Could a black hole consume the earth this summer?
Could a black hole consume the earth this summer?
Sometime this summer a giant particle accelerator in Switzerland will begin smashing protons at energy levels around seven trillion electron volts, which may create a black hole that could consume the earth. Or it might just reduce the earth to a super-dense chunk of “strange matter.”
Either way, it would really spoil our summer.
Chances are, neither of those things will happen, but two scientists in Hawaii aren’t so sure. In fact, they’re concerned enough that they recently filed a lawsuit seeking a restraining order that would delay the experiment until a report can be produced to confirm the safety of the project. They’ve also requested an environmental assessment. Because nothing messes up the environment like an earth-consuming black hole.
Scientists for the European Center for Nuclear Research (the organization that took nearly 15 years to build the $8 billion Hadron Collider) have already conducted safety reviews and they feel certain that any black holes that might be created will simply evaporate. That’s what cosmologist Stephen Hawking believes will happen, and they’re banking that he’s right. After all, he’s a pretty smart guy.
But the Hawaiian scientists contend these assurances are “propaganda” and the safety reviews are fundamentally flawed.
Dr. Nima Arkani-Hamed, a particle theorist at Princeton, has a unique take on the controversy. He told the New York Times that while there’s probably no merit to the fear that the collider will produce a killer black hole, in the world of quantum physics almost anything could happen. “The Large Hadron Collider might make dragons that might eat us up.”
Okay maybe one more little safety check wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Source:
“Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More” Dennis Overbye, The New York Times, 3/29/08, nytimes.com
