I Hate to Be a Worrier

By | October 18, 2005
3 Comments

It’s just not my usual style. However, I couldn’t help but pause for a moment upon reading this (via Paul Hsieh):

Tiny black holes could soon be made on demand in particle accelerators, but shortly after their birth, they might blink out of existence. In the 14 October PRL, a team proposes a mechanism for this vanishing act: The space around these black holes could wrap upon itself and bud off, forming a new baby universe that is invisible to us. Such an event might signify the existence of extra dimensions beyond the three we are familiar with and might give clues to the properties of the extra dimensions.

Tiny black holes, baby universes, extra dimensions–these are my kind of people. Still, I can’t help but wonder…

What if the tiny black hole doesn’t fade into it’s baby universe on schedule? I mean, I realize that it’s tiny but it’s also a BLACK HOLE. Haven’t they been known to like, swallow things? Like planets? I’m just asking.

Or what if the tiny black hole drops off into its little universe on schedule, are we sure the process is through? We don’t really have much of an idea as to the dynamics of relationships between universes, now do we? Is it possible that if you send something into another universe, some kind of equilibrium insists that something else comes back? Sure, it would probably be benign and, of course, “tiny” but then again… we don’t really have any reason to assume either of those things. Something huge and nasty might come back. Something tiny and nasty might come back.

There are a lot of options.

Finally, have the scientists planning these tests read this book?

The scientists in this story try something equally inoccuous-sounding, but they accidentally trigger the destruction of the universe. Oops. Who knew?

Sure, it’s just science fiction. But very recently, any talk of tiny black holes and baby universes would have been science fiction, too.

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Cole Kitchen for getting me straight on which Greg Egan book I was thinking about.

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Stephen Gordon

    Black holes, baby universes, new branes – we have no clue how any of this could affect us. It strikes me as particularly irresponsible to push forward under those circumstances.

    “I destroyed the universe. My bad.”

    Or he might get lucky and just destroy this solar system. That’s a pretty big risk.

  • The Don Wood Files

    Of course you should worry. These scientists are acting recklessly. But it is not just atom smashers that may be a risk. There is also a huge boondoogle called the National Ignition Facility that is way over the top. No one seems to care about these grandiose and dangerous schemes except you and me.

    See here:

    http://dw-links.blogspot.com/2005/05/192-lasers-and-fate-of-earth.html

  • Sisyphus

    This is not really something to worry about. In the event that quantum black holes are actually created by the Large Hadron Collider, they will almost instantly dissipate in a burst of energy and various elementary particles.

    Why would black holes dissipate? As shown by Hawking, virtual particles near the event horizon of the black hole will split off, with some becoming real particles (so-called Hawking radiation), and the others being swallowed by the black hole. The net result of this is that each virtual particle pair with an escaping real particle reduces the mass-energy of the black hole by the amount of the mass-energy of the escaping virtual particle. In plain American English, a quantum black hole should disappear in a burst of radiation almost instantly.

    Strange quarks were a more worrisome problem than quantum black holes, but there’s a good reason not to be too worried about anything the LHC can produce. Basically, anything we can do nature can do better. Supernovas and the interactions of cosmic rays with our atmosphere have produced everything we are capable of producing. If some particle could be created that would destroy the earth, it would have already happened.