# Will that supercollider n Switzerland kill us all in Nov.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 28, 2007, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872 "2007-03-28T18:13:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![benny73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@benny73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/benny73)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2007, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/21 "2007-03-29T15:10:04Z")
[QUOTE=TimeWinder] “Look fast.” If allowed more than a couple words: “It will be very small, even by microscopic standards, and will evaporate in a time so close to zero as to make no difference. We’re in no danger.” [/QUOTE] Thanks you. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DustyButt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc348/32.png) [@DustyButt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DustyButt)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2007, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/22 "2007-03-29T18:13:27Z")
[QUOTE=Grey] It doesn’t really have any significance beyond “really, really, really short”. [/QUOTE] Wouldn’t this, at the very least, act like some sort of transdimensional beacon??? I’ve got a bad feeling about this… I’ve seen enough movies to know this type of deed never goes unpunished! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2007, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/23 "2007-03-29T18:31:54Z")
> [@](#): > > Wouldn’t this, at the very least, act like some sort of transdimensional beacon??? Amazingly, it might. Many of the current physical models which posit extra dimensions also posit that gravitation is the only phenomenon which can propogate through the extra dimensions. And an evaporating microscopic black hole would be an excellent source for the high-energy gravitational disturbances which would be needed. Mind you, those same models also seem to indicate that there’s not likely to be anyone else out there, other than possibly ourselves. And there are easier ways to send a message to ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2007, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/24 "2007-03-29T18:41:45Z")
[QUOTE=Absolute] All of them, at some point or another, said “What happens if we smash two protons together really fast?” And then, BOOM! [/QUOTE] And several thousand years later, on another planet: “Wow, look at the pretty nebula.” ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2007, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/25 "2007-03-29T19:50:42Z")
[QUOTE=benny73] November is when they’re going to “flip” the switch at CERN. A lot of scientists are saying that they’re “pretty sure” there won’t be a chain reaction at the atomic level (that would wipe us all out), but who knows for sure? I bet there’s going to be a LOT of interest building up just days before the big event. (How crazy it seems to take such a chance just because a few people want to know more answers about the creation of the universe, so they risk ruining it and us in their quest.) [/QUOTE] There is no danger if current theories are correct. The experiment needs to be run to find out if current theories are correct. What are quasars, btw? ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2007, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/26 "2007-03-29T20:00:54Z")
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant] There is no danger if current theories are correct. The experiment needs to be run to find out if current theories are correct. What are quasars, btw? [/QUOTE] A source of radio waves and other electromagnetic radiation. Very far away and very very bright. [Quasar - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar) ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2007, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/27 "2007-03-29T20:02:22Z")
Okay, so what’s the minimum size of a black hole that would engulf the earth? How long would it take to swallow our planet? ---
**Author:** ![mrklutz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ebca7d/32.png) [@mrklutz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrklutz)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2007, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/28 "2007-03-29T20:50:38Z")
[QUOTE=DustyButt] Wouldn’t this, at the very least, act like some sort of transdimensional beacon??? [/QUOTE] Thanks to my brain dropping a letter out of this quote, I just had a Homer Simpson moment. Mmmmm… transdimensional bacon… ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2007, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/29 "2007-03-29T21:08:26Z")
