Poll: The Earth Destroyed by a Black Hole!?!

[Billion Backs]

Without Ph.D's in physics and more specialized subjects related to physics, your opinion means shit when it comes to "problems" like that. Really, that's all I have to say.

That's the problem with democracy and media. A bunch of uneducated hicks (no offense, I'm one too) plus some classic journalistic sensationalism ends up in stupid shit. And if religion gets anywhere closer, it gets even worse.

Also, this:

1) No. It's factually impossible for the LHC to create theoretical black holes that would destroy the earth. The energy levels created in the LHC are much lower than the energy levels of cosmic ray particles entering our atmosphere. Cosmic rays have been entering our atmosphere for as long as we've had an atmosphere (around 3.8 billion years ago) and the Earth has survived just fine.

2) Promulgation of this incorrect belief about the LHC is, in fact, potentially deadly [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7609631.stm].

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

A black hole is a stellar phenomenon that often occurs when a star goes super nova. What happens is the internal forces of pressure and inter-molecular repulsion are overcome by gravity. Thus, the majority of the star is pulled into the center of the former star, and become a black hole. The area of the black hole is theoretically infinitely dense, and any new matter is sucked in and joined to the mass of the black hole.

Because of the amazing density and mass, this creates an incredible gravitational force in the nearby area. A force that can bend light like a lens, or, if the light is close enough to the center of gravity, pull it straight in. But because there is no positive change in mass (no mass gain, because of the Theory of Conservation of Mass) the amount of gravitational force between it and any stationary object does not change, because that would require either a mass change, or a distance change.

MATHS TIME!
Force of Gravity (F) being F=[G(m1)(m2)]/D where G is the gravitational constant, m1 is mass of first object, m2 is mass of second, and D is the square of the distance between them. When D becomes tiny, and mass becomes huge, the force of gravity can even overcome light's velocity and prevent it from leaving.

Technically speaking, even though the sun would not have greater mass, it would still tear apart the Earth due to the event horizon wouldn't it? And doesn't a huge amount of radiation ensue from a collapsing star (like the really really bad radiation that turns you into the 'Fantastic Four' if marvel have gotten anything right <.<)?

At the very least Sam Neill would come to eat your soul.

 

[Blimey]

No, not really. Plus even if they did somehow create a black-hole, why would I care? This planet sucks anyway, and if they create a black-hole and I die, that's okay with me.

 

[Tourette]

As long as I had a little bit of time to bang the missus and go punch my neighbour in the head.

 

[the_maestro_sartori]

Nope. Although if Gordon Freeman works there, we all need to be worried.

 

[HuntrRose]

We do not know if it can happen or not. But it's a very small chance anything like that might happen. I read somwhere that they calculated the risk to be about 0.01% or something. Compared to the calculated risk of the Manhattan project (they thought a nuclear bomb might set fire to the atmosphere) of around 50%...

I say let them go ahead. IF a black hole should pop into exsitence and swallow us all we won't live to care anyway, and there won't be anyone left to grieve either so not to worry.

 

[Katnap_Devikat]

No because I'm not retarded.

Plus this scares me more http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/death-star-gala/

 

[Pegghead]

I'm not terribly worried about it, I mean, if the scientists are smart enough to build something that sophisticated then I'm sure they wouldn't be dumb enough to construct something that has an enormous potential of destroying all that we know.

 

[WrathOfAchilles]

A black hole is a stellar phenomenon that often occurs when a star goes super nova. What happens is the internal forces of pressure and inter-molecular repulsion are overcome by gravity. Thus, the majority of the star is pulled into the center of the former star, and become a black hole. The area of the black hole is theoretically infinitely dense, and any new matter is sucked in and joined to the mass of the black hole.

Because of the amazing density and mass, this creates an incredible gravitational force in the nearby area. A force that can bend light like a lens, or, if the light is close enough to the center of gravity, pull it straight in. But because there is no positive change in mass (no mass gain, because of the Theory of Conservation of Mass) the amount of gravitational force between it and any stationary object does not change, because that would require either a mass change, or a distance change.

MATHS TIME!
Force of Gravity (F) being F=[G(m1)(m2)]/D where G is the gravitational constant, m1 is mass of first object, m2 is mass of second, and D is the square of the distance between them. When D becomes tiny, and mass becomes huge, the force of gravity can even overcome light's velocity and prevent it from leaving.

