Puzzling over a “Little Big Bang”

aphexcoil

aphexcoil

Puzzling over a “Little Big Bang”
The main purpose behind the $600 million RHIC device is to create particle collisions at energies high enough to result in a “Little Big Bang,” so that researchers can study quark-gluon plasma and test their theories about the universe’s first moments. This involves blasting beams of gold ions into each other, then analyzing the patterns of particles escaping from the collisions. And that’s the tricky part.
For one of the experimental quantities they study, the two beams of pancake-shaped ions are positioned slightly off-center, so that the impact zone resembles a football or the middle of a two-circle Venn diagram.
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http://www.msnbc.com/news/750150.asp?0dm=C249T


You know, if these scientists keep ramming particles together at faster and faster speeds and doing other "interesting" things in the process, we are bound at some point to "accidently" create some molecular scale black-hole that starts sucking in atoms all around it.

Before you know it, you'll hear something like this in the lab, "Gee, Fred, is that section of the super-conducing ring starting to bend to you?"

Five hours later CNN.com will be running a headline about how parts of Europe are just "disappearing" and how strange things are occuring in the atmosphere and on the ground.

Shortly thereafter, everyone is going to be running to the opposite side of the planet, where it will already be too late and the earth will turn itself inside out.

All of this just because we were a curious little race of people.
 
The gravitational force between two masses is a function of the product of their masses times the gravitational constant then divided by the square of the distance between them.
F = G x (M1xM2)/r^2
F(force) = [6.67x10^(-11)xNM^2/kg^2x(m1)x(m2)x0.23] / r^2 lbs
The accelerators put out an tiny mass of gold atoms over time, say 0.00001 lbs/hour.
Assuming that the accelerators were run for an hour and every single particle of gold smashed together into a tightly compressed ball (no way), force of gravity between a 100kg mass (human) and the gold ball, when seperated by 1 centimeter would be
[6.67x10^(-11)x100x0.00001x0.23] / 0.01^2 = 0.00000000153 lbs., about two billionths of a pound.
You need mass to produce a black hole. The particle accelerators can't supply it. There isn't enough mass in the earth to make a black hole. Compression doesn't make a black hole, mass does. :)
 
Quote from Rigel:
There isn't enough mass in the earth to make a black hole. Compression doesn't make a black hole, mass does.
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not true. each massive object has its so called "schwarzschild radius". if you compress the object beyond that radius, the object will turn into black hole. for example, earth's SR is about 9mm, if i remember correctly.

so in theory it is possible indeed to create black holes using particle accelarators. luckily - again i hope i recall this correctly - they would be so small that they would be disintegrated on spot by quantum effects.

edit: you are right that the tiny BH - being so small - would exert unnoticeable gravitational force. however, what would happen - if such BH would be stable - is that the BH would fall to the center of the earth, and start slowly "eating away" and gaining weight in the process...

- jaan
 
I didn't know that! :)
It sounds like it wouldn't be able to sustain itself and would vanish if it were not sustained. So no danger.
 
Quote from Rigel:

...force between two masses is a function of the...gold smashed together...seperated by 1 centimeter would be...a black hole...There isn't enough...black hole...make a black hole...
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Wow, Rigel!

You aren't half the redneck I'd pegged you for!
 
Quote from Rigel:


F = G x (M1xM2)/r^2
F(force) = [6.67x10^(-11)xNM^2/kg^2x(m1)x(m2)x0.23] / r^2 lbs
More...

:)

interesting thread.

but what about your units: 0.00001 lbm = 4.5 e-6 kg

then F would be in N

what's the .23?
 
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