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Atom Smasher May Create "Black Saturns"

Posted by kdawson on from the distinctive-Hawking-radiation dept.

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."

7 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Now wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That was what I thought when I read the article. One of the major complaints about string theory has been that there's supposedly no way to test it experimentally. But the article says such a structure could only exist if there are really four dimensions. So if we succeed in creating one, would that be an experimental confirmation of string theory? Seems to me, at the very least it would confirm one of the major premises.

  2. Re:Um..... by Normal+Dan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In theory, such a small black hole will not have enough gravitational pull to keep itself together for very long, much less pull in other matter. Such a black hole should only last a few nanoseconds (if even that), then dissipate... in theory.

    --
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  3. Re:4D black donut? by Robber+Baron · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't know about you, but I'm going to be keeping a shotgun and a chainsaw close by at all times!

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    You're using her as bait, Master!

  4. Re:Now wait a minute.. by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's real easy to beat up on an amateur on Slashdot isn't it? You'll even get modded up. Regardless, a wide segment of the scientific community look at string theory as something interesting which isn't much good for anything. Why? Because whenever someone finds a prediction with string theory that differs from observed data the string theorists have a reason why this doesn't disprove the theory. Time and again, string theory has been shown not to be disprovable. The standard model, on the other hand, has not. That's the difference.. that's what makes string theory not science. It may be interesting.. it may give us insights into how things may work, but you can't call it science. Now, if you disagree with me, please, don't take it up with me.. I'm just an amateur. Take it up with the scientific community.

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    How we know is more important than what we know.
  5. Re:Now wait a minute.. by ceoyoyo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    String theory makes several predictions that are expected to be testable in the near future. String theory being untestable is a pop science myth that distorts the underlying truth -- string theory unfortunately has lots of parameters that need to be tuned.

  6. Re:Now wait a minute.. by asavage · · Score: 4, Interesting
    In physics, spacetime is a mathematical model that combines space and time into a single construct called the space-time continuum. Spacetime is usually interpreted as a four-dimensional object with space being three-dimensional and time playing the role of the 4th dimension. According to Euclidean space perception, our universe has three dimensions of space, and one dimension of time. By combining space and time into a single manifold, physicists have significantly simplified a good deal of physical theory, as well as described in a more uniform way the workings of the universe at both the supergalactic and subatomic levels.

    Copied from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime

  7. John Titor Anyone?? by Steeltoe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If youre new to John Titor, heres the complete archive of his texts:
    http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/the_john_titor _project.html

    An interesting interview with Larry Flynt:
    http://www.larryflynt.com/notebook.php?id=95

    I have my fair deal of scepticism against John Titor and the claims he has traveled from the future to fetch an old IBM machine besides testing the time-machine, but so much that he wrote about in 2000-2001 thereabouts, has in fact come true. These are just the broad ones:
    http://johntitor.strategicbrains.com/

    This is yet another drop in this mans pretty hefty prediction bucket. At the time of this link, there were no mentions of black holes being generated in the new smasher, but now it seems that this too will come true (if possible), and very much in the same timeframe as predicted too!
    http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread124980/p g1

    This is the person who even told Hawking was wrong, and later Hawkin conceded he was wrong on the subject!
    http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.net/cgi-bin/forum. cgi?noframes;read=165532

    Time Traveller The Movie. John Titor doesnt HAVE to be proven correct. WE can DO something about it, starting with ourselves!
    http://www.fasttrackproductions.biz/TimeTravel_0.h tml

    A site that is covering news in the media and corelating it with Titors predictions:
    http://www.johntitor.com/

    I dont claim any of this is true, in whatever what you regard as truth, but when reading this, it is startling how accurate the person who wrote those messages in 2000-2001, is describing the trends of our society, problems of the US, Mac Cow Disease, CERN beginning to experiment with mini-black holes, and much more.. For the sake of our planet, and our future, it is worth considering living as THOUGH weve already been through this, than not. He describes a more primitive, but also a more enlightened society if you read the archives from the first link.

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    http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/