Black Holes and Hidden Dimensions

Slackware Geek writes "It is being reported in the Nature Science Update that a new observitory being built in Argentina to study cosmic rays could detect extra hidden dimensions if they exist. 'Cosmic rays could find holes in Standard Model of particle physics ...If the Universe contains invisible, extra dimensions, then cosmic rays that hit the atmosphere will produce tiny black holes. These black holes should be numerous enough for the observatory to detect.'"

Comments

Re:`Width' of a single atom

[Decimal]

> any physicists now argue we cannot experience these extra dimensions directly because they became rolled up more tightly than the width of a single atom during the Big Bang.

Do you have a problem with the concept of 'width of a single atom' or what are you saying? Or perhaps radius would be a better word?

Width or radius, neither would matter. "During" the big bang (0 - 5 seconds for example), there were no atoms. The universe was far too hot for any to form.