Black holes for beginners

Posted: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 5:10 PM by Alan Boyle

Space.com

An artist's conception shows a
massive black hole in action.

If big black holes are so scary, why do scientists think it's not a problem to be around teeny-tiny black holes? Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson literally wrote the book on "Death by Black Hole," so he ought to know. He also ought to be good at explaining the difference, since he's the director of the Hayden Planetarium at New York's American Museum of Natural History as well as the host of "NOVA scienceNOW," the TV magazine show that begins its summer season on PBS tonight.

If you're wrestling with all the claims and counterclaims over matter-gobbling black holes, this is the guy you want on your side.

Tyson, who turns 50 in October, is used to wrestling with scientific puzzlers - and just plain wrestling, for that matter. He was captain of the wrestling team at the Bronx High School of Science as well as editor-in-chief of the school's Physical Science Journal.

More recently, he has wrestled with America's future space policy as a member of several advisory commissions. But you could argue that his most challenging match found him pitted against the scientists and second-graders who are fans of the planet Pluto. Eight years ago, Tyson had to take the heat when the remodeled Rose Center for Earth and Space (which serves as the Hayden Planetarium's home) dropped Pluto from its planet display.

David Britt-Friedman / msnbc.com file

Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson is director of
the Hayden Planetarium in New York.

Tyson defended the demotion, saying that the discovery of other icy worlds on the solar system's edge implied that the littlest planet should be reclassified as the biggest member of a new class of celestial objects. In 2005, it turned out that Pluto wasn't even the biggest: Another ice world, eventually dubbed Eris, was found to be even bigger. That set off new rounds of decisions and debates that are still raging.

Tyson says he's taking the subject head-on in a book titled "The Pluto Files," due for publication next year. "It's a study of the public's reaction to the scientific demotion of a planet," he explained in an interview this week.

But enough about Pluto: On tonight's installment of "NOVA scienceNOW," Tyson and his team will be wrestling with the mysteries of dark matter as well as the causes of Alzheimer's disease, the scientific methods for detecting fake imagery and the "wisdom of crowds." If you miss the show, or if you don't live in an area that gets PBS, you can watch the whole show online beginning Thursday.

About those black holes...
As a warmup for tonight's show, I asked Tyson about one of the subjects that's closest to his heart: black holes, the phenomenon that's created when an object collapses into a gravitational singularity so powerful that not even light escapes its pull.

We've known for decades that such things should exist out in the cosmos, based on a reading of relativity theory. There's increasing evidence that supermassive black holes lurk at the core of many galaxies, including our own. And now there's talk that an atom-smasher known as the Large Hadron Collider might blast subatomic particles into each other so energetically they turn into incredibly tiny black holes on Earth.

Is this something we should be worried about? Some people think so, but Tyson has a different view, as reflected in this edited Q&A:

Cosmic Log: You’ve written the book “Death by Black Hole,” and now people have been talking about the black holes that might eat the planet. What can you say about the risks involved, and the different sizes of black holes? Is a microscopic black hole as dangerous as a galaxy-sized black hole?

Tyson: Well, black holes are undeniably scary things. Let’s just start with that fact. They eat what comes near them, and that’s it. Black holes are dangerous. You want to avoid them at all cost. That’s No. 1.

No. 2: Yes, there are black holes of different sizes. The one most commonly discussed is the one that would be the endpoint of the life of a star of very high mass. The sun is not one of those, so the sun will not end its life as a black hole. That’s the most commonly discussed, and that’s what would be the most common in the galaxy. Wherever there was once a high-mass star, there would now be a black hole in its place. You want to map those out, ultimately, and not run into them.

When I say “common,” these types of stars are themselves rare. They’re common for black holes, but they’re rare for a cosmic object. Only one out of 1,000 or even 10,000 stars is a high-mass star. That’s a small fraction of the total.

There’s this other type of black hole that one imagines one might make in a particle accelerator. That’s what you’d call a micro black hole. It turns out that black holes evaporate. That was discovered by Stephen Hawking. The phenomenon is called Hawking radiation in his honor.

The way this happens is kind of cool. The gravitational field is so intense in the vicinity of a black hole that the gravitational energy spontaneously becomes particles, according to E=mc2. They become particles in the field outside the event horizon of the black hole. Gravity extends well beyond the event horizon. So the energy becomes particles, one of those particles escapes, and the other one falls into the black hole. And so, all right, that just took mass away from the black hole. So black holes actually become lighter over time.

Now here’s the catch: The smaller a black hole is, the faster it evaporates. So, micro black holes evaporate practically instantaneously.

There’s this worry that at CERN, they’re going to turn on the accelerator and create states of matter as never before – which is true – at higher energies than ever before – which is true – and possibly produce micro black holes. What happens if one does not evaporate, but just sort of hangs around? Whatever it touches, it eats, then it gets more massive. The more massive it gets, the less likely it will be to evaporate, because they evaporate quickly only when they’re small. This worry that it will create a runaway black hole that will eat the Earth is what some people have been concerned about.

You can do a calculation to show how quickly the black holes will evaporate. You’re sort of protected there. But suppose you made a mistake. There’s a big cost if you made a mistake. The cost is the end of the Earth. However, there’s another separate experiment that’s going on all the time. And that is, there are these mysterious particles in space called cosmic rays, and they hit Earth all the time. They have energies rivaling and exceeding the energies that will be created in this new supercollider, the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. They would be making black holes all the time as they slam into our atmosphere.

If the collider were somehow deadly to Earth – so, too, would the rest of these particles striking us from space. Yet, at no time have we had a black hole emergency.

