Freaking Scientists at it again...

[Sindawe]

Lab fireball 'may be black hole'
 
Creating the conditions for the formation of black holes is one of the aims of particle physics
A fireball created in a US particle accelerator has the characteristics of a black hole, a physicist has said.

It was generated at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in New York, US, which smashes beams of gold nuclei together at near light speeds.

Horatiu Nastase says his calculations show that the core of the fireball has a striking similarity to a black hole.

Continues here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4357613.stm

Abstract here: http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0501068

[Preacherman]

Now, how can we get this device into the next meeting of the Brady Bunch?

[Taurus]

Could this be one of the very early building blocks for future worm hole travel? We will never know in our lifetimes, but we can always theorize till we burn ourselves out.

[jamz]

I knew the Half Life scenario was going to come true!!



-Love, James

[Werewolf]

However, even if the ball of plasma is a black hole, it is not thought to pose a threat. At these energies and distances, gravity is not the dominant force in a black hole.

Not yet - maybe.

I'm usually all for unrestricted scientific research but this stuff seems a bit dangerous. Black holes suck in everything they come in contact with. Even a very, very small one. It might take a while for it to become large enough to cause the end of the world but time is on it's side.

Sometimes I wonder about those guys. When the first fission device was set off at Alamogordo, NM back in '45 some scientists predicted that the explosion would ignite the atmosphere. They turned out to be wrong. Now the guys making black holes say don't worry about it they're too small. What if they're wrong? AND that "it is not thought" turn of phrase is kind'a disturbing too. Kind'a indicates that they really aren't all that sure - huh?

Scary!

[Sindawe]

Could this be one of the very early building blocks for future worm hole travel?

No No NO!  I was thinking about this after posting last night.  This really is NOT something we should be playing with on our only planet.  If By some twisted fate these or some other set of scientists are able to create a stable mini-black hole (and you know somebody has got to be thinking "Gee, what a neat toy, I wonder if we can turn it into a weapon?" <<>>) and then the drop it on the floor. The floor aint gonna stop it, nor will the bedrock below the ground.  It would just keep falling toward the core and then rise back toward the surface, back and forth, over and over, giving the planet a lovely swiss cheese effect until it settles in the middle.

[Phyphor]

settles?  It'd never settle, it'd keep orbiting, eating matter every second, getting bigger...the bigger it gets, the more it eats.

Oh sure, it'd take a while to be *really* dangerous, but I for one am NOT too hip on the idea of possibly dropping a singularity into the core of an inhabited planet, especially one I happen to be on.

[Control Group]

Actually, I wouldn't get too worried about black hole research. Black holes "evaporate" over time (the Hawking radiation that we detect coming off black holes doesn't come from nowhere, it's a mass-energy conversion, effectively). The larger the black hole, the slower it evaporates. By which I do not mean it takes longer, I mean the rate of evaporation is slower; the radiant energy:mass ratio is smaller. Conversely, the smaller a black hole is, the faster it evaporates.

How long are we talking about, here? Well, for a black hole of one solar mass (mass equivalent to our sun), the total evaporation period is roughly 10^63 years, or longer than the universe is expected to survive. However, this is a lot of mass. To create a black hole that would live for one full second, you need to create one with a mass of more than 2E5 kg - around 250 short tons.

The Schwarzchild radius (event horizon) for a black hole is r=(2Gm)/(c^2), where r is the Schwarzchild radius, G is the gravitational constant (6.67E-6 m^3 s^-1 kg^-1), m is the mass of the black hole, and c is the speed of light (roughly 3E8 m s^-1). So, for our 1-second black hole, given that I haven't made any stupid mistakes in my powers-of-ten, you have an event horizon on the order of 1.0E-25 meters, or 0.0000000000000000000000001 meters. For comparison, a hydrogen atom is roughly 5E-11 meters, or 0.00005 meters. For anything significantly outside the Schwarzchild radius, the gravitational pull is no different than the same mass if it weren't a black hole. So, to your average atom wandering past this black hole, it's no different than wandering past 250 tons of whatever.

Of course, this all assumes that our current understanding of black holes is accurate...but then, if it isn't, what they've created isn't "really" a black hole either, is it?

For more information, check out these sites, or google "black hole evaporation":

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/H/Ha/Hawking_radiation.htm
http://www.alcyone.com/max/writing/essays/black-hole-evaporation.html

[Lee]

Whoooo ....I feel better now.

[bobs1066]

There was a fairly cool movie called "The Quiet Earth" in the 80's that had science guys getting the earth sucked out of normal space into wierdness. IIRC, it was made in New Zealand.

[jefnvk]

What's that quote fom Jurassic Park?  'You've been so preoccupied whether or not you can do it, you haven't stopped to think about if you should do it.'  Or something like that.

I'm don't know much Physics, but I think that a black hole on the Earth is not a good thing.

[Schuey2002]

"Nostradamus made no mention of black holes, so I'm cool."

[Fjolnirsson]

Control Group,
You lost me. I really need to read up on my physics and such.....

[brimic]

What caliber would you recommend for stopping a rampaging black hole

[Myself]

Talk about an ideal small CCW piece.  Imagine a .005" black hole shot out of a gun at 4000 fps.

[brimic]

I'm betting anti-matter bullets, even the 9mm variety, would get a lot of one shot stops and might slow down a black hole.

[DustinD]

This thread is funny. I guess the anti's will claim that particle accelerators are the new weapon of choice for gang bangers now.