Large Hadron Collider

[Digit]

If you're a science teacher Tony perhaps you can answer something for me.
Black holes radiate from the poles, from that I deduce that they are losing mass. So what happens when their mass drops below the level that caused their collapse from a stellar body in the first place?
The gravitational collapse should be very rapid, so when the mass drops low enough are they expected to explode, increase in size or what?

Roy.

 

[Gill]

You've got to give credit to the particle physicists for doing their best to inform the public about the nature of their research. Journalists have had extensive access to CERN (witness the newspaper coverage and television programmes) and the PR machine has been very effective. There's no reason why anyone should be ill-informed about the project and its safety.

Sadly, there's always going to be a cauldron of vociferous people who can't be bothered to pay attention to logical science and prefer their own conjecture instead. Personally, I thought Brian Cox's description of them was both appropriate and timely.

Gill

 

[tnimble]

Indeed Gill, as you say they can't be ill-informed (just stupid or deaf or something along that way (by the by I differentiate between stupid and having lower mental abilities, stupid is having a high enough intelligence but not using it or not wanting to)

Science is very open to the media and go at length to get correct coverage. I can remember that some local kids found a multi legged frog (very normal with gros, you can find them like that about everywhere) while fishing for tad poles and stuff in the coolant ditch for the Gray supercomputer that runs around the facility. Some of the parent where not very 'amused' and contacted the local media. Directly multiple events where organized to get the paper, local telly network and citizens in. Showing them the various experiments and equipment (all fun stuf like the super computer, the tunneling microscope, the enourmous electron washing machine (very high voltage generator), daylight lasers, and of couse the particle accelerator), explaining in laymen terms how they work and what they are for. Getting schools in and having all kinds of experiments for them to perform.

Without such a public panic, the facility is open for the public once a year and various projects with school and the scouting clubs are organised all year through.

 

[Rich]

Hi Laura, from your postings, it is obvious that ignorance begets fear, as a maintenance engineer I am used to fault finding, this involves eliminating all possible causes of the fault until only one conclusion is left, IMHO, this is what the scientists are doing and good luck to them in their quest for answers and knowledge, only those who are willing to take a risk will learn. :lol:

Regards,

Rich.

 

[ByronBlack]

I was listening to a few dudes on a science podcast talking about this whole black hole issue. Basically, there is a hope and an expectation that they could in fact create black-holes, albeit tiny, and with lives of millionths of a second, these would pose no threat whatsoever, yet we could learn a lot from them, and I believe it all ties in with the Higgs Boson and how particles gain their mass, so I agree with the scientist, those who think this will destory the world are indeed twats, and it's going damned annoying having to keep explaining it to the idiots who read numbskull fear mongering articles in the Sun or Mail.

I for one have been following this for about three years now, and I'm very excited about the results. It was supposed to go live earlier this year but was delayed, I hope this time around it goes without a hitch and we can make some more amazing discoveries.

 

[Anonymous]

If you're a science teacher Tony perhaps you can answer something for me.
Black holes radiate from the poles, from that I deduce that they are losing mass. So what happens when their mass drops below the level that caused their collapse from a stellar body in the first place?
The gravitational collapse should be very rapid, so when the mass drops low enough are they expected to explode, increase in size or what?

Roy.

Hi Roy

I have not heard of black holes radiating from their poles and this idea stirkes me as untrue as a black hole is a singularity with an event horizon which is a point at which gravity is so high that nothing, not even light, may escape.

If I remember correctly, Steven Hawkin's PhD work showed that black holes may 'evaporate' (called Hawkin Radiation) but that is due to quantum vacuum fluctuations where particles and anti-particles come in to existence for a very short time in space. If one of these particles stays in space and the black hole 'swallows' the other particle before they can annihilate each other, then in order to preserve the total energy, the particle that fell int the black hole must have negative energy and so the black hole loses mass.

This is all theoretical and has never been observed to occur.

I have to say that I struggle to imagine what would happen if the black hole evaporated completely, but intuitively, the event horizon would move towards the singularity as the gravity diminished, until the gravity was too low for an event horizon to exist. What happens then? No idea - there is an area of very high gravity in space.......

 

[Digit]

Thanks Tony. One of the problems with any theories in this is whether normal physics apply of course.
If they do then the 'singularity' must be a misnomer, in the smaller objects at least, as the retention of angular momentum would logically create an oblate spheroid, or even a flat disc.
The disc would then support the idea I read recently on their radiating in the X ray region from the poles as the gravity would be much less there.
As they would then lose mass I suspect that they would simply radiate to nothing as the bonding between the atoms must logically be nuclear rather that gravitational.
Mind you the article also stipulated that a large black hole would probably out live the universe in its current high energy state, so I doubt we may ever know for certain.
I see certain elements of the press are holding up the idea that answers from the LHC will solve everything from climate change to ingrowing toe nails!

