PLISSKEN for President, 2012.
Posted on 01/28/2009 9:38:07 AM PST by TaraP
Still worried that the Large Hadron Collider will create a black hole that will destroy the Earth when it's finally switched on this summer?
Three physicists have reexamined the math surrounding the creation of microscopic black holes in the Switzerland-based LHC, the world's largest particle collider, and determined that they won't simply evaporate in a millisecond as had previously been predicted.
Rather, Roberto Casadio of the University of Bologna in Italy and Sergio Fabi and Benjamin Harms of the University of Alabama say mini black holes could exist for much longer — perhaps even more than a second, a relative eternity in particle colliders, where most objects decay much faster.
Under such long-lived conditions, it becomes a race between how fast a black hole can decay — and how fast it can gobble up matter to grow bigger and prevent itself from decaying.
Casadio, Fabi and Harms think the black hole would lose out, and pass through the Earth or out of the atmosphere before it got to be a problem.
FoxNews.com can think of a few other things that didn't seem possible once — the theory of continental drift, the fact that rocks fall from the sky, the notion that the Earth revolves around the sun, the idea that scientists could be horribly wrong.
We're also wondering how often the LHC might create individual black holes, since longer-lived ones have a greater chance of merging with each other, and, um, well, see ya.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Don’t you mean “hold my beer”?
Only thing more dangerous are the famous last words "Here, hold mah beer un watch dis!"
Aint gotta worrie bout no spellin in public, jus on dese here bored thingys
Doh, you beat me by 33 seconds, a virtual eternity in Freeperland.
Only after the car chase, please. What good is a doomsday scenario without a pretty girl and a car chase?
Oh that was a good one!
Yeah, but in my haste I ruined the joke with an incomplete word. Double Doh!!
and machine guns
You’re right. Machine guns are very important.
Black holes occur where God attempted to divide by 0.
The same guys who are positive we cause global warming aren’t sure whether making little black holes will destroy the world or not.
Okay.
The black hole in the WH is going to destroy the world anyway. What difference does it make?
LOL, that is great.
PLISSKEN for President, 2012.
I haven’t finished checking their math, but it’s become apparent to me that this thing should have been built in Iran.
LOL that was great!
“I meddled in things that man must leave alone. ...” Claude Rains, “The Invisible Man”.
bummer in the summer
Hot spy chick: Jack, you've only got 10 seconds before the solar system ends as we know it. Is it the red wire or the blue one?
Jack: I DON'T KNOW!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.