Byron In Exile
Frederick Fucking Chopin
- Joined
- May 3, 2002
- Posts
- 66,591
This is my answer to those who fear the full functioning Large Hardron Collider.
This is a process. It will take time to reduce the temperature of the container, and accellerate the proton beam, until the Tevetron is surpassed.
Landing on the moon was great, but this is better, in terms of human knowledge.
There is fear of black holes that will swallow the planet.
Knowledge is your friend.
There are four fundamental forces postulated by physics' Standard Model: Strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravity.
The first three operate on the scale of subatomic particles. But gravity, at that scale, is too weak to have any effect. If you get enough mass together, something on a scale of the earth for example, then its effect is evident. All chemical compounds are molecules which consist of atoms of different elements. Atoms consist of a nucleus, containing protons and neutrons, while electrons spin around the nucleus at various distances depending on their energy level. Protons have a positive charge, electrons are negative, and neutrons have no electrical charge. Atoms generally have the same number of electrons as protons, and it's the electromagnetic force that holds the electrons in orbit around the nucleus. Protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. A proton is two "up" quarks and one "down" quark, a neutron is two downs and one up. The up quark has a +2/3 electrical charge, and the down quark has a -1/3 charge. So, the neutron's charge is the sum of -1/3 -1/3 +2/3, or zero, and the proton's is +2/3 +2/3 -1/3, which sums to one. There are quarks of greater mass than up and down, which don't occur in nature because of how rapidly they decay: strange, charm, top, and bottom. The top quark was finally produced in the Tevatron at Fermilab in Illinois in 1995.
Three fundamental forces, electromagnetism, gravity, and the weak force, decay as distance increases between the particles they act on. The strong force increases with distance, and it is this force that holds quarks together in pairs (mesons), or triplets (hadrons), protons and neutrons being the naturally occurring examples of hadrons. Free neutrons are not stable, but protons are, and because they are electrically charged, they can be accelerated by magnets in a circlular vacuum tube like the Large Hadron Collider. Because the strong force increases as quarks are pulled apart, eventually the energy required to pull them further apart becomes greater than the energy required to produce a new particle pair, and matter is created from energy between the two particles. The greater the energy input, the greater the mass of the particles created, and this is how colliders create exotic particles like strange quarks, charm quarks, and so on, and by observation of how these particles interact and decay, the rules that govern the universe can be deduced.
What does this have to do with black holes, I'll bet you're wondering. Well, at the beginning of the universe, it is thought that there was only one fundamental force. As the universe expanded and cooled, the forces differentiated into four. Gravity was the first to split from the others, then the strong force, and finally the weak and electromagnetic force split. It is understood how the last three are related and at what point they split but because gravity became a separate force so early, and doesn't interact at the quantum level, how it relates to the others isn't understood. A theory which integrates gravity with the other forces is the Holy Grail of Physics. The strong force is by far the strongest but its range is short, since beyond about the diameter of a nucleus, its strength is so great that the energy to push past it creates more matter. The electromagnetic force is 1/137th as strong, but its range is infinite, decreasing over distance. The weak nuclear force is one millionth the strength of the strong force, and its range is only one-thousandth the width of a proton. Gravity's range is infinite, but its strength is only 0. (imagine 39 zeros here) 6 as strong as the strong force. Clearly, the strong for rules. A black hole, however, is a result of gravity overcoming all the other forces.
On the astrophysical scale, only large stars, three times larger than our sun, have the mass necessary to create one. When they're burning, they are giant fusion reactors, the pressure in their interiors fusing light elements into heavy ones and creating heat which keeps gravity at bay. Initially, stars fuse Hydrogen into Helium, later produce elements like Oxygen and Carbon, and very large stars (over 8 times the size of our sun) enter the Silicon burning sequence which lasts only a day and ends with Nickel. From there, any further fusion requires an input of energy, and a ball of Nickel (which is heavier than Lead) of that size becomes a victim of gravity. For any amount of mass, there is a corresponding Schwarzschild Radius, within which if it can be compressed, will result in a black hole. For example, if the mass of the moon could be compressed into a ball only 0.2 millimeters in diameter, it would become a black hole. The smallest stellar black hole is about 10 miles in diameter. This represents a star which was about 2,500,000 miles in diameter, now compressed to a sphere of blackness 10 miles across, and the center of it is infinitely farther down from the surface of it.
