Why black holes made by the LHC will not suck the earth in and will not kill us.

[timeprojectile]

I'm going to make this public, 'cause I think it's something for the public to know.

So let's be real about black holes, shall we?

The LHC would produce collisions at a maximum energy of 1,150 tera-electron-volts - this is for collisions between two lead ions. I'm not sure if this is the total energy of both or if each has this energy. But let'

Comments

[gojiraeight]

excellent! Now could you post this on EVERY lj community so I can stop hearing all the stupidity?

[timeprojectile]

On which communities in particular do you hear the most paranoia?

I don't think the post is ready for primetime yet. I want to emphasize the smallness of the more realistic effects more, and bring up Hawking radiation when I discuss the hypothetical LHC black hole. I also want to describe a black hole created by the collision of two "cosmic baseballs."

[pulnimar]

Well what if there was a collider with a circumference of the solar system and a Dyson sphere around the sun to power it. Huh? What then! What would we do to ourselves then!!! ;P

[timeprojectile]

um, where the hell would we get the mass to build such a thing?

[pulnimar]

From the Cosmic rays of course. A shower of new matter (with energy that can be converted into EVEN MORE MATTER) funneling on to this planet of mad scientists EVERY DAY!!!

[timeprojectile]

Well, if all that matter is accreting onto the Earth, then why the hell hasn't the Earth grown to the mass of Jupiter already?

Probably because most of the energy from cosmic rays etc. ends up being radiated away or something. We get tons of energy from the Sun every day, but radiate it back and then some (geothermal heat).

[pulnimar]

I read a good post somewhere discussing collision of cosmic rays with white dwarfs and neutron stars. It stated that we've seen degenerate stars (many times the density of the Earth) which are billions of years old and which are impacted many times per second in high energy collisions. If blackholes were easy to form via even these high energy collisions, we would see very few, if any, degenerate stars, and the odds would be astronomical against detecting a billion+ year old one neutron star.

(I even think if black holes were formed this way, most novas, or even functioning stars, would quickly turn in to blackholes due to the energy released by the nova or just innate to the star's activity.)