Apocalypse? Not Really.
a theory full of holes
PrintEveryone loves a good doomsday scenario. When scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, located in Geneva, switched on their new multibillion dollar particle accelerator in September, the “End of Days” crowd found brief vindication. A headline in The Sun, a British newspaper, read: “The End of World Due in 9 Days.”
Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) had created the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in order to simulate particle reactions in space, thereby enabling them to learn more about the Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, and possibly extra dimensions. At the present time, what we know about spatial particles and their interactions is defined by the Standard Model, which isn’t all that inclusive. CERN scientists are searching in particular for a particle called the Higgs boson, thought to be the force behind dark matter. Inside the accelerator, two beams of particles travel at almost the speed of light, guided by electromagnets which can conduct electricity without resistance or loss of energy (which means the magnets must be kept at -271 degrees Celsius, colder than temperatures in outer space). The carefully constructed collisions of these particles will hopefully give the scientists the insight they crave.
But there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Some believe this might kill us all. Critics of this experiment believe that these high-energy collisions could possibly generate a black hole, able to gobble up the Earth and all its inhabitants. On Aug. 26 of last year, Otto Rossler, a German chemist from the Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen, filed a lawsuit against CERN with the European Court of Human Rights. He believes that the experiment poses a threat to European citizens’ right to life and law. Two U.S. environmentalists also filed a lawsuit with the Federal District Court in Honolulu to pressure the U.S. government to suspend its involvement. Now, before we all curl up in underground bunkers to watch the end of the world, let’s hope they crossreferenced their facts with Nostradamus first.
Most scientists agree that even if this experiment did create a black hole (some experts put the probability at one in five billion), the hole would be too small to gobble up a meal, let alone Rhode Island. Stephen Hawking’s theories of radiation tell us that the hole would evaporate instantaneously, because although black holes consume the light, energy, and matter surrounding them, they also let it escape at an accelerating speed.
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Phun with Physics: What we know, and don’t know, about space
The Standard Model of Particle Physics presents the four known fundamental interactions (strong force, weak force, gravitational force and electromagnetic force) and the elementary particles that take part in these interactions (we’re not just talking about protons and neutrons anymore – bosons, quarks and leptons are all fundamental particles).
If you ask most scientists what our universe is made of, they will tell you that they honestly do not know.
According to NASA, there are currently 14 known black holes.
Scientists have advanced and accurate ways to calculate the total amount of matter present in Space.
The problem is, when they compare this measurement with the total amount of light emitting matter, they find that the majority of matter is unaccounted for.
Scientists speculate that there is a particle in existence, already named the Higgs-Boson, which does not react with light, and could therefore be the source of all dark matter.
Although black holes have strong suction, they can only suck up what goes across their event horizons, and are therefore not capable of absorbing the whole universe, or even a large planet.
A black hole cannot be viewed directly because light cannot escape it.
Matter appearing near a black hole however, usually gas and dust, can heat up and emit radiation that can be detected.
The closest known black hole is Cygnus X-1, located about 8000 light years away.
On Sept. 10, the protons successfully circled the LHC. However, the project has been halted until next summer due to a serious fault between two of the superconducting magnets. Don’t worry, though—the LHC will be making an appearance in the upcoming movie Angels and Demons, starring Tom Hanks, as a weapon to be used against the Vatican. Now that’s a theory just as plausible as the one about the black hole.
29 January 2009
vol. 6, issue 1
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