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Lab Created Black Hole?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the originally-dismissed-as-a-fart-in-the-air-conditioning dept.

Blarrrg writes "Humans may have created the first ever black hole in a lab. From the article: 'When the gold nuclei smash into each other they are broken down into particles called quarks and gluons. These form a ball of plasma about 300 times hotter than the surface of the Sun. This fireball, which lasts just 10 million, billion, billionths of a second, can be detected because it absorbs jets of particles produced by the beam collisions.'"

11 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting Result by seanellis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If it is a black hole, it's comforting to see that Hawking was right and they do evaporate, rather than sit at the Earth's core devouring us all.

    Even if it's not a black hole, experiments that produce surprising results are always welcome.

    --
    Sean Ellis
    Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
    1. Re:Interesting Result by david.given · · Score: 3, Interesting
      If it is a black hole, it's comforting to see that Hawking was right and they do evaporate, rather than sit at the Earth's core devouring us all.

      You are aware that if he was wrong and the black hole didn't evaporate, then it would also emit no Hawking radiation and be largely undetectable? So it could very well have fallen out the bottom of the collider and even now be orbiting the Earth's core deep underground...

    2. Re:Interesting Result by Wolfger · · Score: 3, Funny
      Even if it's not a black hole, experiments that produce surprising results are always welcome.
      I would have said "experiments that produce surprising results and are reproducable are always welcome."
      I would have said, "Experiments that produce surprising results and are reproducable and don't cause a major catastrophy are always welcome."
      --
      Nothing to see here. Move along.
  2. Here by secondsun · · Score: 5, Informative

    How about instead of the beeb we get some papers?

    http://arxiv.org/find/grp_q-bio,grp_cs,grp_physics ,grp_math,grp_nlin/1/all:+AND+Nastase"+"Horatiu/0/ 1/0/all/0/1

    Direct link didn't work in the preview so you guys have to copy and paste.

    Not all are directly related to the article, but a few are.

    --
    There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
    1. Re:Here by Randolpho · · Score: 3, Informative

      You could have just used this link instead....

      --
      "Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
      -Marilyn Manson
  3. duration? by Uncle+Kadigan · · Score: 5, Informative
    This fireball, which lasts just 10 million, billion, billionths of a second,

    So, it lasts 10, 000,000, 000,000,000 / 1,000,000,000 = 10, 000,000 or 10 million seconds, or (lessee, carry the one...) almost 116 days?

    You know, scientific notation was created for a reason.

  4. The Temperature Seems Low... by BurntNickel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    These form a ball of plasma about 300 times hotter than the surface of the Sun.

    According to The Physics Factbook the temperature of the surface of the sun is approximately 6000 C. (I am assuming that it is the photosphere temperature that is ment here.) A temperature 300 times higher would be about 1.8 million C which is an order of magnitude less than the temperature at the center of the sun (~15 million C). I would have thought that these collions would have resulted in temperatures much higher than that.

    Does anyone have a better reference for the effective temperature involved?

    --
    And the knowledge that they fear is a weapon to be used against them...
    1. Re:The Temperature Seems Low... by slughead · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Does anyone have a better reference for the effective temperature involved?

      It's about a billion times hotter than the ambient temperature of the Library of Congress.

      --
      Latewire
  5. Old news, black hole unlikely by TeknoHog · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Disclaimer: I'm studying/working on this stuff.

    AFAIK, there's a strong dispute over whether this is really a black hole. The most plausible explanation against black holes at RHIC is that you get similar effects (rapid thermalization) from the high acceleration only, and gravity is not needed. Google for 'Unruh effect' for more.

    The interesting/important bit about these heavy ion collision experiments is the creation of quark-gluon plasma, which resembles matter at the very early stages of our universe.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  6. Not a black hole? by Aielman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's not really a 'black hole', more of a 'singularity'. IANAPhysicist, but in my opinion a black hole actually lasts long enough to trap at least one photon (hence the word 'black'). During the 1E-25 seconds this singularity was around, a photon moving at a nice round 3E8 m/s has the opportunity to move about 0.0000003 Angstroms. 1 Angstrom is the width of a hydrogen atom. This kind of makes me wonder how fast the "jets of particles" are moving that are absorbed. Is it more that they just didn't appear when expected so were assumed absorbed?

  7. That's nothin' by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 3, Funny

    >> Humans may have created the first ever black hole in a lab.

    That's nothin'. Three years ago my PHB created a black hole in his office. He calls it a desk, but everyone else knows better.