine

You don't know. The thing happenes in schweiz.. (I think it's named in english )
I think it takes time for the effect (if there was any) to reach the other countries

[darasen 0]

*Sigh* Once more everyone check your facts. The Large Hadron Collider has yet to collide anything. Photon were injected and passed in only one direction thus there has been no collision. Two sub atomic particles that may not evn exist for 1 / 1000000000000000000000000th of a second is of zero concern.

[yordan 10]

*Sigh* Once more everyone check your facts. The Large Hadron Collider has yet to collide anything. Photon were injected and passed in only one direction thus there has been no collision.
Two sub atomic particles that may not evn exist for 1 / 1000000000000000000000000th of a second is of zero concern.

No, it's not the way it works.
In current high energy physics, when something has one chance over one million to occur and you try one hundred million times, it will occur one hundred times.
That's the miracle when very small probabilities concern a huge amount of events. What you are talking about is a probability of ten to the -24. If your experiment concerns ten to the +27, you will see one thousand events. If your experiment concerns ten to the +30 (less particles than inside the sugar you put in you cup of coffee) you will see one million events.

[Quatrux 4]

I just hope that this experiment, which really will be written in history books will be successful and we could answer a lot of questions, let the scientists do the work, I'm quite interested with the results and I really find a lot of humour about this, especially personal websites with timers where they say xxx time left to the world end and blah blah ;)I doubt this project could really start if it would be really dangerous, but who knows..

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

I'm not sure how's this such a huge concern at this moment. If indeed the probability of creating a blackhole big enough to suck Earth in was a huge probability, then no one would be even be dumb enough to fund the project and governments of TWO countries would not agree to this.So, I'm not too sure why it is such a BIG issue.xboxrulz

[darasen 0]

No, it's not the way it works.In current high energy physics, when something has one chance over one million to occur and you try one hundred million times, it will occur one hundred times.
That's the miracle when very small probabilities concern a huge amount of events. What you are talking about is a probability of ten to the -24. If your experiment concerns ten to the +27, you will see one thousand events. If your experiment concerns ten to the +30 (less particles than inside the sugar you put in you cup of coffee) you will see one million events.

Allow me to clarify the last line of my post as it does read a bit unclear.

Two sub atomic particles that may not even exist for 1 / 1000000000000000000000000th of a second is of zero concern.

should read more like:
When two sub atomic particles interact (An Interaction that may never take place) for 1 / 1000000000000000000000000th of a second that interaction is of zero concern.

Thus I was not talking about the probability of any event rather than noting how fast any "miniature black hole" would last in the collider. Yes that is about the length of time any "black hole" would exist before it decayed.

Granted saying the interaction may never take place might sound like a reference to probability. But, the statement is a reference to the fact that the scientist involved do not actually know if they will create a mini black hole given that the scientific models that allow for the creation of such an event are very much theoretical. Certainly they are grounded in good science and mathematically they make sense. However the lack of directly observable evidence means that they remain theories. All that to say that if certain theories are not quite right then there remains an absolutely firm zero % chance of a mini black hole ever being created, regardless of how many times an experiment is ran. Conversely if they are correct there is a 100% chance one would be created.

Allow me to add some more information to the discussion.

So if everything does indeed lend itself to the creation of a mini black hole inside the collider then what? Consider that the mini black hole is only gong to last "a few billion billion billionths of a second" after that time the mini black hole evaporates into other elementary particles. This is called Hawking Radiation. Even if Hawking is wrong (doubtful at best) and the mini black hole does not evaporate it would still be so incredibly small (having no more mass than a pair of subatomic particles) that it would never be able to gain enough mass to ever be a threat to the planet. This statement is confirmed by the the presence of celestial objects like white dwarfs.

Lastly, there is in science, even Quantum Mechanics, a point of probability that is considered impossible.

[darasen 0]

I'm not sure how's this such a huge concern at this moment. If indeed the probability of creating a blackhole big enough to suck Earth in was a huge probability, then no one would be even be dumb enough to fund the project and governments of TWO countries would not agree to this.
So, I'm not too sure why it is such a BIG issue.

xboxrulz

Largely due to a general lack of basic scientific knowledge. Then there are others that prey on this lack of knowledge and sensationalism always makes good headlines.

[yordan 10]

I think the question is simpler than that.High energy physics need high energy accelerators. So, it's normal, when upper energy limit is reached with a given machine, scientists guess that they should be able to learn more with a higher energy machine.And, of course, when public money is involved, it could be smart to explain simply what is the result which can be expected from this device. If a scientist says "I would like to verify the current theoretical model describing carbon 13 by means of impulsing high energy to some tiny pieces of charcoal" nobody would be interested. But if you add "using the time reversal mechanism in the transfer matrix this could explain the behavior of the original thing some picoseconds after the big bang" this sounds very interesting for a lot of people. And if you add "some of the collision fragments will behave like black holes" you win the advertisement jackpot.

[last-king 0]

 

this is a rap music from one of the cern scientist:

https://msu.edu/errorhandler404.php

 

in the tunnle :

https://vimeo.com/1431471?pg=embed&sec=1431471

[skedad 0]

So let us say that it is possible... where would you use it, and would it really work as it is supposed to? And the result would be that... What instant disaster? There is a swarming vortex on the West Coast of the States. So everything is being pulled into Los Angeles, so when it all gets absorbed, what is next? I just don't fully understand the capabilities... shouldn't it be installed in or on a rocket and then boom zap it towards Earth when it is in Space!!?? Then what!!?? The rocket just goes off, no more Earth...Obviously, I have not given it the right amount of thought... But has anybody really? And if so, then bravo, alert me when I have to worry... And I just watch way too many SciFi movies and shows and cartoons to just realize that it is fun to really wonder, but if it were to really happen, then to pray because what good could come from having this technology!!??Just a thought or few...