> [@rowrbazzle](#): > > Okay, so what’s the minimum size of a black hole that would engulf the earth? How long would it take to swallow our planet? Sez [here](http://www.kressworks.com/Science/A_black_hole_ate_my_planet.htm): > [@](#): > > One of the most nightmarish scenarios is destruction by black hole. Black holes are bottomless pits with an insatiable appetite for anything and everything. If a tiny black hole popped into existence in RHIC [Brookhaven National Lab’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider on Long Island], the story goes, it would burrow down from Long Island to the centre of the Earth and eat our planet–or blow it apart with all the energy released. So why are physicists convinced that there’s no chance of this happening? > > Well, the smallest possible black hole is around 10^-35 metres across (the so-called Planck Length). Anything smaller just gets wiped out by the quantum fluctuations in space-time around it. But even such a tiny black hole would weigh around 10 micrograms–about the same as a speck of dust. To create objects with so much mass by collisions in a particle accelerator demands energies of 10^19 giga-electronvolts, so the most powerful existing collider is ten million billion times too feeble to make a black hole. Scaling up today’s technology, we would need an accelerator as big as the Galaxy to do it. > > And even then, the resulting black hole wouldn’t be big enough to swallow the Earth. Such a tiny black hole would evaporate in 10^-42 seconds in a blast of Hawking radiation, a process discovered by Stephen Hawking in the 1970s. To last long enough even to begin sucking in matter rather than going off pop, a black hole would have to be many orders of magnitude bigger. According to Cliff Pickover, author of Black Holes: A Traveler’s Guide, “Even a black hole with the mass of Mount Everest would have a radius of only about 10^-15 metres, roughly the size of an atomic nucleus. Current thinking is that it would be hard for such a black hole to swallow anything at all–even consuming a proton or neutron would be difficult.” ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2007, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/30 "2007-03-29T21:27:23Z")
[QUOTE=mrklutz] Mmmmm… transdimensional bacon… [/QUOTE] But! Is it kosher? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2007, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/31 "2007-03-29T22:49:19Z")
[QUOTE=asterion] A source of radio waves and other electromagnetic radiation. Very far away and very very bright. [Quasar - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar) [/QUOTE] See, I have this sin of fear that the “sources” themselves–the quasars-- are the result of civilizations or natural processes that created their own supercollider event equivalent and went poof. If particle theory is fundamentally wrong and it turns out what we consider particles are really just localized behaviour of what is really a space continuum, and then we tear the sucker–just a tiny tear, but it gets 'er started–I’m too nervous to even think about it. What I need to decide is if I should squander all my money between now and November on golf and the like. It would be so embarrassing to wake up the day after and be broke. And it doesn’t seem like there would be time to be satisfied if it turned out I was correct and the scientists were wrong, and we quasared ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![Nic2004](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@Nic2004](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nic2004)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2007, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/32 "2007-03-30T01:38:33Z")
[QUOTE=DustyButt] Wouldn’t this, at the very least, act like some sort of transdimensional beacon??? I’ve got a bad feeling about this… I’ve seen enough movies to know this type of deed never goes unpunished! [/QUOTE] History shows us that there was a starship of extraterrestrial origin conducting a survey in our system at the time and detected the phenomenon thereby leading to the first contact between these two species ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2007, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/33 "2007-03-30T02:51:54Z")
> [@](#): > > See, I have this sin of fear that the “sources” themselves–the quasars-- are the result of civilizations or natural processes that created their own supercollider event equivalent and went poof. To reiterate, the new collider will be very impressive on a human scale, but as usual, we ain’t got nothin’ on Mother Nature. Cosmic rays regularly reach energies far higher than anything this supercollider will produce, and none of them have poofed the Earth yet. The only reason we need this experiment, rather than just watching the naturally-occuring cosmic rays, is that the cosmic rays are inconveniently random, and can’t be produced on demand. Of course, folks do still study them as well, when and how they can. ---
**Author:** ![benny73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@benny73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/benny73)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2007, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/34 "2007-03-30T14:12:09Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] To reiterate, the new collider will be very impressive on a human scale, but as usual, we ain’t got nothin’ on Mother Nature. Cosmic rays regularly reach energies far higher than anything this supercollider will produce, and none of them have poofed the Earth yet. The only reason we need this experiment, rather than just watching the naturally-occuring cosmic rays, is that the cosmic rays are inconveniently random, and can’t be produced on demand. Of course, folks do still study them as well, when and how they can. [/QUOTE] It would be nice if we’d hear that there’s going to be some real practical pay-off to this machine, something that will give us direct benfits in some way … like making a pollution-free car or something. