3 ms·

Wait, do we know there to be PMBs passing through us like neutrinos? Is this a new kind of cosmic ray?

• devmor 2y ago
  An anecdote from one of my former physics professors was that there are theories that PMBs are being constantly generated and annihilated near-instantaneously all over the universe and that odds are astronomically low but one could form inside your body and be so far away from the nearest subatomic particle that it would starve out immediately. Of course, the very concept of a black hole is still technically only the "best theory" to explain observed gravitational and radio anomalies, so it's always helpful to remember as a layman how distant from us this stuff truly is.
• H8crilA 2y ago
  Besides being funny this paper also has some points - for example we know that no human has yet died due to a PBH passing through their body, but they very likely would had one passed through them. So that's sort of evidence against their existence. Although the estimated number (estimated towards the end of the paper) of such events per year would be utterly small anyways.
  • voakbasda 2y ago
    Hanlon’s Razor suggests no reasonable pathologist would ever label a death as caused by a PBH. It could have happened, but the effects probably looked similar enough to something more common for such deaths to be mislabeled.
  • mturmon 2y ago
    > Besides being funny ... I enjoyed this part too -- the author (Robert Scherrer) also offers the following link to an even drier paper: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/robertscherrer/miscellaneous/ https://my.vanderbilt.edu/robertscherrer/miscellaneous/
• jerf 2y ago
  No. There is a range of PMBs masses not currently excluded by observation that may explain dark matter, but if dark matter consists of PMBs in that range we're talking on the order of single digits in the solar system per century, not PMBs streaming through you like crazy.