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Concern Over Creating Black Holes
Maria Williams writes to tell us about worry surrounding the impending startup of CERN's Large Hadron Collider. Some fear that the device, in creating mini black holes, could jeopardize Life As We Know It. While the tiny black holes should evaporate quickly — throwing off so-called Hawking radiation that can be detected — CERN software developer Ran Livneh reminds us that "Any physicist will tell you that there is no way to prove that generated black holes will decay." The LHC site assures us there's nothing to worry about. The flap is reminiscent of the time the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider went live. The worry then was that "negative strangelets" could gobble up the world.
As long as Gordon Freeman is there to watch over the experiment, I think we'll all be okay. Maybe.
I hear the Vortigaunts are our allies.
....Hard On Collider? I think I'd prefer an earth swallowing black hole.
Of course there's a way. Empirical research, just like they're doing. First you make a black hole, then you see if it expands until it destroys all life on earth. Simple, straight forwards, effective.
You see, the problem is that we could all get sucked off before we know what's going on.
I meant sucked in.
Summation 2
...Yet
Make sure you buy your SpeedPass at your local church.
I think microscopic black holes couldn't eat up the earth due to the three stooges problem. They are so small that only an atom at a time can get in, but the gravity is strong enough to try to suck in more, so all the atoms get bunched up around the event horizon like the three stooges all trying to get through a door at the same time. Problem nullified. Whoop hoop oop! Nyuck nyuck, why I oughta!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
What will happen?
We'll all die. Simultaneously. Noone will feel anything.
What's the big problem aside from the end of the earth?
On November 3rd, 2004, civil war was narrowly averted when Kerry supporters realized that only 0.03% of them owned a gun.
Dark Reflection
working in a small cubicle, doing nothing that will ever even change the world, while these guys are working on a project that could destroy the world! I'm so jealous... I've made bad choices.