Technically speaking, even though the sun would not have greater mass, it would still tear apart the Earth due to the event horizon wouldn't it? And doesn't a huge amount of radiation ensue from a collapsing star (like the really really bad radiation that turns you into the 'Fantastic Four' if marvel have gotten anything right <.<)?

At the very least Sam Neill would come to eat your soul.

I'm going to pull off this one because only Johnny seems to have any idea what he's talking about on this one and cause Paul has a decent question. Actually the event horizon would not do anything to the earth. The event horizon is considered the point of no return when nearing a black hole. If caught in the tidal force of the singularity, escape is impossible past this point, so it's hypothesized.

As for all the other comments you cannot form a black hole by smashing particles. You talk about a singularity the size of a pinhead being formed and dying out. First it would not die out, second it would not grow and swallow the earth although it is possible it could consume the earth a molecule at a time, but not probable. As for the smashing of particles, it would take roughly a mass the size of the moon compressed to that pinhead size to form such a small singularity. since atoms are the smallest basic building block of matter in nature this cannot be achieved by colliding two or even a few.

Lastly, people are talking about our sun becoming a black hole. You need to understand the scope of this, our sun has nowhere near the mass needed to collapse infinitely once it burns out. Singularities are formed by much much larger objects burning out like hypergiants. I'll add this so you can see just how insignificant our sun is in the universe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergiant

 

[Catalyst6]

/sigh

The chances of anything going wrong are about as small as the chance of me spontaneously mutating and forming a pair of wings... nope, didn't happen.

Nope. Although if Gordon Freeman works there, we all need to be worried. Will I Am of the Black Eyed Peas in particular.

I just want the administrator to lean over to the lead scientist and whisper "Prepare for unforeseen consequences..."

 

[Bigsmith]

Spoiler: THE BLAGOLE?

Yes my gatekeeper!?

Ot: I doubt it will make a black hole and kill us all. As previous people have said, Gorden Freeman is stationed there so i have more fear of an Alien invasion.

 

[Klarinette]

Heh... Professor Hawking actually has a $50 bet against a student who thinks it'll cause a black hole.

 

[Baldry]

Shit happens. Don't eat it.

In other words if it does happen, I won't be bothered. Although it would be interesting to look into the void, a black hole, I mean complete nothing, extraordinary.

 

[TimeLord]

It will happen somehow, I'm not concerned in the slightest though.

 

[Queen Michael]

No, of course I don't fear it. It's like that urban myth that bumblebees shouldn't be able to fly - some kooky scientist came up with the idea, people heard about it, and even though all the other scientists said "Oh, that's just nonsense" the idea caught on among the laymen and now they'll believe it just to show how they're smarter than those darn scientists.

 

[manaman]

There isn't enough mass on earth to create a proper black hole. The problem with people being concerned about it is that they don't really understand what a black hole is. They think if the sun turned into a black hole then the earth would be sucked in, which is completely wrong.

A black hole may have incredible gravitational prowess, but that is because of the immense amount of mass packed into an incredibly tiny package. Gravity is a function of mass and distance. If the sun would become a black hole, Earth's rotation around it would react no differently, because the center of the Earth's mass will still be the same distance away from the center of the Sun's mass. The Sun, of course will be much smaller, and the escape velocity would be greater than the speed of light, which would not allow photons to escape the gravitational sphere.

But if the sun DID become a black hole wouldn't we all freeze to death?

No, why would you think that? Of course we would eventually. But why would the sun become a black hole?

Life's too short to care if you die tomorrow. Live for today and prepare for tomorrow if it comes. As explained we probably can't do it. I'm not overly concerned.

Life really isn't that short. Stick to that philosophy and your going to have a rough time of it in 20 years when you don't have a career, and the prospect of ever retiring is a pipe dream.

People in developed countries are living longer (a trend that seems likely to continue) and population growth is slowing. With the care of the elderly costing as much as it does and less money to spare for them because of less youth producing tax revenues by working it seems likely a bit more of the burden of care for the elderly is going to fall on them and their life savings.

 

[Dexiro]

People who are worried about it are pretty much claiming that they know more about the LHC Scientists about black holes, which is silly.

I know nothing about black holes but I'm not worried about it, i have the scientists word that it won't cause any problems. I know at least that black holes aren't the cosmic vacuum cleaners a lot of people make them out to be.