New atom-smasher could fill gaps in scientific knowledge -- or open a black hole

ny times ^ | 4/14/08 | John Johnson

[Flavius]

GENEVA -- Michelangelo L. Mangano, a respected particle physicist who helped discover the top quark in 1995, now spends most days trying to convince people that his new machine won't destroy the world.

"If it were just crackpots, we could wave them away," the physicist said in an interview at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French acronym, CERN. "But some are real physicists."

[EveningStar]

This news is simply smashing. :)

[Bean Counter]

Whomever wrote this article obviously read too many Spiderman comics when he was a kid.

[Flavius]

If all goes as planned, scientists say, the new collider is likely to become one of the greatest engines of discovery in history, far outstripping the Apollo moon missions and even Charles Darwin’s monumental voyage aboard the Beagle.

[Captain Beyond]

bump

[TheWasteLand]

I’m no particle physicist, but I seriously doubt they’re going to open a black hole.

[Cementjungle]

Well, if we all get destroyed we won’t have to worry about the election. There’s a silver lining in every situation.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

There goes the neighb

[UCANSEE2]

“greatest engines of discovery”

A very apt description for the SC.

I like it.

[UCANSEE2]

“’m no particle physicist, but I seriously doubt they’re going to open a black hole.”

Well... maybe. But... It will be really, really small.

So small, maybe only a Quark could get through.

[machenation]

I read that Steven Hawking, the head of the physics department at Cambridge
university in the U.K., said that black holes have no hair.
Well maybe they have a beard/sarc...

[wally_bert]

K-9 is doing a fine job of keeping black holes in check. Sarah Jane Smith checks on him every so often. Affection noted..

[DBrow]

The evaporation rate of a black hole goes up steeply as they get smaller. Even if they make one, it won’t have much mass at all (the collider works with individual ions in a vacuum, so collisions are between things with an atom-scaled mass).

It would evaporate very quickly, if Hawking et al are to be believed.

The “make a black hole” fear is common- PBFA I at Sandia was supposed to make one, then PBFA II, then when PBFA II converted over to Z, that was going to make a black hole.

The big laser for fusion research, RHIC at Brookhaven, there are probably fifty more black hole threatmakers.

That’s why I don’t go public with the project I’m doing in the spare bedroom, I don’t want angry villagers with torches outside.

[D-fendr]

"If it were just crackpots, we could wave them away. But some are real physicists."

That's not very reassuring.

[hosepipe]

Can a black hole become President of the United States?..
I'm at a loss here.. Can a black hole absorb anything left of this republic?..
Three strange particles are absorbing all the political sound bites..
I'm con'CERN'ed..

[moonman]

"If it were just crackpots, we could wave them away," ... "But some are real physicists."

Having no science degree himself, whatsoever, AlBore should credit his environmental detractors the same way. "But some are REAL scientists!"

[Psycho_Bunny]

If I recall correctly, Woit in "Not Even Wrong", speculated that a super-colliders probably already created black holes that couldn't maintain their mass and disappeared -unrecognized- immediately.

You can't create a tidal wave in a bathtub.

[HangnJudge]

If thet made a “Black Hole”
it would evaporate in microseconds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

[colorado tanker]

WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!

[Cuchulain]

Maybe the black hole will just swallow up Washington.