Q: You get all these questions about how the LHC will be producing this phenomenon down on Earth, and people talk about how the black holes would be moving slowly in relation to Earth rather than zooming past like a cosmic ray. The counterargument to that is generally, “Gee, there are so many reactions going on over the history of the universe …”

A: “… that you would catch them.” That’s right. Nature is already conducting this experiment, with Earth as its target. These are the cosmic rays that fly back and forth, whose origin is still a mystery – but we do know they’re there, and we know they’re hugely energetic. It’s that kind of test that gives you the confidence that nothing bad will happen with the Large Hadron Collider.

By the way, it’s not new for people to be concerned when we open up new scientific vistas. Back in the early 20th century, people warned that we shouldn’t split the atom. This was a fundamental building block of nature, and splitting it would be bad. Well, yes, it was bad because we made bombs out of it, but nature was just fine. Nature does it all the time. There was this worry that the atom was someplace we should not go. Yet atomic physics is the foundation of modern technology.

Q: Right. And people talk about the first nuclear detonation, and the concern that that would destroy the world.

A: That it would ignite the atmosphere. So, yes, the fear is understandable if you’re otherwise unfamiliar with a subject. People need to know, however, that the fears are not somehow uniquely applied. There are fear factors at every turn, at every advance in our understanding of the universe. So that should temper the singularity of a person’s concern.

Q: Do you find that’s a particular challenge when you engage the public in scientific discussion? That a little bit of knowledge can be a worrisome thing?

A: It can breed fear. A little bit of knowledge about something that people don’t understand, or that is more powerful than they are, can breed fear. And that’s understandable. I’m not critical of the public for that. I’m critical of myself and my colleagues for our failed efforts to try to create a comfort zone around the frontiers of scientific discovery.

Q: I guess that gets right into the show. Do you feel as if you’re making a difference? Have you gotten feedback from the general public?

A: What I get is e-mail and other correspondence from people who say, “I always viewed science as something beyond my ability to understand.” And they see “NOVA scienceNOW” as a fun, interesting and entertaining way to become scientifically literate. “NOVA scienceNOW” is conceived to bring science to the viewer in such a way that you don’t feel as if you have to take your medicine. It doesn’t mean dumbing it down. It doesn’t mean dropping out all the jargon, to try to simplify things. It just means having fun with the frontier of discovery. I’m there as your guide and as your host. Because I’m a scientist, I have a foot in the scientists’ camp. But I also feel strongly for what’s going on in the mind of the public, so I have a foot in your living room as well.

I see myself as a conduit between you and that frontier that we’re sharing with you. By the way, I’ll get on the scientists’ case for using jargon. I’ll say, “Don’t you mean it’s the blah-bla-blah-bla-blah?” Because I know enough to come at them that way, right? And they’ll say, “Yeah, I guess you could say it that way.” And we just did. So we have fun, and the public sees scientists just having fun.

Q: And you get a sense of the process behind the science.

A: The process. That’s the word. Too many journalists will only report the scientific discovery, leading the public to think that science is all about the discovery, when in fact it’s all about the process. Sometimes it’s long and drawn out. Sometimes there’s no eureka moment at the end of the day. But the scientists love the work, they love the process, they love the quest.

It’s a metaphor for life. People might say, “Oh, when I get my degree…” or “When I get my pay raise…” or “When I retire…” But life happens between now and then, and that’s what you should be paying attention to. As a scientist, so much of your time is spent in the lab, or in the field, or on the computer, trying to grapple with the boundary of ignorance.

Occasionally, you make discoveries that grab something from the unknown and bring it into the world of the known. Then you’ve made a contribution to our understanding of the universe. That doesn’t happen every day.

Q: Dark matter is a perfect example of that – where you have something you know that’s out there, and yet it’s unknown.

A: And it’s still unknown. We do a whole segment showing that we don’t know what it is. Most science programs wouldn’t do that. They’d wait until it was known, and then they’d report the results. We go right in there to this mine that’s more than 2,000 feet below Earth’s surface. You’ve got to go that deep so that the bedrock above you shields the experiment from particles that could masquerade as dark matter.

Particle physicists are confident that dark matter is a new family of exotic particles that do not interact with ordinary matter. But I look at that with the idea that when you’re a hammer, all your problems look like nails. When you’re a particle physicist, the solution to dark matter looks like particles. I try to stay open to what other possible solutions might exist.

Q: Right, and as an astrophysicist, you probably have your own brand of hammer – the idea that dark matter might be MACHOs [massive compact halo objects] rather than WIMPs [weakly interacting massive particles].

A: That’s true. But if I were a betting man, I’d probably give the nod to the particle physicists. I don’t care which it is, as long as it has the right properties. If it works, we’re good.

Q: That brings us around full circle to the Large Hadron Collider. With all this talk about micro black holes, people may not realize that the LHC might detect dark-matter particles.

A: If there are dark-matter particles, they should be within reach of the Large Hadron Collider. So the people at CERN are anxious to be the first to discover dark matter through that means, rather than natural dark matter that happens to be passing through the earth.

Q: I suppose the good thing about the “NOVA scienceNOW” format is that you could always come back with an update.

A: Exactly. I think of it as having the style of CBS’ “60 Minutes,” where there are different segments, and I do the parts that lead from one segment to the next – right on down to the Andy Rooney part, where at the end of the show, I give my “Cosmic Perspective.” I offer a point of view that enhances your understanding of where we fit in the universe, drawn on themes that have just appeared on the program.

Q: And as you get closer to Andy Rooney’s age, you can become more and more of a curmudgeon.

