Sensible Erection | The benefits of black holes

Friday, 8 August 2008

quote [ So when I say “we don’t know what will happen,” it doesn’t mean we have a new source of uncontrollable risk. I’m simply saying that the picture of the universe that we will see could be very interesting. ]

A good story about the possibility of a micro blackhole created by the LHC, all the possible risks, and why such am event would radically change the way we have to view the universe.

I found the article via another link made in a SE comment.
Couldn't retrace my tracks, so thanks whoever linked to another cosmiclog article.

I love the end:

You know, 5 billion years from now, the sun is going to blow up. There is nothing we can do about that. This will be worse than global warming. It will be worse than a meteorite hitting Earth. If we want to survive for more than 5 billion years, we have to find a way out of this place – and the way to get out of this place is not just by building more powerful rockets. We have to understand more about spacetime and how to travel in a much more efficient way.

[sci&tech] [by Vernes@9:58amGMT] [+10 Interesting]

Comments

damnit said @ 10:08am GMT on 8th Aug
Sometimes science just scares the shit out of you... or sucks it.

jaxtraw said @ 10:38am GMT on 8th Aug
Destroying the whole world would be like totally AWESOME.

Vernes said @ 2:10pm GMT on 8th Aug
and like totally impossible.

Like the article mentioned, all the scenario's where an blackhole would appear from what they've learned about blackholes and the nature of our galaxy, it would not be the end of our world.

bigdummy said @ 2:48pm GMT on 8th Aug
I'd like to see what your response to my comments is.

Vernes said @ 3:01pm GMT on 8th Aug
pinutbutter

bigdummy said @ 3:18pm GMT on 8th Aug
gelly?

stevetrmbone said @ 3:29pm GMT on 8th Aug
sammich?

k0k0peli said @ 5:30am GMT on 10th Aug
penisbutter

JoseTortilla said @ 4:05pm GMT on 8th Aug [Score:1 Insightful]
Wouldn't any response to your comment that truly explained the lack of risk sound like "throwing a bunch of science at you?"

It doesn't seem to me like there's any answer that you would find satisfying. One can always respond "but you're not really 100% sure, are you?" about anything, and nobody can realistically say yes to that.

bigdummy said @ 4:39pm GMT on 8th Aug [Score:2 Underrated]
Actually I think I understand the scientific reasoning relatively well, it's just that logically the case that "we don't know what will happen, but are 100% certain it won't be dangerous" is pretty unsustainable.
What they are really saying is "we are pretty sure that by observing the known universe we can be 99% sure that this experiment, which is by its very nature going to create conditions which we have never observed before, is probably not going to be dangerous." That's not any kind of guarantee.

When I say, "throw a bunch of science at you", I am referring to statements like this:
"It has to have an effect at a large distance. But at a large distance, we don’t worry about the microscopic state of a black hole. It’s all electromagnetism, it’s fluid dynamics, it’s the standard physics that we know very well."
I work with fluid dynamics and I can tell you that it is not at all a 100% settled science, there are still many important unanswered questions in the field. So he is "throwing science" at us and assuming that as lay-people we will just accept all the underlying assumptions that he is referring to since we don't closely study the fields he is referring to. And the whole point of standard physics is that there IS NO unified theory so he is basing his reassuring take on the experiment on what?

As far as the "large distance vs. small object" argument, isn't it true that we are only now beginning to understand that "spooky action at a distance" is a part of quantum physics. And since there is no unified theory of physics to explain both gravity and quantum mechanics, isn't it impossible to mathematically predict the results of this experiment?

Vernes said @ 9:04pm GMT on 8th Aug
Howlong do we need to wait to run this experiment?

Or rather, should we EVER run this experiment?

And hope we figure out another experiment that could shed some new light on the workings of our reality?

Preferably before any of the list of cosmic desasters hit us?
The nastiest I've heard sofar is the one where a neutron star (or any other celectial lighthouse) shines his polar beams our way after slowly rotating its axis in our direction.

