Run for the Hills - Black hole created in lab

[TheBlueRaja]

Were all DOOOOMED i tell you - DOOOOOMED

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4357613.stm

A fireball created in a US particle accelerator has the characteristics of a black hole, a physicist has said.

Those crazy men in white coats.

Keeeeeeewwwwwwwwl.

I remember reading a ''Popular Science'' book (by John Gribbin I think), and if memory serves, he talked about making Black Holes as a power sourse.

Prolly make a really good hoover as well.

[TheBlueRaja]

The new Dyson suckmaster - now with 8 Black holes.

Fortunately it was only the characteristics of a black hole - if they'd actually created one it would have simply swallowed up the entire lab!

Since I think these particle physicists only make it up as they go along, that probably wouldn't have ben a great loss.

I mean how can you take a quark seriously?

[Flubflow]

Originally Posted by ScaredWebWarrior

I mean how can you take a quark seriously?

Depends if your'e a Hawkwind fan.

Atoms I can take, quarks I can take, but strings? Now you're just being silly, there's no way on Earth you can know this stuff!

[dilli-theclaw]

I read a short story once where you could buy little 'pet' black holes. You were only supposed to feed them so much.

Of course in the story one person fed his black hole too much and the world was wiped out.

Of course this won't happen in this case....

But it does make you wonder.

Well it makes ME wonder.

Sort of.

Originally Posted by Diamond

Atoms I can take, quarks I can take, but strings? Now you're just being silly, there's no way on Earth you can know this stuff!

string theory is more like philosophy than science, but the level of mathmatics required to understand it is beyond most people (including me ).

If experiments like the one described and the new one being built by CERN, the Large Hadron Collider, which are both looking for the theoretical 'Higgs bosun', yield results leading to a better understanding of the nature of sub atomic matter, we could really start to get near the 'unified' theory.

[TheBlueRaja]

Higgs is very substance of what makes matter (allegedly) and gives it its mass IIRC.

String theory on the other hand i believe relates to gravity and well, goes right over my head - but it essentially the underlying principle behind the unified theory of everything. (Which even Einstein could'nt crack)

My head hurts now.

[Ramrod]

However, even if the ball of plasma is a black hole, it is not thought to pose a threat. At these energies and distances, gravity is not the dominant force in a black hole.

*whew*!

[iadom]

To quote Mike Harding, " its got bu-gg-er all to do with me so i'm going to bed "

Originally Posted by TheBlueRaja

Higgs is very substance of what makes matter (allegedly) and gives it its mass IIRC.

String theory on the other hand i believe relates to gravity and well, goes right over my head - but it essentially the underlying principle behind the unified theory of everything. (Which even Einstein could'nt crack)

My head hurts now.

absolutely - strings are an attempt to describe all the forms of energy - gravity, radiation, etc as being made of the same thing, just in a different manifestation.

The fact it requires the concept of multiple dimensions, beyond the 4 we are 'used to' is what makes it slightly unbelievable - especially when different proponents of the theory can't agree on how many of these extra dimensions are required.

But when dealing with stuff at the vanishingly small, especially at the level where quantum effects start to make a difference, is incredibly difficult - have a look at some of the pics from the LHC project

http://jeffbarbee.com/old/cern.htm

- course it would be a lot easier with a naquada generator

Originally Posted by ScaredWebWarrior

I mean how can you take a quark seriously?

Depends on whether it has Charm or if it's just Strange...

[TheBlueRaja]

Originally Posted by homealone

absolutely - strings are an attempt to describe all the forms of energy - gravity, radiation, etc as being made of the same thing, just in a different manifestation.

The fact it requires the concept of multiple dimensions, beyond the 4 we are 'used to' is what makes it slightly unbelievable - especially when different proponents of the theory can't agree on how many of these extra dimensions are required.

But when dealing with stuff at the vanishingly small, especially at the level where quantum effects start to make a difference, is incredibly difficult - have a look at some of the pics from the LHC project

http://jeffbarbee.com/old/cern.htm

- course it would be a lot easier with a naquada generator

I read the other day there actually that it will almost be impossible to prove string theory one way or the other as they are so small that they would be practically impossible to detect.

Which seems to be to be a damn fine excuse if your trying to prove something.

At least Dark Matter holds some weight (if you get that joke you probably read New Scientist too much )

Originally Posted by TheBlueRaja

I read the other day there actually that it will almost be impossible to prove string theory one way or the other as they are so small that they would be practically impossible to detect.

Which seems to be to be a damn fine excuse if your trying to prove something.

At least Dark Matter holds some weight (if you get that joke you probably read New Scientist too much )

Hardy har......

I finished reading this book a couple of months ago. God did it boil my head, but I even managed to understand some of it.

From what I remember, the author was driving at the idea that ''Strings'' where about the ''Planck'' (sp?) lenght.