A: Ha! I’d have to get bushier eyebrows – and get an old Underwood typewriter. The counterpart would be an old oversized PC, I guess.

Hungering for more? In earlier interviews, Tyson discussed Einstein's and Darwin's theories, subjects ranging from black holes to black history, and life, the universe and everything. And in last Sunday's Parade magazine, Tyson discussed the legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Comments

Dr. Tyson is obviously a very brillant man-- however, I was greatly disappointed by his answer. He seems to easily brush off concerns about "the end of the Earth" in a rather dismissive manner.

Just because people had concerns about splitting the atom, doesn't mean that concerns about a man-made machine which recreates energy many times more powerful than the Sun--- here on Earth-- shouldn't be thoroughly addressed. Scientists have made huge mistakes throughout history-- and today is no exception.

I look forward to viewing the full program, and hearing more insight in this matter.

Kudos to PBS and MSNBC for taking a closer look at this important subject-- which has implications for all mankind.

RJ, San Diego (Sent Wednesday, June 25, 2008 6:00 PM)

I'm no expert, so I'll leave the "Doom and Gloom" to the uninformed and the real answers to the experts. Should possibilities be explored, both good AND bad? Of course. Let's not be guided by over-zealous scientists nor by the ignorant masses. Instead, let's be guided by reason, ethics, and morals.

TW, Overland Park, KS (Sent Wednesday, June 25, 2008 7:13 PM)

Dr. Tyson is a great physicist and communicator, and I would like to read his book! But I am not convinced that he has studied the Safety issue in complete detail, as I think most physicists have not either.

Dr. Tyson's answer was similar to Dr. Hawking's in that neither of them appeared to acknowledge that if cosmic rays could create stable neutral micro black holes by colliding with Earth, then the micro black holes would travel through Earth and into space at nearly the speed of light, as the 2008 LSAG Safety Report confirms.

If a collider is able to create micro black holes some might travel slowly and be captured by Earth, again as confirmed by LSAG.

Dr. Tyson also appears to have reasonable faith in Hawking Radiation though he acknowledges that we don't know for certain, and that is helpful honesty.
The LSAG report also acknowledges that Hawking Radiation is not a proven certainty.

Checking the facts at LHCFacts.org
Cheers!

James Tankersley Jr, Middleton WI (Sent Wednesday, June 25, 2008 7:56 PM)

To me there seems to be two problems with the micro black hole gobbling up the earth.

First of all, black hole's that were created from stars collapsing are probably more massive than the material it swallows. To swallow the earth, a micro black hole would have to pull an object that is greatly more massive than the black hole which seems very unlikely.

Second, a micro black hole swallowing the earth seems to violate the laws of thermodynamics. How could something so small have enough energy to swallow the earth? It seems like the black whole would have to create energy in order to do this and thus in lies the problem.

zXakari, Seattle,WA (Sent Wednesday, June 25, 2008 8:25 PM)

The answer has been given. There are natural processes going on all the time -- cosmic rays hitting the Earth -- with more energy than LHC. If such energies were going to produce black holes that ate the Earth, it would have happened long ago. The fact that we're still here attests to the fact that it doesn't happen. The fact that it's still a matter of "controversy" is only because some people are uninformed, and some people who have become informed insist on believing as they did when they were uninformed. When LHC doesn't swallow the Earth, people will move on to other things to be afraid of.

Dennis McClain-Furmansi, Dalworthington Gardens, Texas (Sent Wednesday, June 25, 2008 8:44 PM)

Perhaps people just can't understand the risk of the LHC. Here's an example:

43531 people died in driving accidents in the US in 2007. in a country of 301,139,947, that yields odds of dying in a car of about 1 in 7000 for every person in the US.

As I estimated elsewhere the odds of the LHC destroying the earth are much much less than 1 in 7 million trillion trillion, which puts the odds, even considering the extermination of every one of the 7 billion people on earth, at 1 in a billion trillion per person. That, versus 1 in 7000 for driving.

With odds like that, we should all WALK to the LHC and hide out there.

Gphillip (Sent Wednesday, June 25, 2008 9:02 PM)

I looked up the math. If two protons collide with enough kinetics energy to fuse into a black hole, the black hole will have a mass of two protons, and will probably not be moving. The thing is, the lifetime of a black hole of two-proton mass is less than the Planck time, which means that the hole would evaporate at the same time it was created. An observer would see a sudden burst of gamma radiation--then nothing. (Well, that assumes that the gamma rad doesn't interact with something else, but you get the point; subsequent interactions would just be less energetic.)

Funny thing is, we already see these gamma bursts. Hmm. Odd isn't it?

Actually, a black hole of 10E-5 grams has a zero lifetime as well, and that's a great bloody lot of protons coalescing to produce the black hole. The LHC simply can't produce the kind of black hole (if it can produce any AT ALL) that have long-term stability as a property.

@RJ - the odds of the LHC terminating the world are about the same as either of us waking up as a butterfly tomorrow--lower than zero.

James Hawk III (Sent Wednesday, June 25, 2008 10:00 PM)

So what's the gravitational index of a micro black hole? Indexed against earth as 1.0000. They don't have the mass to suck in the earth unless there's a temporary augmentation, some type of gravity field set up by the reaction. If it only has it's natural gravity it's not going to suck anything in. It would be much smaller than anything it collides with. Smaller than the theorized dark matter particles that mostly pass through the earth without interacting with anything. I believe the lifespan of a black hole as small as these is less than the microsecond range, without feeding. If neutrinos and "dark matter" travel through earth without interacting and these black holes have only their natural gravity how many interactions (feedings) could they actually have. Almost all would evaporate before they could get out of the chamber. To grow and become a menace they'd have to limp along from one interaction to the next keeping ahead of evaporation. It's playing 21 and letting it ride. You only have to lose once to lose. With the incredibly small odds of reaching that next interaction before evaporating away I don't think it's plausible that one could survive and grow to be a threat. I'm more worried about being killed by a meteor. Not a planet killer. Baseball sized that kills me, not you.

