Extradimensional Portal Soon to be Opened

[Selby]

It wouldn't have the mass, nor a large enough event horizon, to be self-sustaining.

This.  To be sustainable, it would need a mass of 2.5X the sun per the physicists at work.  They worked on the project, so we get to have all sorts of interesting discussions about it and a lot of is laughing at the media's presentation of it.

[Yegolev]

The paper says it is scary.  I could end up in the eleventh dimension.

[schild]

The paper says it is scary.  I could end up in the eleventh dimension.

Right now, pretty sure the 11th dimension is in a cavity in my cerebellum.

[NowhereMan]

It wouldn't have the mass, nor a large enough event horizon, to be self-sustaining.  It would burn itself out with barely a wimper.

To look at the problem that Lakov Sanite had, it's like arguing "our experiment might create a killer but his insane blood lust will be so strong that he'll kill himself long before seeing anyone else." It's a sound argument but it probably isn't going to make anyone feel totally at ease about the whole thing.

Edit: sometimes one should add verbs.

[Lakov_Sanite]

It wouldn't have the mass, nor a large enough event horizon, to be self-sustaining.  It would burn itself out with barely a wimper.

Oh I know, it's just the defense of "it's not going to be a big black hole" is the sort of thing great comedies are made of.

[Samwise]

If explaining it to a layman I think you'd be better off saying "it's not a black hole" and leaving it at that.  "Black hole" to most people implies something that sucks in things around it.  For that to happen it needs to be a certain size, though.  A "little" black hole like what they're talking about isn't big enough to hold its own bits together, much less start pulling in bits of its surroundings.  Easier to just say it's not a black hole, even if it's made out of the same stuff.

It's a "black hole" the same way a single atom of uranium is a "nuclear bomb".

[NowhereMan]

The LHC is going to start making nuclear bombs? Well at least we'll have something to fight off the inter-dimensional dragons with.

[Ghambit]

I find it ironic that nearly the entire purpose of the LHC is to explain mass, yet the main argument against a world-ending black hole is...  mass. 
Not that I dont believe the experts, but Physics as we know it ends at the Singularity and the sum total of our particle Physics knowledge ends at Mass.  So, in essence, our arguments against blowing up the Universe are pretty much reliant on the weakest parts of our Physics currently.   

[Morat20]

It is being turned off for 14 months in 2012 after being run for 2 years at half power (what it is at now).

Maybe they are doing that just to make sure that if the world DOES end at the end of 2012 they can't be blamed.

They're turning it off to replace a bunch of linkages that were supposed to, but turns out actually can't, support the power needs they're running through them.

That's what blew up the first time they turned it on. They also have some misbehaving magnets. It'll run to half power or so just fine, but things will start breaking at higher energies.

[Lantyssa]

They're simply not accelerating enough protons to form a stable black hole: 10¹⁹ protons in a radius 10^-20 of a single proton.  Even that isn't expected to survive.

I think part of the problem is that people think a black hole sucks in everything near it.  Were the sun's mass to suddenly be compressed into a singularity, all the planets would... behave exactly as they do now.  The gravity exerted is the same because the mass is the same.  The event horizon would be a shorter radius than where the edge of the sun currently resides.  We'll be fine.

[NowhereMan]

You say we'll be fine all I hear is "Insane killer will be given a knife that's not long enough to kill you."

[Lantyssa]

Switzerland is pretty far away...

[Goreschach]

I find it ironic that nearly the entire purpose of the LHC is to explain mass, yet the main argument against a world-ending black hole is...  mass. 
Not that I dont believe the experts, but Physics as we know it ends at the Singularity and the sum total of our particle Physics knowledge ends at Mass.  So, in essence, our arguments against blowing up the Universe are pretty much reliant on the weakest parts of our Physics currently.   

This is actually a completely logically valid argument against their rebuttal. Current particle physics can't say that this won't do something like that, which is why we're researching it in the first place.

The easier way to dispel these rumors is simply by pointing out that high energy cosmic rays a billion times more ass-kicking than anything the LHC can produce are constantly smashing into the earth, so far without having released Nihilanth.

[01101010]

I think part of the problem is that people think a black hole sucks in everything near it.  Were the sun's mass to suddenly be compressed into a singularity, all the planets would... behave exactly as they do now.  The gravity exerted is the same because the mass is the same.  The event horizon would be a shorter radius than where the edge of the sun currently resides.  We'll be fine.

Aside from the no sun and light and heat and stuff.... we'll be fine. 

[Sheepherder]

Black holes are actually pretty active in terms of particle emissions.

EDIT: Okay, I was wrong, the emissions are only significant for collapsing holes...  Which apparently explode in a massive gamma burst.

EDIT: Okay, I was sort of right.  The accretion disk creates massive jets of particles at the poles.

[Lantyssa]

Well, I was speaking in terms of the planetary bodies themselves surviving due to a lack of gravitational changes.  Sure we would die as the earth turned into an irradiated popsicle, but the solar system itself would be fine.

(And this is of course using a *poof* the sun is now a black hole theorycrafting.  Any event which actually caused this would be cataclysmic on a scale only astrophysicists can dream of.  Nor is Sol a candidate for it occurring.)

[Arnold]

Something awful warning! Here's a guy who works there and is answering questions about it.

It's a pretty interesting read!

Thanks.  Good read!