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Related article: http://phys.org/news/2011-05-mini-black-holes-atoms-earth.html http://phys.org/news/2011-05-mini-black-holes-atoms-earth.ht... TL/DR: 1. Tiny

by evanpw 11y ago

Related article: http://phys.org/news/2011-05-mini-black-holes-atoms-earth.html http://phys.org/news/2011-05-mini-black-holes-atoms-earth.ht... TL/DR: 1. Tiny black holes as a dark matter candidate; hundreds might pass through the earth every year 2. Difficult but not impossible to detect a black hole of 100 thousand kg passing through the earth 3. A black hole with a mass of 10 million kg at the center of the Earth would take 10^13 years to absorb the planet -- much longer than Earth will survive anyway

platz 11y ago
"according to this theory"
- nitrogen 11y ago
  One cannot accept the parts of established theory that say black holes of a certain size might exist without also accepting the remaining parts that say what a black hole of that size can and cannot do. It's like accepting science enough to believe in cosmological constants, but not accepting science's measurements of those constants.
  - platz 11y ago
    I disagree. That's like saying we don't need to do experiments, because everything follows from a few axioms. The reason we refine theories is because they sometimes fail when pushed to their limits. Additionally, parts of a theory may be valid only certain contexts. Newton's laws work wonderfully at human scales, but not at extremes. Similarly, the Standard Model works wonderfully on the familiar things we've tested.. but maybe the Standard Model doesn't work the same way at high energies and it doesn't explain dark matter/energy anyway.. We just don't much about what black holes are like below the Schwarzschild Radius. We haven't even detected Hawking Radiation yet.
  - ars 11y ago
    > One cannot accept the parts of established theory that say black holes of a certain size might exist without also accepting the remaining parts that say what a black hole of that size can and cannot do. That is 100% not true. We don't know what a black hole will do, we just guess. Until we actually measure one we have no idea if there are surprises we have not thought about - or that we simply did not have any way to know were possible since such an environment does not exist on earth. > It's like accepting science enough to believe in cosmological constants, but not accepting science's measurements of those constants. Is there something wrong with doing that? You have no idea if (for example) those constants are actually constant. You have no idea if those constants vary based on some local environment. Perhaps even based on some other constant that we don't even know exists because we have never been able to measure things any other way. There are a TREMENDOUS number of assumptions baked into theories. And we try to test as many of those assumptions as possible all the time, but there could be assumptions we did not even realize we were making. You should really look into the history of science - it will give you some humility. At every age we thought we were at the pinnacle of science, only for later generations to find out things we never realized. There is no reason whatsoever to expect this generation to be any different.
    - nitrogen 11y ago
      We don't know what a black hole will do, we just guess. Normally I don't ask this sort of question, but are you a practicing physicist? If you are then this point is irrelevant. But if not, then we're all laymen/women here, and it's silly to accept the mathematical "guess" that says there might be tiny black holes but reject the proposed properties, when the same math that postulates their existence describes their likely properties. You should really look into the history of science - it will give you some humility. At every age we thought we were at the pinnacle of science, only for later generations to find out things we never realized. No doubt. I'm not questioning that. I'm saying it's presumptuous to pick and choose elements of a hypothesis without understanding the math behind it. If any of the participants in this thread are qualified to do so (clearly I am not), I'd love a link to your work on black holes. Otherwise, I maintain my original position.
      - 11y ago

by evanpw 11y ago

platz 11y ago

"according to this theory"

nitrogen 11y ago
One cannot accept the parts of established theory that say black holes of a certain size might exist without also accepting the remaining parts that say what a black hole of that size can and cannot do. It's like accepting science enough to believe in cosmological constants, but not accepting science's measurements of those constants.
- platz 11y ago
  I disagree. That's like saying we don't need to do experiments, because everything follows from a few axioms. The reason we refine theories is because they sometimes fail when pushed to their limits. Additionally, parts of a theory may be valid only certain contexts. Newton's laws work wonderfully at human scales, but not at extremes. Similarly, the Standard Model works wonderfully on the familiar things we've tested.. but maybe the Standard Model doesn't work the same way at high energies and it doesn't explain dark matter/energy anyway.. We just don't much about what black holes are like below the Schwarzschild Radius. We haven't even detected Hawking Radiation yet.
- ars 11y ago
  > One cannot accept the parts of established theory that say black holes of a certain size might exist without also accepting the remaining parts that say what a black hole of that size can and cannot do. That is 100% not true. We don't know what a black hole will do, we just guess. Until we actually measure one we have no idea if there are surprises we have not thought about - or that we simply did not have any way to know were possible since such an environment does not exist on earth. > It's like accepting science enough to believe in cosmological constants, but not accepting science's measurements of those constants. Is there something wrong with doing that? You have no idea if (for example) those constants are actually constant. You have no idea if those constants vary based on some local environment. Perhaps even based on some other constant that we don't even know exists because we have never been able to measure things any other way. There are a TREMENDOUS number of assumptions baked into theories. And we try to test as many of those assumptions as possible all the time, but there could be assumptions we did not even realize we were making. You should really look into the history of science - it will give you some humility. At every age we thought we were at the pinnacle of science, only for later generations to find out things we never realized. There is no reason whatsoever to expect this generation to be any different.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    We don't know what a black hole will do, we just guess. Normally I don't ask this sort of question, but are you a practicing physicist? If you are then this point is irrelevant. But if not, then we're all laymen/women here, and it's silly to accept the mathematical "guess" that says there might be tiny black holes but reject the proposed properties, when the same math that postulates their existence describes their likely properties. You should really look into the history of science - it will give you some humility. At every age we thought we were at the pinnacle of science, only for later generations to find out things we never realized. No doubt. I'm not questioning that. I'm saying it's presumptuous to pick and choose elements of a hypothesis without understanding the math behind it. If any of the participants in this thread are qualified to do so (clearly I am not), I'd love a link to your work on black holes. Otherwise, I maintain my original position.
    - 11y ago