Aside: I'm also pretty sure these micro black holes are actually micro naked anomalies.

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT (Sent Wednesday, June 25, 2008 10:29 PM)

"1 in 7 million trillion trillion"

I was worried that the odds might be closer to 1 in 8... Three strongly disputed assumptions:

1 Micro Black holes are created or not
2 Micro Black holes decay or not
3 Micro Black holes grow slowly or not

And the cosmic ray argument, as CERN's SPC Committee writes: "while highly plausible, do require confirmation"

LHCFacts.org

James Tankersley Jr, Middleton WI (Sent Wednesday, June 25, 2008 10:55 PM)

I assume I am right in saying black holes give off energy from what they take in. If a small black hole could be held in a neutral state, through maybe a magnetic force, fed safely with what ever it likes to eat and energy is given off safely, we may be able to have our ultimate source of energy.
Is there any discussion to this, pro or con? Or don't we know enough about black holes yet to make such an assumption?

Delmar Fairchild, Barron, WI (Sent Wednesday, June 25, 2008 11:13 PM)

Well I see there is no shortage of idiots. Small black holes eventually become big ones. Also Black holes are basicaly solid mater ie the atoms are so tightly packed that there is no movement. The weight is enormous compaired to the size. It might take a small black hole hundreds of years to suck in the earth but it would eventually do it. Like a snowball rolling down hill, it will get bigger and bigger, like our national debt. And just like the debt we will have less and less to show for it as it eats us up.

Rob Roy Edmond Ok (Sent Wednesday, June 25, 2008 11:52 PM)

James, I don't think it's right to come up with a 1-in-8 figure based just on three questions... That would be like saying:

1. Dragons exist or not.
2. They breathe fire or not.
3. The fire is hot enough to burn up the world or not.

Therefore, there's a 1-in-8 chance that dragons will burn up the world.

Also, I think several commenters have already made it clear that the passage you quote refers to higher energies achieved by future colliders, rather than the energies anticipated for the LHC. No need to repeat that phrase over and over.

Alan Boyle (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 1:13 AM)

I think the real question becomes will someone try to "feed" the little bugger? Very tempting.

Francis Mueller (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 9:03 AM)

If micro black holes are created learning to control their size and energies (learning to create "designer" black holes) may be the dawning of man's ability to leave the earth and make some serious headway in interstellar travel.
Using the gravitational energies of a "designer" black hole, space could conceivably compressed (probably repeatedly in relatively small increments) in the "forward" direction of travel, thus making this distance negligible.
Interestingly, this type of travel not only eliminates the issues of extremely long flights (greater than multiple human lifetimes) but also eliminates eliminates issues of Einsteinian relativity and time dilation / compression as large distances would be bridged literally instantaneously.
Naturally, issues of surviving proximity to a huge gravity well and controlling the creation, application, and rate of decay would be essential, but that's what we're here for. This a beautiful time to be human.

Edward Motley, Lathrup Village, Mich (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 9:05 AM)

In my personal opinion, even if a micro black hole is created, and sustained it is still no danger. With only two protons of mass it will have the gravitational pull at the distance from the singularity equal to the radius of the proton of the gravitational pull of two protons. Now we know there are not many particles smaller than a proton right? So what exactly is this black hole going to suck in even if it did interact with other atoms. It will be so small that it won't even have a strong enough reaction to pull an atomic particle away from an atom.

Also, even if a stray proton passed by the micro black hole, the chance that the proton would be "eaten" is slim to none. The proton would have to have a direct hit to the hole to be absorbed.

Why not capture the hole in an EM field if it is sustained and put it in a particle free container. Then we can do what we want with it. Study it more and stop thinking this is going to be the end of the world. I would be much more worried about our friends in Iran and their ties with Russia than scientists trying to discover some of the answer to the ultimate questions of our universe.

Branden D. Tucson, AZ (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 10:40 AM)

Nova, as interesting as its subjects are, appears to be made for young children, what with its whooshing noises, huge sound effects and other childish items. Can't Americans understand grown-up stuff? It would behoove Nova to take pages from the BBC books when it comes to documentaries and science programmes.

Dennis Lynch, Cary, NC (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 11:18 AM)

The issue is whether or not in all of time and how often a black hole would be created that would not make it through the earth or not make it through a neutron star. I know there is a lot of space in common matter for one to slip through, but a neutron star has a density similar to the nucleus of an atom. It would seem to me that neutron stars would catch fast mini black holes even if the earth does not and neutron stars are still there. If they aren't harming neutron stars, which would catch fast ones, then they aren't an issue for us either.

This guy is saying that even earth would catch them.

Also, with all the cosmic rays flitting about in every direction, would't some of them hit each other head on, or close enough to create things moving slowly enough relative to earth, stars and other planets to be cought by their gravity, just as in a collider?

Loren, Fullerton, CA (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 12:18 PM)

One thing first, a micro black hole cannot "gobble up" the Earth. It can gobble particles with less mass than itself. IF, it doesn't evaporate first. Someone already mentioned that it would have to stay ahead of evaporation and gobble particles to actually grow. If it manages to do this, then it can slowly swallow pieces that get larger and larger, until it finally finishes off the Earth. Much cooler way for the world to end, don't you think?
Still, highly improbable. These are formed in space all around us in a veritable particle soup. If it was likely to happen, odds are it already would have since its been billions of years already.

