Micro-Black Holes Make Poor Planet Killers

astroengine writes "Physicists are getting excited about the possibility of micro-black holes (MBH) being produced by the LHC and an international group of researchers have done the math to see what kind of impact they could have on the Earth. Unfortunately, if you're a megalomaniac looking for your next globe-eating weapon, you can scrub MBHs off your WMD list. If a speedy MBH is produced, flying through our planet, it will only have a few seconds to accrete the mass of a few atoms. It would then be lost to space where it will evaporate. If a slow MBH is produced, dropping into the Earth where it sits for a few billion years, the results are even more boring."

Comments

Re:But what if slow black holes collide?

[b0ttle]

They will merge into a slighter bigger MBH.

Re:Black holes are fiction

[clone53421]

The Schwartzchild radius is the result of some clever but wrong algebraic operations.

You can cleverly look at the formula v(t) = at and decide "if a equals 1 m/s^2, then in 10 years I will be traveling at a little over 105% of c".

Similarly, you can cleverly look at the formula for the gravitational field and determine how much matter you need at a given density to make (A) the radius at which the field equals the speed of light equal to (B) the radius of your sphere of mass.

Both are incorrect, for the same reason.