Roy.

 

[pren]

I find this all very fascinating yet well above my head!! :lol:

My wife (a Welsh teacher in a secondary school) informed me that there was something bordering on hysteria amongst the 13-15yr old kids today concerning this 'The-end-is-neigh' experiment.

One 13yr old girl (in tears) said that her dad had read in the sun that "mad scientists are going to destroy the world". This, of course, spread throughout the lower school via the playground super highway and rapidly became confirmed fact! :roll: :lol:

Nuts. :lol:

Bryn

 

[tnimble]

One 13yr old girl (in tears) said that her dad had read in the sun that "mad scientists are going to destroy the world". This, of course, spread throughout the lower school via the playground super highway and rapidly became confirmed fact! :roll: :lol:

How sad, how misinformed people can be / get.

I was listening to a few dudes on a science podcast talking about this whole black hole issue. Basically, there is a hope and an expectation that they could in fact create black-holes, albeit tiny, and with lives of millionths of a second, these would pose no threat whatsoever, yet we could learn a lot from them, and I believe it all ties in with the Higgs Boson and how particles gain their mass...

In theoretical principle each time particles collide a micro black hole is crated / exists / is revealed. It remains / exists / is visible for an infinite small amout of time. This time is longer as the energy in the collision increases, the size of the black hole increases with the size / mass / energy of the particles and number of particles. One could argue that a higgs particle or group of higgs particles is a micro black hole, it's opposite or the force that makes a theoretical black hole possible or vice versa. When particles collide with enough energy (larger than that of the created / revealed black hole) the particle breaks into other particles. If the energy involved in the collition would be sufficient enough to have the sub particles slung far apart enough one remains with the sub particles and a micro block hole. All redical theory with many views and counter views.

Beeb radio 4 will be on tomorrow, that I know for sure.

 

[Smudger]

It's been sabotaged.

Story here.

 

[tnimble]

It's been sabotaged.

Story here.

Hmm, then I wonder where it was that they just switched it on. The second test beam did work, the first km of the LHC work! fantastic news. The first was aboerted. The previous coolant problem has been solved. Currently after yet another couple of tests runs they are now at 13km or corridor fully functional without problem.

 

[Smudger]

It's a joke...

 

[OPJ]

What time is 'the big bang' supposed to happen? One good thing about this being 17 miles (km?) underground is that there's almost no chance for someone to come along and disrupt everything!

For another humorous take on this event, look here.

Oh, and Stephen Hawking (ever the optimist...) seems to be betting (literally!) against this. :roll:

 

[mr]

Better still...
them crazy scientists.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM

Cheers Mike

 

[Good Surname or what ?]

I'm amazed at how much interest there is in woodwork amongst particle physicists :wink:

Phil Carpenter BSc Physics

 

[RogerS]

What time is 'the big bang' supposed to happen?

My question exactly....not to underestimate the sheer challenge of this fantastic engineering and scientific feat but I do question the hype accorded to this first switch on by the media and in particular Radio 4.

It seems that the actual first collision aka 'big bang' is going to be some time in the future.

 

[tnimble]

What time is 'the big bang' supposed to happen?

Currently they are doing test after test along the full corridor with small test particle batches in one direction. For any change of a minuscule 'big bang' happening would be if the magmatic field bending the beam around the corridor failed (did not happen, we are past that posibility).

A bigger bang could happen when they are going to test with two oposing particle streams. We're still far away from that stage. First tests at higher particle loads are due from at the end of today upto a few weeks from now. Running tests at full particle batch density can still be weeks to years away.

Or over the longer run if there is a problem with cooling causing the super conductor electro magnets to fail. (very very very slim change, with well enough abortion posibility)

 

[ike]

Prof. Hawking says the LHC is 'feeble' by comparison to events in the universe. Who am I to argue? :?

 

[StevieB]

Prof Hawking therefore scoops the award for stating the bleedin obvious! Its not supposed to be as powerful as the universe for goodness sake! Would you want the power of the universe at the fingertips of man?! Feeble compared to the creation of the universe could still be pretty powerful to be fair - the universe is awfully big :wink:

Steve.

 

[tnimble]

At full capacity / load / speed the LHc is about 7 TeV (tera/trillion electron volt) or 7.000,000 million eV. Which aproximates to 1.12 milli joule or .31 micro watt hour. That's about the same energy as a small bunch of flies have.

On a proton level that is gigantic due to the shear number of protons but still microscopical compared to the energy released when a sun collapses let alone the energy invovled in the creation of the universe..