Scooter (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 12:24 PM)

"Well I see there is no shortage of idiots. Small black holes eventually become big ones. Also Black holes are basicaly solid mater ie the atoms are so tightly packed that there is no movement. The weight is enormous compaired to the size. It might take a small black hole hundreds of years to suck in the earth but it would eventually do it. Like a snowball rolling down hill, it will get bigger and bigger, like our national debt. And just like the debt we will have less and less to show for it as it eats us up."

Be careful sir, that it is not YOU that looks like an idiot!! All of this is theory. Nothing is absolute and exists mainly in the realm of mathematics and careful study made from the observation of nature. Odds are that we will reach our demise at the hands of a drunk driver or old age. If you are looking for someone to tell you that there is a 100% chance that this is absolutely safe well no one can. I don't hear anyone jumping up and down and screaming about our government storing deadly bacteria and virus'. Those germs could concievably get out and kill us all . . . right? What are the odds of our planet being eaten by a two proton mass black hole versus some sleepy technician somewhere making a mistake with the wrong vial, Or our planet being hit by very large rock (that ARE out there floating around), Or that our planet will become too hot for us to live (there are projections that suggest this). The thing is . . . if you want to worry about something, there are MUCH bigger and more immediate things to worry about!

My educated opinion.

Underwelmed (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 1:04 PM)

Obviously he is providing a non creationist world view which is based upon humanistic thinking which is contrary to God and therefore has no grounds in fact. Intelligent design however is based completely on fact. He needs to read his Bible and understand God's plan especially Genesis.

Ken, Pasadena, CA (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 1:38 PM)

All this fear about the LHC causing the end of the Earth is unfounded!C'mon, folks. Micro-blacks holes fade so fast it would be impossible for them to do any damage...what is interestingto me is the enegry that they might produce....if a system could be created to keep the micro black hole stable, the enegry it would generate would be enormous...and if you stop "feeding" it, the the singlarity would evaporate...

Charles, Detroit, MI (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 1:52 PM)

As Tyson's analysis indicated, the people who plan and run the experiments at the LHC have also thought about this rather carefully: Most of them live on Earth and have family that do likewise! According to their analysis:
- The rate at which a micro-blackhole would pick up mass is rather smaller than the rate at which it would lose mass through Hawking radiation.
- If they can create these micro-blackholes at the energy levels of current interest, they are already being generated in the upper atmosphere. In that case, they would already have "had their shot" at the Earth - and have failed! Since we are still here, that hasn't happened, and it won't happen due to the LHC experiments.
- Could there be an error in the Hawking radiation calculations? In principle, yes; but then in principle there could be an error in the entire blackhole calculational scheme. If you're going to discount the one, you may as well discount both, and stop worrying about blackholes entirely.
- Finally: This whole discussion reminds me of a related issue that arose time and again during the Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear bomb: The possibility occurred to someone that the first artificial nuclear-fission event might cause a chain-reaction in the atmosphere that would essentially annihilate the atmosphere. Naturally, he found this possibility alarming, and raised a fuss. Eventually, wiser heads studied the matter and determined, upon more careful calculation, that this was NOT going to happen; and that fellow stopped worrying. However, this being during the war, and in a top-secret project, the entire issue and its resolution were not discussed. So six months later, another bright young fellow came up with the same idea, the same concern, and raised a fuss. Again, he was taken aside and shown the calculations, and calmed down. But then six months later, yet another bright young guy came up with the same idea... This went on throughout the Manhattan Project. So now, the same thing is happening again; except that the people doing the worrying are not, for the most part, capable of following the calculations that show that the danger is infinitesimal.

Neal J. King (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 2:08 PM)

For everyone’s information:

A Micro Black Hole will at the moment of its creation have a mass of 14,000 times that of a lead proton. This huge mass is a direct result of Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity that states that any moving object will increase its mass the faster it travels. Because the LHC will be accelerating two particles to very close to the speed of light, each lead proton will carry approximately 7000 times the mass of proton at rest, and all of this will be smashed into an area of that of sub-atomic particle (even smaller than the original protons).

For some of the bloggers that cannot understand how such a small thing can devoir a planet, well its easy, it starts one atom at the time, and with each gulp, it doubles its ability to eat more. Under these conditions how many doublings do you think it will take before the Earth will be in mortal danger?

If a MBH remains stable (and there are many very knowledgeable experts that claim the odds are large for it to do so) should we not make every effort to make sure that the particle physicists are not rushing into this because they want their name on the Nobel Prize for detecting the sought after god particle (the Higgs Boson).

I have mentioned it in another earlier blog that the particle physicists that are attempting this experiment are basing the fact that the MBH will vaporize nearly as soon as it is born on two mutually incompatible theories, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and on the Standard Model of Quantum Mechanics. One or both of these theories is / are terribly wrong. For instance when string physicist attempted to calculate the energy in empty space (the universe’s Dark Energy) they were as much as 120 magnitudes off of the expected value. Do you how big 10 to the 120 power is? Its bigger than the difference between the size of a sub-atomic particle and that of the size of the known universe. This is the biggest calculatable error ever made by anyone anywhere and these same people are saying that it is ok to make micro black holes????

I find it strange that the Dr. Tyson who is surely aware of this fact has not mentioned it in his discussions.

