3 ms·

When I was a kid I was really afraid that particle colliders would create a black hole that would sink to the center of the earth and eventually eat us all, so

by Mizza 4y ago

When I was a kid I was really afraid that particle colliders would create a black hole that would sink to the center of the earth and eventually eat us all, so I find this article quite soothing.

sohkamyung 4y ago
Cosmic rays with higher energies than that from human particle accelerators hit the Earth on a regular basis. If Black holes could have been formed by them, we wouldn't be around to ask, so actually not much to worry about particle accelerators generating Black holes. > https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/the-astronomical-particle-colliders-that-put-our-own-to-shame/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/the-astronomical-parti...
- tzs 4y ago
  You can't infer from our failure to not exist that cosmic rays hitting Earth never create black holes. All you can infer is that any such black holes aren't dangerous. That still is sufficient to support your overall thesis that since cosmic ray black holes are not a problem we don't have to worry about black holes from colliders so your overall point stands. Black holes formed by cosmic rays hitting Earth would not be dangerous because they would be very very small. Most likely they would very quickly decay via Hawking radiation, but even if they did not decay for some reason they would be so small that very little would actually fall into them. Small black holes created in the early universe, big enough to not noticeably decay in the billions of years since and so much bigger than those cosmic rays hitting Earth might create, are actually taken seriously as one of the candidates for dark matter. Even those, which would be much larger than anything cosmic rays or colliders might make, would be sufficiently hard for things to actually fall into that they could pass right through you without you noticing.

3 ms·

When I was a kid I was really afraid that particle colliders would create a black hole that would sink to the center of the earth and eventually eat us all, so

by Mizza 4y ago

When I was a kid I was really afraid that particle colliders would create a black hole that would sink to the center of the earth and eventually eat us all, so I find this article quite soothing.

sohkamyung 4y ago
Cosmic rays with higher energies than that from human particle accelerators hit the Earth on a regular basis. If Black holes could have been formed by them, we wouldn't be around to ask, so actually not much to worry about particle accelerators generating Black holes. > https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/the-astronomical-particle-colliders-that-put-our-own-to-shame/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/the-astronomical-parti...
- tzs 4y ago
  You can't infer from our failure to not exist that cosmic rays hitting Earth never create black holes. All you can infer is that any such black holes aren't dangerous. That still is sufficient to support your overall thesis that since cosmic ray black holes are not a problem we don't have to worry about black holes from colliders so your overall point stands. Black holes formed by cosmic rays hitting Earth would not be dangerous because they would be very very small. Most likely they would very quickly decay via Hawking radiation, but even if they did not decay for some reason they would be so small that very little would actually fall into them. Small black holes created in the early universe, big enough to not noticeably decay in the billions of years since and so much bigger than those cosmic rays hitting Earth might create, are actually taken seriously as one of the candidates for dark matter. Even those, which would be much larger than anything cosmic rays or colliders might make, would be sufficiently hard for things to actually fall into that they could pass right through you without you noticing.