I'd like the scenario where we find out there was a shortcut all this time, and take it.
Start building spacestations all around the milkyway and find Earth 2 and repeat untill it gets boring.

bigdummy said @ 3:02pm GMT on 10th Aug
I think we absolutely have to run this and other dangerous experiments. I just think that writing a scientific paper using known and established science to claim that the unknowable results of an incomplete experiment to produce theoretical particles is completely safe is crazy. The one thing the people running this experiment CAN'T say is that it has even the slightest hint of danger, even if it might be dangerous, because they wouldn't be allowed to do it.

edga alunpo said @ 11:10am GMT on 8th Aug
I bet all they find are even smaller particles to baffle people with.

cb361 said @ 4:11pm GMT on 8th Aug
And then they'd want more money to build a Really Large Hadron Collider.

wyckedfae said @ 4:50pm GMT on 8th Aug
The OMGWTF Collider.

insanemonkey said @ 5:04pm GMT on 8th Aug
You mean a VLHC?

insanemonkey said @ 5:05pm GMT on 8th Aug
or even just an SLHC

zsander said @ 8:10pm GMT on 8th Aug
Or maybe:
S.uperconducting
P.article
A.ccelerating
S.upercolliders
T.raveling
I.n
C.ircles...

insanemonkey said @ 11:46pm GMT on 8th Aug
or a
Colliding
Unmagnetic
Neutrino
Test

Baxter_UK said @ 11:51am GMT on 8th Aug [Score:4 Funny]
Vaguely related:

Q: Why are quantum physicists so poor at sex?
A: Because when they find the position, they can't find the momentum, and when they have the momentum, they can't find the position.

zsander said @ 8:07pm GMT on 8th Aug
Quantum Physicists Do It Uncertainly.

verycleanteeth said @ 9:06pm GMT on 8th Aug
Divers do it deeper

Rainbow Randolf said @ 9:45pm GMT on 8th Aug [Score:1 Funny]

edit said @ 12:42am GMT on 9th Aug [Score:1 Funny]

Supreme_Coconut said @ 10:48pm GMT on 8th Aug
Physicists do it with less frequency.

insanemonkey said @ 11:43pm GMT on 8th Aug
Biologists get sticky

Baxter_UK said @ 12:19am GMT on 9th Aug
Logicians (do it) v (~do it)

Baxter_UK said @ 12:19am GMT on 9th Aug
Cantor did it diagonally.
Fermat tried to do it in the margin, but couldn't fit it in.
Galois did it the night before.
Möbius always does it on the same side.
Markov does it in chains.
Newton did it standing on the shoulders of giants.
Turing did it but couldn't decide if he'd finished.

benjamander said @ 1:07am GMT on 10th Aug
Descartes did it right.

k0k0peli said @ 5:29am GMT on 10th Aug
Bankers do it with severe interest penalties for early withdrawal.

benjamander said @ 6:37am GMT on 10th Aug
Plato did it with his teacher. In a cave.

cardinal said @ 12:30pm GMT on 8th Aug
I choose not to believe him and spend all my money in the next few months on solid gold hookers.

Shirobake said @ 12:39pm GMT on 8th Aug
I tried that once, and got ripped. Damn pyrite.

fourtaytude said @ 4:54pm GMT on 8th Aug
Remember, kids! The Mohs hardness scale is your friend!

wyckedfae said @ 6:25pm GMT on 8th Aug
Bend over and I'll show you a hardness scale.

leswilkerson said @ 6:31pm GMT on 8th Aug [Score:1 Funny]
Bend over, I'll show you the benefits of black holes.

HPew said @ 12:47pm GMT on 8th Aug
"If we want to survive for more than 5 billion years." No species has managed more than a few million years. To claim the sun turning into a red giant is a reason give physicists huge piles of cash is total bullshit. Based on the past the Earth will suffer a minimum of FIFTY mass extinction events in that same time and I think mass extinction #1 or #2 will be infinitely more important to us.

Nostrildamus said @ 1:03pm GMT on 8th Aug
"No species has managed more than a few million years."

How the fuck do you know this, are you omniscient?

radioelectric said @ 2:27pm GMT on 8th Aug
Cyanobacteria, 4 billion years.

Vernes said @ 2:37pm GMT on 8th Aug
How about the ones we DON'T know?

Navier-Strokes said @ 2:56pm GMT on 8th Aug
2.8 billion years

Species we don't know, we shouldn't assume live longer.

HPew said @ 3:38pm GMT on 8th Aug
It should be obvious that I'm concerned about a higher level of organization than bacteria. The need to specify the phyla of my concerns to protect me against a straw man argument just didn't occur to me.