Philip J. Calamatas (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 2:38 PM)

Small black holes don't evaporate. They have been with us for a looong time.

http://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com/

Austin (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 2:53 PM)

A small black hole cannot eat a planet. The radiation from the matter falling into it will mostly counteract the force of its gravity except when very,very close.

austin (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 2:54 PM)

For Everyone's Information:

I'm selling seats on the mothership. It will be arriving the day before the LHC fires up. Chicken Little will be driving.

(Give it a rest already!)

Underwelmed (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:15 PM)

Philip you are correct and you are also very wrong. There is enough accuracy in what you say to be frightening around a camp fire but (sorry) your conclusion is still incorrect. Yes, the resulting MBH will be far more massive than the colliding particles but it will have an almost instantaneous death. There is some observational support for Hawking radiation. It isn't just mathematical play with wishful numbers. But let's assume for a moment that the resulting MBH does manage to somehow hold together for a few milliseconds or so. What will it eat?? It is very, very, very tiny. At that scale the distances between particles of any mass is enormous. It could travel through many feet of lead and touch nothing.

Sorry . . . but I do not see how your argument holds any water and as I said in an earlier post. There are problems plaguing this world that are NOT theoretical and far more deserving of our energies.

Once again,
my educated opinion.

Underwhelmed (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:42 PM)

A couple of questions:
1) What is the ratio of Pb (lead) ions (or heavier) in cosmic rays that strike the Earth's atmosphere?

2) At what energies do these Pb or heavier ions strike the atmosphere?

3) What do these cosmic ray Pb or heavier ions strike in our atmosphere? Other Pb or heavier ions, or atoms with less mass, such as hydrogen, oxygen, etc. Are there Pb or heavier ions in our upper atmosphere?

3)The LHC is going to accelerate Pb ions to 1,150 TeV (collision energy), or 1,150x10(12)eV, correct?

4)The vast majority of cosmic rays strike the atmosphere with 10(7)eV and 10(10)eV, correct?

5)The number of higher energy cosmic ray events drops off as the energy of particles get higher, meaning the highest energy states are the rarest, correct?

6) The heliospause acts as a barrier to cosmic rays, reducing the energy from lower intensity cosmic rays by 90%, correct?

7) So, what CERN is about to do is utilize protons that have not been seen in previous cosmic ray collisions, at energies that exceed "average" cosmic ray energies, correct?

As for me, I'm betting this will make for a good bad-science made-for-TV movie, where one of those microscopic black holes will emit a graviton as it evaporates. The subsequent "ripple" as the graviton decays will collapse all matter within a kilometer into basic particles (note: we'll need a better special effect than those cheesy atomic explosions from the 50's), and as the ripple passes through the Earth sets off massive earthquakes, undersea slides, tsunamis, etc. I just need to figure out how the hero saves the day with a counter-graviton pulse using only a Swiss Army knife and duct tape...calling MacGyver...

Doug Fingles, Warner Robins, GA (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:52 PM)

Most of these comments reveal shocking and embarrassing levels of ignorance. The pro-ignorance pro-MBH ramblings are made with strident confidence and presume to argue with conclusions reached by physicists WHILE OFFERING NOTHING but the most inane, logically unsound, ramblings to substantiate themselves with.

I don't know what is more embarrassing: the lack of scientific knowledge or the belief that you are competent to even discuss this field much less disagree with it's experts. Seriously, stop making such fools of yourselves. You are painfully raising "points" that aren't even remotely applicable to the legitimate discussion - then acting as if you have somehow "caught" the experts because they didn't address it.

You haven't spotted anything that hasn't been considered. And, while we're at it, you're obviously not qualified to have arguments on this subject when you plainly do not understand basic particle theory or basic physics for that matter.

If you're interested in the field, read textbooks, attend university classes - all of that is great. But stop it with the totally insane commenting. This board is SO bad that many of you need to do a great deal of learning just to understand how big of a fool you're making of yourselves.

Oh yeah, Questions are just fine. But the issue itself has been solved. Not on this board, but in the journals and professional papers of the field. Which you would know if you had the background to argue the topic in any way.

Get an education before you get an opinion.

Jorge R. Chicago IL (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:15 PM)

Black holes don't "expend energy" to consume other matter... at least not the star-corpse ones I learned about in physics. They're a superconcentrated form of matter that is so compact and heavy that they generate so much gravity that the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light.

Such a black hole could easily consume just about anything - and become *more* powerful, since the mass of whatever it "ate" would then increase its own mass...

C Jencks, San Diego, CA (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:25 PM)

I can't help but wonder whether or not all these hysterics over the micro black holes is REAL scientific concern, or merely science-fiction concern. It seems that legitimate scientists, like Dr. Tyson, are only acting like it's an issue and doing something like a rhetoric pat on ignorant little head of people who act like it's a real issue, not unlike the pat on the head of my 2 year old when he asks if his stuffed animal got hurt when it fell off the table.
Other then the 2 (crackpot) scientists who are suing the federal government in a silly attempt to stop the LHC, are there ANY real scientists who are have any real concerns about this?
And that's not to say that it's not necessarily a real thing. I'm simply wondering if real scientists are truly concerned and not just doing the rhetorical equivalent of putting a teddy bear in a cast.
After all, a meteor destroying my house is a real thing that could really happen... but I'm not losing any sleep over the possibility. And if the crazy UFO nut across the street is really, really worried about it, I'm willing to put up a tin-foil antennae to focus earth rays and deflect meteors just to placate his ignorance, but as soon as he's not looking I'm going to be laughing about him.