How can Nature be raped by Reality in this way? When mass accumates to this extent, finally gravity participates at the quantum level. Unfortunately, once gravity triumphs, it swallows all record of what is happening, and nothing can be observed.
Gravity's power increases in stages as illustrated by star collapse. Our sun, when it dies will produce a "white dwarf" in which all its fuel is spent, and the power of gravity has compressed the atoms into a soup of atomic nuclei and electrons. Were its mass larger than the Chandrasekhar Limit of 1.4 solar masses, gravity would be able to overcome the electromagnetic force and force electrons and protons to combine to form neutrons. This is a Neutron Star, and its formation occurs in a violent explosion called a Supernova. The result is one ten-thousandth the diameter of the living star. Stars less than three times the size of the sun will stay in this state, with the strong nuclear force and gravity at equilibrium.
However, if the mass is great enough, at least three solar masses, the strong force cannot preserve the integrity of the neutrons, and they collapse into who knows what, because man, they're gone.
And that's a stellar black hole.
What's at the center? Maybe a ball of quark-matter the size of a grain of sand. Maybe quarks themselves collapse into something else. Only gravity knows, because that is the realm where gravity rules at the quantum level.
So what's a micro black hole?
That's a very small amount of mass which is compressed into its Schwarzschild Radius. But the scale is radically different from a stellar black hole. Matter is 99.99% empty space. If the moon were compressed into a 0.2 mm ball, could it eat the earth? There isn't enough energy in the sun to do that, so it's a non-question. The micro black holes that the Large Hadron Collider produces, if praise Jesus it does, will be extremely short-lived. In fact, if it does produce them, they may exist for so short a time that they can't be detected. Oh, well.
As I said, energy, thanks to the stong nuclear force, can be made to produce matter. Any LHC micro black holes will be sustained by energy, not gravity. They will be weak compared to gravity by many zeros. Anyone who has an interest in this, I hope this post has done something to reassure you.
This is a process. It will take time to reduce the temperature of the container, and accellerate the proton beam, until the Tevetron is surpassed.
Landing on the moon was great, but this is better, in terms of human knowledge.
There is fear of black holes that will swallow the planet.
Knowledge is your friend.
There are four fundamental forces postulated by physics' Standard Model: Strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravity.
The first three operate on the scale of subatomic particles. But gravity, at that scale, is too weak to have any effect. If you get enough mass together, something on a scale of the earth for example, then its effect is evident. All chemical compounds are molecules which consist of atoms of different elements. Atoms consist of a nucleus, containing protons and neutrons, while electrons spin around the nucleus at various distances depending on their energy level. Protons have a positive charge, electrons are negative, and neutrons have no electrical charge. Atoms generally have the same number of electrons as protons, and it's the electromagnetic force that holds the electrons in orbit around the nucleus. Protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. A proton is two "up" quarks and one "down" quark, a neutron is two downs and one up. The up quark has a +2/3 electrical charge, and the down quark has a -1/3 charge. So, the neutron's charge is the sum of -1/3 -1/3 +2/3, or zero, and the proton's is +2/3 +2/3 -1/3, which sums to one. There are quarks of greater mass than up and down, which don't occur in nature because of how rapidly they decay: strange, charm, top, and bottom. The top quark was finally produced in the Tevatron at Fermilab in Illinois in 1995.
