If CERN Kills Us All, Would We Notice?

LostAngeles

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Tokorona mentioned in chat that the CERN reactor start-up was delayed and that we all wouldn't die tomorrow. I had to ask, "Would we notice?"

Isn't there some weird time dilation happening as something falls into a black hole? Would we live out our lives as we fell into the black hole? If so, could we detect it? Would we spend an eternity being torn apart? Would we notice? If you end up writing some awesome sci-fi based on this, can I have a cut of the royalties?

ETA: Dear God, this is my Iamme post, isn't it?:p
 
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As to your point on writing Sci-Fi based on these ideas, I believe the idea of this was explored already in the Gateway series of books. In that (IIRC) the people who fell into the black hole were pretty much "frozen" in time at the event horizon. They were also eventually rescued somehow, decades later, and had not aged and their last memories were from just before they went in.

It's been quite some time since I read them. Good books. Not sure how accurate any of that is.
 
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I read an excellent article on this in my local rag. I'll have a look.

The summary was, yes, it's possible, but such particles are heading for us all the time anyway, so the odds of them doing what CERN could do are much higher. IIRC, it's an accelerator, not a reactor.
 
LostAngeles said:
Tokorona mentioned in chat that the CERN reactor start-up was delayed and that we all wouldn't die tomorrow. I had to ask, "Would we notice?"

Isn't there some weird time dilation happening as something falls into a black hole? Would we live out our lives as we fell into the black hole? If so, could we detect it? Would we spend an eternity being torn apart? Would we notice? If you end up writing some awesome sci-fi based on this, can I have a cut of the royalties?
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Yes we would know. Objects close to black holes appear to travel more slowly in time. For example, if I throw a baseball at a black hole it would appear (to my eyes) to slow down and eventually stop.

Now imagine if CERN was at the center of a time dilation:

CERN is in Geneva. If I sent a package to Geneva that asks for an immediate reply, I'd never get one. The delivery man would never get to Geneva from my POV.

Plus the Earth would implode.
 
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Whiplash said:
As to your point on writing Sci-Fi based on these ideas, I believe the idea of this was explored already in the Gateway series of books. In that (IIRC) the people who fell into the black hole were pretty much "frozen" in time at the event horizon. They were also eventually rescued somehow, decades later, and had not aged and their last memories were from just before they went in.

It's been quite some time since I read them. Good books. Not sure how accurate any of that is.
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IIRC some alien race had found a way of crossing the event horizon and was using black holes as a place to hide from another alien race. I think that was the point that the series started rapidly downhill. IMHO of course.:)
 
KingMerv00 said:
Yes we would know. Objects close to black holes appear to travel more slowly in time. For example, if I throw a baseball at a black hole it would appear (to my eyes) to slow down and eventually stop.

Now imagine if CERN was at the center of a time dilation:

CERN is in Geneva. If I sent a package to Geneva that asks for an immediate reply, I'd never get one. The delivery man would never get to Geneva from my POV.

Plus the Earth would implode.
Click to expand...

At those (cosmically) small distances, would that delay be that noticiable? Do I appear to be still be working on the same homework problem to my professors? Does my cat move more slowly in the kitchen than in the living room? Does my mom seem to spend epicly more time talking about wanting grandbabies?

This is probably way out of anyone's expertise, but it's an neat idea.
 
What's the theoretically smallest black hole that could perpetually exist and grow but would affect the surrounding the environment the least?

What I'm expecting is a CERN email titled "oops" stating they created such a hole, can't figure how to shut it down, and the whole world devolves into hedonism, looting, and smacking CERN scientists around while we wait for the ultimate absorption. Basically a 24/7 New Year's Eve. With some theists standing to the side shaking their fingers at us in an all-knowing way, of course.


(I'm more worried about stable antimatter btw)
 
Dragoonster said:
What's the theoretically smallest black hole that could perpetually exist and grow but would affect the surrounding the environment the least?

What I'm expecting is a CERN email titled "oops" stating they created such a hole, can't figure how to shut it down, and the whole world devolves into hedonism, looting, and smacking CERN scientists around while we wait for the ultimate absorption. Basically a 24/7 New Year's Eve. With some theists standing to the side shaking their fingers at us in an all-knowing way, of course.


