So, bye guys!

[Bub666]

Is It just me or was that just aload of bull****. Yeah,I agree.

[Publius]

One thing I wonder: if this thing DOES form an earth-devouring black hole, how long would it take to doom us? Minutes, hours, days? And what would be the first sign for people over here in the States? Massive earthquakes or what?

[Neil]

One thing I wonder: if this thing DOES form an earth-devouring black hole, how long would it take to doom us? Minutes, hours, days? And what would be the first sign for people over here in the States? Massive earthquakes or what? It would be immediate - The Zorgians are very efficient in their black hole construction methods!

[Chic Freak]

Lol... yes, apparently if it all goes tits-up, we'll never know about it!

[Neil]

apparently if it all goes tits-up, we'll never know about it! Just had to lower the tone again didn't you

[Publius]

It would be immediate - The Zorgians are very efficient in their black hole construction methods! Seriously, though -- if the LHC does create any black holes, all reputable scientists seem to be confident that they will be unstable. But if they are stable, they'd be microscopic, with a tiny mass. It seems like they would take some substantial amount of time to consume enough mass to actually endanger the structural integrity of the Earth. I would be surprised if it took less than hours. I wouldn't be surprised if it took years, maybe even many years.

[Neil]

Seriously, though -- if the LHC does create any black holes, all reputable scientists seem to be confident that they will be unstable. But if they are stable, they'd be microscopic, with a tiny mass. It seems like they would take some substantial amount of time to consume enough mass to actually endanger the structural integrity of the Earth. I would be surprised if it took less than hours. I wouldn't be surprised if it took years, maybe even many years. Supposedly they'd be so small they'd not find any matter to consume...

[Publius]

Supposedly they'd be so small they'd not find any matter to consume... They'd certainly be small enough that they would only present a danger to the subatomic particles they directly collide with, at least until they are several orders of magnitude larger than their original mass. Apparently the Schwarzschild radius (the "no escape" point for a black hole) for one of these things would be about 1/1000 the diameter of a proton. The effective capture radius would be larger, but I doubt 1000 times larger. Also, it appears that the vast majority of them would be travelling faster than the Earth's escape velocity, so that even if they are stable they'll hit (at most) about a hundred protons and neutrons before shooting straight through the Earth and out into space. It may be reasonable to assume that none of those protons and neutrons would be seriously affected. Fewer than 1 in 100,000 black holes produced by the LHC should be travelling slower than escape velocity (again, even making the highly unlikely assumption that these black holes would be stable). One estimate I saw suggests that the LHC might produce around 150 slow black holes per year. Which is probably not enough to worry about, given their small size and therefore low rate of matter accumulation. Here's a good link I found on the subject: http://backreaction.blogspot.com/200...an-happen.html

[Mike70]

that is a great link publius. i am so hoping that the higgs boson will make an appearance. that would be one of the biggest discoveries since particle entanglement.