Joe, Houston, TX (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:40 PM)

Philip J. Calamatas

Assuming the worst case, that you meant lead atom, atomic weight 207.2 avg. X 14000 = 2900800 au. That's 2.901 X 10E6. Worst case is a black hole with the gravity produced by 1.92 X 10E-17 grams. By the way, that was ten to the MINUS seventeen grams. Smaller than an electron. That translates to no appreciable gravitational effect and a miniscule cross section for physical reaction. As long as they do evaporate, and do it in less than about 10 minutes, they shouldn't be able to eat enough to stay alive. 10 minutes is 60,000,000 microseconds. I'm still more afraid of that pesky meteor.

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 6:28 PM)

Clearly, anecdotal evidence supports the hypothesis that a black hole acts as a "super pac-man" and may consume all matter, known and unknown, in its wake--which may include, at some point, the LHC. Think of black holes as nothing more than complex garbage compactors, with the not-so-unique ability to increase their mass as they consume matter--much like humans do when they eat too much--only their consumption rate is much greater and accelerates with time (along with the mass). If this does happen--and it's plausible--make sure you log into MSNBC to see what city the black hole was heading to to gobble up next. That would the weather forecast "must see" tv.

Pondering the End, Kitsap County, Washington (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 6:38 PM)

Theory holds that smaller black holes evaporate faster than larger black holes. Using a direct substitution from the evaporation rate of a sun-massed black hole to our maximum 14000 X mass of a lead atom micro version for a lifespan of 10E-76 seconds. To travel the diameter of a proton from its first meal to its second would require a speed 3X10E58 times faster than C. So even if the second meal isn't on the farthest side of the proton it just ate, let's say it's only 1/100 of the diameter, the requisite speed is still 3X10E56C. Just to get a second meal before dying. It would have to go faster, though, to get a third meal, as the distance would have to be greater than 1/100 the diameter of a proton to the next meal, even if we allotted the full lifespan again when it's mass was only 1 instead of 14000 au. They can't survive. Please feel free to check my math. I could have made a magnitude 50 mistake. Well, even then it would have to travel faster than light.

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 7:42 PM)

Underwhelmed

I like to know where you got your information on Hawking radiation from?

To the best of my knowledge no one has ever seen or tested anything that can be called Hawking radiation. First of all it is not possible to see it from stellar mass BHs or even from super massive BHs that resides at the centers of galaxies. For the simple reason that the bigger (or more massive) the BH is there is a corresponding smaller amount of Hawking radiation produced. Stellar BHs are predicted to take 10 to the +64th power years to dissipate due to the very small amount Hawking radiation produced whereas a MBH is predicted to self-destruct within 10 to -27 seconds. In simpler terms so that everyone can understand, Hawking radiation has never been seen or measured anywhere on Earth or in the Universe, and the only way that anyone will ever hope to see it (and thus prove its existence) is to produce a Micro Black Hole here on the Earth under laboratory conditions (thus one of the reasons for the LHC). Somehow this sounds like putting the cart before the horse.

Again another person that claims that a MBH is too small to eat anything. Well Underwhelmed you have just contradicted yourself. Do you know that in order for Hawking radiation to be produced the MBH is munching on the Quantum foam that makes up space-time? The MBH is actually separating the virtual sub-atomic pairs into its two separate particles one with positive and the other with negative energy from the quantum foam. The negative energy particle is swallowed by the MBH and the positive particle is expelled from the event horizon thus changing from a virtual particle to a real particle becoming the anticipated Hawking radiation. The negative energy particle is forbidden to exist in our universe and for that reason it is expected to be devoured, and since it has negative energy it will erode the mass of the singularity. Now if this starts to sound a little outlandish to you, well then you should asking yourself if this is enough information to go ahead with these experiments, or wait until more concrete information is made available.

Philip (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 7:56 PM)

Gee, some people must believe that all scientists are infallible, since they have apparently never made a mistake, underestimated the results of an experiment, had the wrong coefficient, mistook metric for standard, or never had to revise a theory. I wonder how many of the products we use today came from mistakes in the lab...

CERN had to rework the magnets because the design was faulty yet failed to be noticed through 4, count'em, 4 design reviews by "competent" engineers. A fair question is: What else have they not noticed?

There are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. When we start dealing with literally cosmic forces, the forces of creation and destruction in the universe, caution should be the watchword.

That said, for my aforementioned made-for-TV movie, I'd like to cast myself in the role of the "MacGyver" hero who saves the planet with witty one-liners, a few well-timed sarcastic remarks, and a lot of special effects. Either that, or the beloved sidekick...

Doug Fingles, Warner Robins, Georgia (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 10:07 PM)

Apparently I was off by 50 orders. Never trust math on paper. Or maybe never trust math by me. The maximum speed of light is less than 3x10E8 m/s. Using Philip's 10E-27 the MBH would still require faster than light travel. To eat at least 3 protons / neutrons the minimum distance would be about 60% of r, that's hitting the first two simultaneously with the third tucked neatly up against both in the line of travel of the MBH. 10E-18 m is shorter than the minimum possible distance. That means extinction just reaching the 3rd meal at a speed of 10E-18 m/10E-27 s or 10E9 m/s. That's 3 times the speed of light. And at that speed it's not eating enough to sustain. This isn't even a real question.

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 11:10 PM)

Philip,

I reread your 1956 entry and found the other thing. Correctly interpereted: "MHB is too small to eat anything (that exists outside of it's influence.)" Meaning the stuff around us. As you look at your monitor you must realize that it is made up of billions and billions of subatomic particles. (Conservative estimate.) It's too small to eat those things. Reality: It can probably eat any one of those particles that hits the horizon. I would imagine that complex subatomic particles are disintegrated and that only one sub-sub-atomic particle enters. Maybe a nuetrino. And that only if it were created right next to something, which isn't likely, unless they're firing this thing into a plasma chamer, but that would interfere with aim, too much scatter. But even if it ate the whole atom, electrons and all, it would still self-deficate before it could reach another. Those things aren't that close.