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2007, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/35 "2007-03-30T14:43:07Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] Amazingly, it might. Many of the current physical models which posit extra dimensions also posit that gravitation is the only phenomenon which can propogate through the extra dimensions. And an evaporating microscopic black hole would be an excellent source for the high-energy gravitational disturbances which would be needed. Mind you, those same models also seem to indicate that there’s not likely to be anyone else out there, other than possibly ourselves. And there are easier ways to send a message to ourselves. [/QUOTE] Why do I have Holst’s _Mars_ playing in my head as I read this? ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/36 "2007-03-30T14:46:17Z")
[QUOTE=benny73] It would be nice if we’d hear that there’s going to be some real practical pay-off to this machine, something that will give us direct benfits in some way … like making a pollution-free car or something. [/QUOTE] It’d probably be better to stop this thing right now. It’s the results of these experiments that leads to making time-travelling wormholes possible, and as a result the not-too-distant future has decided to ship us all of their excessive global warming heat. That’s the reason it’s getting hotter here, don’t you see? ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2007, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/37 "2007-03-30T15:21:09Z")
[QUOTE=Grey] Assuming my numbers are right, a black hole of 10[sup]-23[/sup]kg (leaving aside the potential for that to actually occur) would last 10[sup]-74[/sup] seconds before winking out of existence. So even if they do pop into existence, they’ll barely have time to thrash their tails around and figure out what the whooshing sound is before they’re gone. [/QUOTE] To us it would only appear to last 10[sup]-74[/sup], but to the black hole, it would seem to last 10[sup]-38[/sup]. D&R ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2007, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/38 "2007-03-30T20:06:26Z")
> [@](#): > > It would be nice if we’d hear that there’s going to be some real practical pay-off to this machine, something that will give us direct benfits in some way … like making a pollution-free car or something. Well, the thing with fundamental research like this is, you can’t really tell what benefits it’ll bring, or when. Personally, I don’t think it needs any “practical” payoff: Sure, some things might be good for the human species, but what are _we_ good for? I think that the fundamental knowledge is the justification for human benefit, not the other way around. But the historical record has shown that, even when folks had no idea what something would come to (or if it would even come to anything) when they did it, fundamental research has always paid off practically, eventually. If you insist on specifics, one possible benefit that this work might potentially lead to (and I say this with a very large grain of salt: No promises) is that it might eventually lead to the production of magnetic monopoles and/or stable microscopic black holes, either of which could be used for extremely efficient power generation. Or it might not, of course. Like I said, I make no specific promises, since I don’t have a magic crystal ball. I’d be willing to lay good odds that it’ll lead to _something_ valuable, though I don’t necessarily know what that would be. But even if it doesn’t, I still maintain that it’s worthwhile. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2007, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/39 "2007-04-01T14:32:51Z")
[Our Doom Is Delayed](http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/3/24/1): > [@](#): > > The start-up of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN could be delayed after three of the magnets used to focus and manipulate the accelerator’s proton beams failed preliminary tests at CERN earlier this week. The magnets were built at Fermilab in the US, which announced the failure on its Web site. Although CERN has not yet issued a formal statement on the set-back, it looks increasingly unlikely that the LHC will come on-line this year as planned. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2007, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872/40 "2007-04-01T17:25:03Z")
The [LHC website](http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/lhc-machine-outreach-faq.htm) reiterates the points made above: > [@](#): > > How do you _know_ it is safe? > > Two main reasons: > > 1. Theory - Hawking himself recognized that black holes radiate. Given the energy available in the LHC, if a black hole was created it would necessarily be a very small one - a micro black hole - the energy available in the collision of two LHC protons is not a lot on a cosmological scale. The black hole would evaporate almost immediately into a shower of particles. > > 2. Cosmic rays - Extremely high energy particles (orders of magnitude above the LHC) coming from outer space are incident on upper atmosphere where they collide with the nuclei of gas molecules. We see the showers resulting from these collisions at sea level. This appears to be safe, so we can be confident that the LHC will be. Every time there’s a big new high energy physics experiment there seems to be similar baseless doomsday predictions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-that-supercollider-n-switzerland-kill-us-all-in-nov/397872.md?page=3)