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Atom Smasher May Create "Black Saturns"
David Shiga writes "If we ever make black holes on Earth, they might be much stranger objects than the star-swallowing monsters known to exist in space. According to a new theory, any black hole that pops out of the Large Hadron Collider under construction in Switzerland might be surrounded by a black ring — forming a microscopic 'black Saturn'. This could happen if extra dimensions exist, as string theory suggests, and if they are large enough." An evocative excerpt from the article: "...there is an outside chance that in a few years in a tunnel near Geneva, physicists will make a black hole far smaller than a proton and circled by a squashed four-dimensional black doughnut."
Are you actually suggesting that string theory might actually predict something that the standard model doesn't, and what it predicts might actually be measurable?! That's crazy talk! Next you'll be suggesting that string theory is disprovable and therefore actually science. I'll believe it when it happens.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The ones that occur without warning, last only a short time, and emit enough energy to wipe out entire solar systems?
What if every time we see one of those gamma-ray bursts, we're watching a civilization gain the necessary technology to do something like this?
Things that make you go "Hmm."
Am I the only one concerned that making mini-black holes might suck in the whole earth? That they're trying this kind of stuff is pretty scary. What about doing it on the moon or on mars instead? Sheesh..
The funny part is, even though the relation you are joking about is obviously not the original intent; the article doesn't do much better. The need to relate a look or description to a common object is very standard in media. Saturn is not the only object surround by a ring, nor does it really relate to the ring that the article is taking about. It just make a more personal relationship to the concept by stating that it's like Saturn.
"I only know 2 things: The love for me, and the fear of me."
Yah! I know something that has a ring...
D'OH! goatse'd yet again!!!
First of all, they will dissipate almsot instantly due to Hawking radiation. Second of all, they are so tiny that they will rarely (if ever) get close enough to swallow something else.
Third of all: The kind of (and energy of) collision in question occurs with non-trivial frequency when cosmic rays hit atoms in the atmosphere. If it created a long-lived black hole that could suck down a planet in a geologically short time we would have been down the drain LONG ago.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If it was that easy to make black holes, then cosmic rays could cause black holes...
I think Prof Hawking said that a collider capable of making black holes, would be the size of the solar system.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
like this or like this or like this or with this if you want to go low tech (light has no charge and is smaller than a proton).
Okay sorry for the flippant answer, basically in particle physics, protons are huge, very large (but not massive) objects. Finding something smaller than them is pretty easy because size doesnt matter. What matters is the strength of its interaction with the rest of the universe. So we find small objects via their interactions with other objects which we can detect in our detectors. No charge makes things a little more tricky but objects can also carry colour charge and weak isospin and thats how we would find an electrically neutral object. Neutrinos, the hardest particles to detector only interact via the weak force and they are almost impossible to see but we do detect them. Also we can detect things like neutrinos by the absence of things, they carry away energy from the collision and we can detect that theres not all the energy there should be.
Shouldn't this kinda thing be done off-planet?
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Things that make you go "Hmm."
Nah, not me. I tend to respect what precious little science knowledge I have by not using it to make up random shit.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
I agree. If the maths is rigorous & good, then give it breathing space until it's testable - what's the hurry? Why should String theories be bad, even if wrong? If they're wrong, then we'll have those fewer paths to have to choose between. In the meantime, let the equations be what they are. The maths will serve a use (simply by sitting on the shelf, for now) to somebody in the future - if the miseries will allow us, all, to go forth & multiply into that future!
;)
Any of the nay-sayers got a better, with equally conscise maths, idea for pre-'Big Bang'?
[n.b. Forget a 'Matrix' - it discounts Occam's Razor.]