British scientists to create 'black holes'

But worry not!

"Gravitational black holes are generated by a collapsing star. We don't actually have this collapsing star, so there's no danger of being sucked into the black holes we're generating here."

www.independent.co.uk...

It still makes me nervous though at the potential disaster it could create. It's something that could open new areas of research as the article states here:

They will be used to simulate conditions found around a black hole, a place where gravity is so strong that light cannot escape and the normal laws of physics break down.

www.independent.co.uk...

Maybe they want to see what laws break down in order to experiment further? I don't know. It certainly is an interesting era for our technological advancement what with CERN already breaking the laws of physics.

reply to post by scottlpool2003


why would they try to create a black hole when they can just examine and/or visit America? Technically, upon investigation they will find that black holes are in theory capitalist societies... the top 1% sucks everything in its path nearly out of existence... wealth, jobs, health, clean food, clean water, happiness, sustainability, honor, etc..

I've already created a Black Hole in the uk......

It's called my Bank account....

everything is sucked in and nothing ever comes out....

PDUK

reply to post by scottlpool2003


CERN isn't breaking the laws of physics, it's helping us define them.

Thanks for posting this, i can understand the worries but didn't they say the say the same when they first launched the LHC?

Plus....being British, they probably will create a hole, but you won't be able to get anyone to come out and fix it for a couple of weeks.....and it'll cost ya!

CX.

I got myself a black hole! But for some reason people say that I "moon" them!?!!?

As long as a gravitational black hole doesn;t occur... Hang on... Isn't that what a black hole is? Gravity forces so extreme that light cant escape?

Lets create a black hole without creating the gravitational effects to simulate a black hole with gravitational effects?

Riiiigggghhhttteeeeoooooo ttthhhheeeennnn

Though they're probably talking on the grander scale.

As long as the earth doesn;t get sucked up i'm all for it..

If it does get sucked up we'll i'ma kill those British a-holes in the afterlife!

reply to post by scottlpool2003


Op there is no need for alarm, they are making microscopic black holes, that have a mass of less than a proton, these cannot eat other atoms as their gravity is to small to pull and atom in, and their event horizon is too small to eat an atom even if it did bump into it.

Blackholes aren't always bottomless pits that devour all, the ones in question ar nothing special, we could turn you into a blackhole if we made your volume small enough in comparisson to your mass. It won't even hurt anything, and they will evaporate almost instantly, as they lack enough mass to hold themselves in such a state for more than nanoseconds.

It is however a great way to see what happens to matter after it goes in, and comes back out, as well as testing many physics hypothesis about the nature of the event horizon and exactly what mechanisms are involved in crushing the electron shell down onto and atom, and then even further, until it becomes a "point" which technically doesn't exist, yet has enough evidence that it exists to not be able to say it doesn't. It is basically 1 "planck length" which is the smallest unit of measure that has ever been theorised. It is somthing like
19 to the -20 the diameter of a proton, which is small beyond measure or comprehension.

Originally posted by killjoy99
reply to post by scottlpool2003

 

why would they try to create a black hole when they can just examine and/or visit America? Technically, upon investigation they will find that black holes are in theory capitalist societies... the top 1% sucks everything in its path nearly out of existence... wealth, jobs, health, clean food, clean water, happiness, sustainability, honor, etc..

Great way to stay on topic.
Like we DON'T need a break from the political bs.

Nice find!
A brief moment of RTFA shows us that they are not creating a black hole they are using an array of lasers to simulate processes similar to those near B.H.
No ginormous mass is involved, so the most dangerous things in this experiment are the "machines", which like all machines may blow up, but not in a really big scale.
So, no worries, and enjoy the ride.

S&F

reply to post by scottlpool2003

Someone created an animation to show one possible outcome of creating a black hole. This one was done around the time CERN started up:

The CERN black hole


Let's hope that doesn't happen!
In reality, we've never seen such a small black hole but we think they'd evaporate quickly once formed. So the scenario in the video seems unlikely. Let's hope, anyway.

reply to post by scottlpool2003


What laws has CERN broken? Seems everything done at CERN confirms the laws of physics.

"Gravitational black holes are generated by a collapsing star. We don't actually have this collapsing star, so there's no danger of being sucked into the black holes we're generating here."

Unless, of course, ya know... against expectations the blackhole escapes, begins devouring matter, sinks to the center of the Earth, and in a year or 2, everyone dies.

No please DONT!So if their wrong because they had no idea wtf they we're doing they just destroyed the planet and all life.Like monkeys playing with dynamite.

I didn't realize British scientists were getting into pimping

reply to post by Arbitrageur


That's a pretty dramatic video!

It's also pretty wrong.

Even if CERN did have the capabilities to create an Earth destroying black hole, it would hardly stay in one place. Black holes are affected by gravity too. It would more than likely go into a very elliptical orbit around the center of the Earth, slowly gobbling up matter as it moved around. I would suggest reading Larry Niven's short story "The Hole Man."

reply to post by CaticusMaximus


They aren't creating any black holes. The titles of both the article and this thread are somewhat misleading. They're only simulating what we believe to be the environment around black holes.

Coincidentally, this was all sort of the topic in this year's Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons. It was pretty entertaining.

@OP
Its the ultimate feeble excuse for British Rail to say why their unreliable trains are never on time.

'Due to unforseen circumstances, scientists created a 'time tunnel' and the 11:23AM train from London got caught in a 'worm hole'. We are sorry for the inconvenience of the late arrival from London.'