And yes, in relation to past ELEs, I am omniscient - its not very useful so I tend not to mention it.

radioelectric said @ 5:01pm GMT on 8th Aug
You should be more careful with the words you use then. You could argue that higher-order species may be more specialised and vulnerable to change than bacteria.

Unless you think God is looking down on the eve of each mass extinction going "I must destroy everything except for single celled organisms and beetles" (god fucking LOVES beetles) then you're going to have to accept that the classification of the organism doesn't matter so much.

Jehovah said @ 5:28am GMT on 10th Aug
Mass extinctions and planet-smashing are FUN and they help clear the boards for the next games, I mean experiments. Trilobites didn't measure up; carnosaurs didn't measure up; humans won't measure up. All you hairless apes will be mighty embarrassed when you're replaced by cockroaches and cyborg wharf rats, won't you?

benjamander said @ 1:11am GMT on 10th Aug
It is not obvious, nor should it be.

What kind of scientific reasoning is that...?

OH MY GOD HE"S A PSYCHOLOGIST!!!

EPT said @ 4:25pm GMT on 8th Aug
Bollocks. It was originally magentobacteria!

mrcookieface said @ 4:29pm GMT on 8th Aug
We hold a distinct advantage by being a species that's capable of recognizing that fact and actively working against it. There's probably only the slimmest chance that the human race (were it to keep itself going that long) would necessarily be recognizable to us 5 billion years on, but still; Faced with the knowledge that staying here on planet Earth means an almost guaranteed extinction, we can work to change that.

RoboRonnie said @ 9:48pm GMT on 8th Aug
I'll be damned if my Morlock grandchildren will be robbed of their warp drive!!!

EdieMorlock said @ 5:23am GMT on 10th Aug
You stay away from me and my kids! I'll get a restraining order and a pit bull and a taser! Go warp-drive your old girlfriend!

bigdummy said @ 1:35pm GMT on 8th Aug [Score:3 Insightful]
"We know that in order for the black hole to do anything macroscopic, it has to behave as a big object. It has to have an effect at a large distance. But at a large distance, we don’t worry about the microscopic state of a black hole. It’s all electromagnetism, it’s fluid dynamics, it’s the standard physics that we know very well."

The problem is that, of course, there is currently NO unified theory of physics which necessarily means that some of the assumptions that they are basing this safety report on COULD be wrong. At the same time the LHC might be the only way to develop a unified theory of physics so if we want to really go to space (and for the purpose of long time survival we must), it might be necessary. I think they know its a risk and know that if they admit that its a risk they won't be allowed to roll the dice, so they throw a bunch of science at us with the hope that it confuses us enough to give them time to throw the switch.

pleaides said @ 4:11pm GMT on 8th Aug

Saint_Marck said @ 4:25pm GMT on 8th Aug
Can we compromise and wait 2.5 billion years to find out?

Baxter_UK said @ 1:08am GMT on 9th Aug
Did you get permission to use that Kafka image? And also, where has the Online Users menu gone? Huh? HUH?

bigdummy said @ 1:49pm GMT on 8th Aug
How can you say "we don’t know what will happen" but claim that there is absolutely no risk based on observations of phenomena in the known universe. If you can't make a specific prediction, then you cannot 100% rule out an earth swallowing black hole. I understand his point about cosmic rays with more energy than the LHC hitting stars, but this presumes that we have seen everything there is to see in a infinite universe. That's a totally flawed presumption. IF stars had been swallowed by black holes created by the impact of cosmic rays they would be undetectable. And just because some impacts do not create black holes does not rule out the possibility that there is something else at work there keeping it from happening in certain cases that we don't yet understand.

cool_drool said @ 2:03pm GMT on 8th Aug
I for one, welcome out new multi-dimensional overlords.

edga alunpo said @ 2:13pm GMT on 8th Aug
Buckaroo Banzai will take care of that

Navier-Strokes said @ 2:59pm GMT on 8th Aug
Screw that, I'm getting American Ninja to back me.
Always go American if you want results.

kichijoii said @ 5:48pm GMT on 8th Aug
I don't know how you can say that. Although I will admit that the possibility of a resonance cascade scenario is extremely unlikely.

BergZ said @ 12:21am GMT on 9th Aug
They're waiting for you Gordon... In the test chamber.