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT (Sent Thursday, June 26, 2008 11:57 PM)

I love black holes and think they are getting bad press here. I mean, they are amazing structures and their mystery and enigma has pondered on our minds since we first thought of them, as humans.

So stop your slander, stop your baggin out, and stop your crap.

Just enjoy the ride and the physics that comes along with it. If we all die, we all die together. Its not like u wanna be the only one that survives in space. how boring would that be. Anyways, we've been here for a good timespan as a species ... maybe its time for the martian ice to spawn new life.

So stop picking on a poor little microscopic black hole. he is only small, weak and wanting to live. let him live i tells ya, let him live!!!

Go! Black Hole Go!

meanwhile, whatever happened to more pressing issues, like the price of oil, global warming or even feeding third world countries.

I love this topic and am obsessed with all this physics, but lets focus our energies (no pun intended) on topics that require great minds, like yours, to look into, debate and solve!

Have a good weekend!

Rami (Sent Friday, June 27, 2008 2:05 AM)

I'm no boffin, but generally speaking ...holes tend to get .... Bigger ?? ...correct ??

Bronagh Joyce Dublin Ireland (Sent Friday, June 27, 2008 5:26 AM)

Doug: Just make sure you don't end up being cast as MacGruber! ;-)

http://www.hilarious.net/
the-complete-macgruber-snl-video-collection/

Alan Boyle (Sent Friday, June 27, 2008 1:20 PM)

There seems to be a huge amount of sloppy "classical" thinking about a "quantum" subject.

Several people have talked about the "matter" making up a black hole, but a black hole is not a material object, it is a distortion in space time.

While it may have been created by an assemblage of matter, a black hole transcends matter. A black hole ceases to be matter when it forms; unlike the formation process of a neutron star where the state of matter changes (from the "normal" electron dominated state to the "degenerate" neutron state.) but it remains matter.

For example, it has been determined from both observation & experiment that the density of a neutron star is about "8.4×1016 to 1×1018 kg/m³" or about the same density as the nuclei of atoms. It is meaningless to ask what the same characteristic is in a black hole.

While a black hole has a total mass, it is a quantum object and is not composed of smaller components. Therefore it is without density in a classical sense.

Jaycubed (Sent Friday, June 27, 2008 3:33 PM)

Jaycubed,

I really must both agree and disagree. First, there is a lot of sloppy thinking, but both classical and quantum. Second, I think it is probably meaningful to ask the desity of the singularity. It displays gravity, which we can translate to a mass, and it is finite, we know it can be no larger than the event horizon. Darned hard to tell how much smaller, though. I do agree that it wouldn't have the same meaning as when we talk about the density of a copper block. I can go with the transcends matter part and not composed of smaller components. Without anything to back it up, but then, who has anything to back up their ideas about a black holes core, I think it's something like B-E condensate, a type of "wave-matter." And I still have trouble with the whole "black hole" thing. How small would this mass have to be to get gravity dense enough to have a horizon? I am, however, very comfortable with naked anomaly with a voracious appetite. You know, it chews it's food with a time disparity.

So, do naked anomalies Hawking radiate? Do they grow and grow? Do they reintegrate? Do they spin? So many questions. Anyone have answers?

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT (Sent Friday, June 27, 2008 6:32 PM)

I think everyone is forgetting one big point. Even if a black hole is created ( ie. Star Trek, The Planet Killer episode) we can simply blow a space ship up inside to close it off for good.

James (Sent Monday, July 14, 2008 10:54 AM)

i dont get it? how come when they talk about this stuff (which usually arouses my interests) i usually get disappointed in the end because no one would talk in layman's terms.... sorry... then it really gets confusing and everything... why cant they make it easier for teenagers like me to understand :-??

princess kathryn, calgary, alberta (Sent Saturday, September 06, 2008 5:31 AM)

Princess,
If you're actually checking back say so. I'd be happy to lay it out if I know you'll read it. Include what kinds of classes you've had.

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT (Sent Sunday, September 07, 2008 3:06 AM)

What if? A Black Hole is nothing more than vortex created by an emense contrast of energy as the extreme temperatures caused by a collapsing star meet with the colder temperature of deep space. The BH would open a temporary window from our Universe to the far reaches of outter space where temperatures hover near absolute "0" Kelvin. Nature will attempt to balance the temperature difference through convection by wich all matter and associated gravity is sucked in similar to forces created by a Tornato on earth. What appears to be darkest black is the absence of light or energy that is a result of absolute "0" kelvin where all matter is frozen in a state of suspended animation resulting in negative energy. This condition of absolute "0" kelvin can only exist in the far reaches of space that is not subject to time or free atomic movement or energy. I beleive that Black Holes are the recycling centers for all matter. Lighter particals ride on energy waves to the edge of our universe where they are consumed and suspended in the cold of infinite space. Larger mass bounces back to our universe where it is attracted by associated gravity at the event horizon and again finds its respective place within the universe where the cycle begins again. Conclusion would be that Black Holes created in the lab are not of any consequence to mother earth. I hope that this theory will make everyone sleep better!

Fred Budetti, Stroudsburg, PA (Sent Monday, October 06, 2008 11:42 PM)

Don't worry.... eventually our own galaxy's black hole will take care of what these little black holes don't.

RCM (Sent Wednesday, October 22, 2008 5:17 PM)

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