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I got to the second sentence before getting frustrated with the integrity of an article by Nature: "They have tried to recreate dark matter, reveal extra dimen

I got to the second sentence before getting frustrated with the integrity of an article by Nature: "They have tried to recreate dark matter, reveal extra dimensions of and collapse matter into microscopic black holes." The missing word was slightly irksome. I find the claim that anyone has intentionally tried to create microscopic black holes bombastic. CERN's own site: "According to the well-established properties of gravity, described by Einstein’s relativity, it is impossible for microscopic black holes to be produced at the LHC. There are, however, some speculative theories that predict the production of such particles at the LHC. All these theories predict that these particles would disintegrate immediately. Black holes, therefore, would have no time to start accreting matter and to cause macroscopic effects." - http://press.web.cern.ch/backgrounders/safety-lhc http://press.web.cern.ch/backgrounders/safety-lhc They have certainly looked into it for safety sake but if CERN's intent was to create microscopic black holes, I suspect it would be a very different machine.

pif 11y ago
> They have certainly looked into it for safety sake Actually, when I worked at CERN there was never much fuss about such risks. The tunnel is just 100 m under, but I've yet to hear from someone worried about his house being sucked in.
- jjoonathan 11y ago
  They aren't worried because they looked into it. You could argue that "comparing max theoretical energy to that of cosmic rays" doesn't constitute "looking into it" but that's splitting hairs.
rabbitonrails 11y ago
There is no missing word. "Reveal extra dimensions of" -> "microscopic black holes".
- Certified 11y ago
  Ah ha! I appreciate you pointing this out. I read the sentence at least ten times trying to make sense of it and still failed to make that connection. It still leaves me wondering what experiment at the LHC has attempted to reveal extra dimensions of, and collapse matter into a black hole. I have not been able to find any LHC experiments with this set as a goal, but I would love to be shown otherwise.

pif 11y ago

> They have certainly looked into it for safety sake Actually, when I worked at CERN there was never much fuss about such risks. The tunnel is just 100 m under, but I've yet to hear from someone worried about his house being sucked in.

jjoonathan 11y ago
They aren't worried because they looked into it. You could argue that "comparing max theoretical energy to that of cosmic rays" doesn't constitute "looking into it" but that's splitting hairs.

rabbitonrails 11y ago

There is no missing word. "Reveal extra dimensions of" -> "microscopic black holes".

Certified 11y ago
Ah ha! I appreciate you pointing this out. I read the sentence at least ten times trying to make sense of it and still failed to make that connection. It still leaves me wondering what experiment at the LHC has attempted to reveal extra dimensions of, and collapse matter into a black hole. I have not been able to find any LHC experiments with this set as a goal, but I would love to be shown otherwise.