Oedi said @ 6:13pm GMT on 8th Aug [Score:1 Informative]
I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but I still go outside, DESPITE the chances that: Lightning will hit me; I will get mugged, raped, stabbed, and on my way to the hospital, hit by a bus; A meteor we have not detected will strike the earth; a piece of the space station will break off and strike me; terrorists will bomb the East Bay; flying sharks will evolve; etc.

Now, I know that is not a complete contradiction to your argument about us not knowing 100% what will happen. Here's one:

The entire PURPOSE of science is to determine what will happen when we aren't 100% certain of the outcome. If we knew exactly what would happen, why would we perform an experiment in the first place? Exploration of the unknown or poorly documented is the entire purpose of science.

Also, did you read the paper he wrote? I admit it's 97 pages, but they are simply being thorough. The initial assumptions are basically this (I got these in the first three or four pages):

IF the universe has extra dimensions, and we create a <14 TeV black hole,
It WILL be charged, because the only interaction that could create it is a quark-quark interaction, which has a net charge.

IF the black hole is charged, it will quickly lose energy by radiating electrons as it passes through the magnetic field of the earth, and will decay almost instantaneously

The only theoretical basis we have for a charged black hole (or any particle) to become neutral is by the Schwinger mechanism, which is based upon the same quantum mechanical principals as Hawking radiation, and thus Hawking radiation must also be taken into account, which would cause the black hole to quickly decay.

IF the black hole were to somehow become neutral by some other unknown, untheorised mechanism, the cross section of the event horizon would be so small that the rate of collisions (and thus absorptions) of particles with the black hole would be slow enough that it would take longer than 5 BILLION years to have any noticeable effect on the Earth. I quote:

"Such black holes are very small, and their accretion power, if limited to absorbing particles that have impact parameters of the order of the Schwarzschild radius, is typically insufficient to cause macroscopic growth. At large distances the physical processes become independent of the short-distance properties of the black hole, which only acts through its attractive potential, and as a mass sink. In this long-distance domain, classical or quantum dynamics are well-tested, making the study of accretion possible, independently of our detailed knowledge or ignorance about the physics inside the black-hole." (P. 5)

Here is an example of doomsaying in the past that did not occur. I provide this, not as an argument against what you say, but simply for historical perspective:

The theory behind a sonic boom is very simple: When an object moves through a medium (such as the air) at speeds faster than the speed of waves (like sound) traveling through that medium, a buildup occurs. As the object travels, compression waves caused by the object "slicing" through the medium (think of the ripples a water skeeter makes as it moves across the water, or the wake behind a moving boat). As the object moves faster than the wave speed, the waves build up on two fronts, for a boat on water, or in a cone, for a plane in the air. I won't write out the math here, because writing equations in ascii sucks even if you're used to it, but basically the math says that on these fronts the amplitude of these waves goes to infinity. Again, as an object travels faster than the speed of the waves it creates, the waves, mathematically speaking, build in intensity infinitely.

Needless to say, people were scared stupid. Before the first tests, scientists were uncertain whether the waves would build to a certain limit and then stop, or if the amplitude would increase until the waves literally shook the world apart. They had no idea whatsoever, and their theory (the math) even pointed to a world-shattering occurrence.

I point out this case because of a few notable similarities, and one difference between it and the experiments to be conducted at CERN. First of all, the technology of the aircraft that broke the speed of sound was similar in to what was used during WWII and Korea, but it was more powerful, as is the technology at CERN in relation to other particle accelerators. Second, many people had very dire predictions about the outcome of breaking the sound barrier. Finally, the theory of waves (which is still in more or less the same state as it was then) PREDICTED a catastrophic outcome, whereas today the theory of quantum mechanics (the best tested theory in science, aside from perhaps general relativity) predicts no serious problems.

Why then are we so scared? If the physicists (i.e. the ones who have the best access to information and knowledge to interpret it) are not worried, then I'm not.

As a final note, the "spooky action at a distance" you refer to has to do with quantum entanglement and the collapse of wave fronts to particles when detected, which is by no means related to these collisions. If you are really curious, I can explain entanglement and collapsing, but I believe it would be too much of a tangent. And by the way, pulling THAT phrase was spitting science at people.