(I'm more worried about stable antimatter btw)
Click to expand...

See, I knew someone with better knowledge could as my question more efficiently! Thanks!
 
LostAngeles said:
At those (cosmically) small distances, would that delay be that noticiable? Do I appear to be still be working on the same homework problem to my professors? Does my cat move more slowly in the kitchen than in the living room? Does my mom seem to spend epicly more time talking about wanting grandbabies?

This is probably way out of anyone's expertise, but it's an neat idea.
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Time dilation happens on Earth. We don't notice it because the effect is very weak. In your example, you are talking about a severe version of the same thing...a black hole.

Someone smarter than me could probably explain how big the black hole is "likely" to be. The bigger the hole, the bigger the effect. Right? Uh...I think?
 
A micro black hole could drift through the whole earth without any interaction with anything. It has to direct hit something to get any interaction. And matter is made up mostly of nothing. (Any atom consists of a very small nucleus and probabilty distribution of electrons in waveform, electrons are NOT small balls in an orbit!) Gravity is a much to weak force at small scales compared to the forces in the nucleus of an atom. And if it get a direct hit on something - big deal - mass goes a little bit up but the reach is still almost zero. It would last longer than 5 billion years (which is the natural end point for earth as the sun gets a red giant) to do anything significant.
 
LostAngeles said:
See, I knew someone with better knowledge could as my question more efficiently! Thanks!
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I'm sure I've failed you, heh. That is, compared to real knowledge on black holes we're both snails ;)

But I'm a'scared anyway! And I have my hedonism suit in my closet just waiting...hm...

Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants to experience a slow armageddon and still not get any? :eek:
 
Stable anti matter?

Dragoonster, what is stable anti-matter?
How could this exist outside the magnetic storages of a lab in a part of the universe (on earth) where matter is dominant?
 
gambling_cruiser said:
A micro black hole could drift through the whole earth without any interaction with anything. It has to direct hit something to get any interaction. And matter is made up mostly of nothing. (Any atom consists of a very small nucleus and probabilty distribution of electrons in waveform, electrons are NOT small balls in an orbit!) Gravity is a much to weak force at small scales compared to the forces in the nucleus of an atom. And if it get a direct hit on something - big deal - mass goes a little bit up but the reach is still almost zero. It would last longer than 5 billion years (which is the natural end point for earth as the sun gets a red giant) to do anything significant.
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Hey, you sound knowledgeable, maybe you can explain some stuff about black hole size to me, please?

When you talk about the size, you count the event horizon and not the hole itself, right? Because the hole itself is... infinitesimally large and the size really is dependent on the mass of the black hole?

So a micro black hole would have at best the mass of... an apple? A few hydrogen atoms? A proton or two? All of the above?
 
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Anti-matter annihilates an equal amount of normal matter and we speak from sub atomic particles! So what is the problem? The gamma radiation is no surprise for CERN, nor any problem for anything outside!
 
Side Note: Maybe this isn't my Iamme thread after all. Give me time, I'm sure I'll post something about black holes and boobies though. :D
 
gambling_cruiser said:
Anti-matter annihilates an equal amount of normal matter and we speak from sub atomic particles!
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It creates pooploads of energy too. If that poopload gets too big...

According to wikipedia, (the most accurate source of information on Earth) 1 kg of antimatter is a 47 megaton bomb.

I'm not saying that is likely though.
 
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LostAngeles said:
Hey, you sound knowledgeable, maybe you can explain some stuff about black hole size to me, please?

When you talk about the size, you count the event horizon and not the hole itself, right? Because the hole itself is... infinitesimally large and the size really is dependent on the mass of the black hole?

So a micro black hole would have at best the mass of... an apple? A few hydrogen atoms? A proton or two? All of the above?
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The possible micro blakc hole would be about two proton masses and it is infinitesimally small. AFAIK if there is no Hawking radiation then the micro black hole does only interact through gravity.
If there is Hawking radiation the micro black hole wuold evaporate quickly without any chance of growing.
As all events of the CERN experiments occure naturally in the upper atmosphere at any given time (and many events with much higher energy than CERN can produce), and in the last 4.5 billion years no detectable black hole has formed on/near earth we can conclude there is no risk to fear.
 
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