The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It has been highly controversial in the scientific community with fears that it could destroy the world if things went wrong. Well, predictions have gone from there being no chance of black holes growing big enough to destroy the planet to "the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible." In addition, the black holes may last anywhere from seconds to minutes. So, for those taking bets on how the world will end, add this to you list... and careful, I hear that the sky is falling.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Next Up On "How The World Will End"
Posted by quizwedge at 1:47 PM
Labels: doomsday, endoftheworld, LHC
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4 comments:
Okay, time to play with the tin foil hats. No one knows exactly how black holes form "out there" in the universe. Some theories require a massive object collapse like a star going supernova. Other theories posit that black holes are coming into and going out of existence all the time in high-energy reactions in the upper atmosphere with solar particles. The LHC may give us a window into how black holes come into being. And if the latter theorists are right, it will likely result in observation of actual (short-lived) black holes. If both theorists are wrong, anything could happen. Including the possibility of a world-eating black hole coming into existence, plunging to the center of the Earth, and then pulling everything into itself at some speed less than that of the speed of light.
This, of course, assumes the LHC ever gets turned on. And with the current recession, even that is somewhat in doubt at the moment.
Overall, the LHC could possibly end the world. But the odds of it doing so are fairly comparable to the same thing happening spontaneously in nature.
Okay, tinfoil hats off, everyone. Back to work.
I agree... I had hoped my write-up conveyed that I was sarcastic on the world ending at the hands of the LHC.
It did. But how often do I have an excuse to talk Black Holes? :-)
the world id going to end in 2012 no doubt about it! thereare so many reasons why too.
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