For the record, I am a fourth year physics major with a math minor at UC Santa Cruz.

lilmookieesquire said @ 7:32pm GMT on 8th Aug
So I understand you smoke a lot of weed. <3

k0k0peli said @ 5:21am GMT on 10th Aug
Don't forget naked skateboarding and communicating with dolphins.

bigdummy said @ 3:09pm GMT on 10th Aug
I agree that settled science can predict that this experiment will probably not be dangerous. But "probably" is not the same as a guarantee. And that is what the author of this paper is claiming.

We have no idea what the mechanics of a wormhole would be, so if this experiment were to create one, how could we know that its action would present no danger?

Navier-Strokes said @ 3:23pm GMT on 8th Aug
Those wacky physicists.

Here's a nice quip made by Fermi at the first testing of the atomic bomb:
'To break the tension, Fermi began offering anyone listening a wager on "whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so, whether it would merely destroy New Mexico or destroy the world."'

Clicky

lilmookieesquire said @ 4:08pm GMT on 8th Aug [Score:1 WTF]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen

The European Space Agency has discovered that lichens can survive unprotected in space. In an experiment led by Leopoldo Sancho from the Complutense University of Madrid, two species of lichen – Rhizocarpon geographicum and Xanthoria elegans – were sealed in a capsule and launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket on 31 May 2005. Once in orbit the capsules were opened and the lichens were directly exposed to the vacuum of space with its widely fluctuating temperatures and cosmic radiation. After 15 days the lichens were brought back to earth and were found to be in full health with no discernible damage from their time in orbit. [5]

Leopoldo Sancho said @ 5:26pm GMT on 8th Aug [Score:1 Informative]
I am Sancho.

Sancho Panza said @ 5:17am GMT on 10th Aug
So am I, but I don't flaunt it.

planck said @ 12:48pm GMT on 9th Aug
So basically, the future space people will be a cross between lichen, homo sapient, and a rocket booster?

theolypse said @ 9:58pm GMT on 9th Aug
Excellent choice of user name.

k0k0peli said @ 5:16am GMT on 10th Aug
A local hardware store sells pressurized laminated flooring called MaxiPlanks. Why doesn't MPI sue?

manbot said @ 10:09am GMT on 11th Aug
Afterwords, one of the lichens was invisible, another on fire, a third made of rock and the forth was incredibly strechy.

cb361 said @ 4:09pm GMT on 8th Aug [Score:1 Funny]
The benefits of black holes

Since I had a microscopic black hole fitted internally, I no longer need to use the toilet, although I do need to constantly eat like a horse to avoid disappearing up my own - ahem. It also protects me should I bend over in the vicinity of Baxter_UK

mrcookieface said @ 4:29pm GMT on 8th Aug
Nibbler!

monkeytooth said @ 5:47pm GMT on 8th Aug
s'true

actually I read an article in newscientist about this but I can't find it.

lost said @ 5:55pm GMT on 8th Aug
WTF!!! Why does it have to be a black Hole! Why not a White hole?!?!
I demand an apology!!!!

damnit said @ 9:24pm GMT on 8th Aug
Haha... I made that post:

here.

teknokracy said @ 8:38pm GMT on 8th Aug [Score:2]
And in other news, sales of crowbars have skyrocketed!

damnit said @ 9:18pm GMT on 8th Aug
This blackhole probably won't do any damage if you believe in quantum entanglement.

Pair this up with the theory that the universe is ridiculously massive and you'll be sound asleep.

Quantum entanglement: make an atom here on Earth move/spin and the connecting atom in the other side of the universe is affected by it instead of us (chaos theory in place? Check.)

Theory - The Universe is Ridiculously Huge: it's not just bigger than what we can comprehend, it is a billion times bigger than that. What we can comprehend based on radio telescope readings and other instruments only touches on the observable universe (based on farthest stars that gave us light). The actual universe is crazy huge, that if the observable universe is the size of a quarter, then the actual universe is the Earth itself.

So yeah, goatse won't harm us.

robotroadkill said @ 11:13pm GMT on 8th Aug
Eh. I've seen bigger.

damnit said @ 11:14pm GMT on 8th Aug
that's the spirit.

ComposerNate said @ 1:38am GMT on 10th Aug
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

k0k0peli said @ 5:13am GMT on 10th Aug
Those aren't theories, but why quibble?

Vernes said @ 10:08pm GMT on 10th Aug [Score:1 Insightful]
Indeed, they are infact humorous quotes found in a rather good piece of fictional literature.

k0k0peli said @ 11:32pm GMT on 10th Aug
Now you're quibbling.