Three fundamental forces, electromagnetism, gravity, and the weak force, decay as distance increases between the particles they act on. The strong force increases with distance, and it is this force that holds quarks together in pairs (mesons), or triplets (hadrons), protons and neutrons being the naturally occurring examples of hadrons. Free neutrons are not stable, but protons are, and because they are electrically charged, they can be accelerated by magnets in a circlular vacuum tube like the Large Hadron Collider. Because the strong force increases as quarks are pulled apart, eventually the energy required to pull them further apart becomes greater than the energy required to produce a new particle pair, and matter is created from energy between the two particles. The greater the energy input, the greater the mass of the particles created, and this is how colliders create exotic particles like strange quarks, charm quarks, and so on, and by observation of how these particles interact and decay, the rules that govern the universe can be deduced.
What does this have to do with black holes, I'll bet you're wondering. Well, at the beginning of the universe, it is thought that there was only one fundamental force. As the universe expanded and cooled, the forces differentiated into four. Gravity was the first to split from the others, then the strong force, and finally the weak and electromagnetic force split. It is understood how the last three are related and at what point they split but because gravity became a separate force so early, and doesn't interact at the quantum level, how it relates to the others isn't understood. A theory which integrates gravity with the other forces is the Holy Grail of Physics. The strong force is by far the strongest but its range is short, since beyond about the diameter of a nucleus, its strength is so great that the energy to push past it creates more matter. The electromagnetic force is 1/137th as strong, but its range is infinite, decreasing over distance. The weak nuclear force is one millionth the strength of the strong force, and its range is only one-thousandth the width of a proton. Gravity's range is infinite, but its strength is only 0. (imagine 39 zeros here) 6 as strong as the strong force. Clearly, the strong for rules. A black hole, however, is a result of gravity overcoming all the other forces.
On the astrophysical scale, only large stars, three times larger than our sun, have the mass necessary to create one. When they're burning, they are giant fusion reactors, the pressure in their interiors fusing light elements into heavy ones and creating heat which keeps gravity at bay. Initially, stars fuse Hydrogen into Helium, later produce elements like Oxygen and Carbon, and very large stars (over 8 times the size of our sun) enter the Silicon burning sequence which lasts only a day and ends with Nickel. From there, any further fusion requires an input of energy, and a ball of Nickel (which is heavier than Lead) of that size becomes a victim of gravity. For any amount of mass, there is a corresponding Schwarzschild Radius, within which if it can be compressed, will result in a black hole. For example, if the mass of the moon could be compressed into a ball only 0.2 millimeters in diameter, it would become a black hole. The smallest stellar black hole is about 10 miles in diameter. This represents a star which was about 2,500,000 miles in diameter, now compressed to a sphere of blackness 10 miles across, and the center of it is infinitely farther down from the surface of it.
How can Nature be raped by Reality in this way? When mass accumates to this extent, finally gravity participates at the quantum level. Unfortunately, once gravity triumphs, it swallows all record of what is happening, and nothing can be observed.
Gravity's power increases in stages as illustrated by star collapse. Our sun, when it dies will produce a "white dwarf" in which all its fuel is spent, and the power of gravity has compressed the atoms into a soup of atomic nuclei and electrons. Were its mass larger than the Chandrasekhar Limit of 1.4 solar masses, gravity would be able to overcome the electromagnetic force and force electrons and protons to combine to form neutrons. This is a Neutron Star, and its formation occurs in a violent explosion called a Supernova. The result is one ten-thousandth the diameter of the living star. Stars less than three times the size of the sun will stay in this state, with the strong nuclear force and gravity at equilibrium.
However, if the mass is great enough, at least three solar masses, the strong force cannot preserve the integrity of the neutrons, and they collapse into who knows what, because man, they're gone.
And that's a stellar black hole.
What's at the center? Maybe a ball of quark-matter the size of a grain of sand. Maybe quarks themselves collapse into something else. Only gravity knows, because that is the realm where gravity rules at the quantum level.
So what's a micro black hole?
That's a very small amount of mass which is compressed into its Schwarzschild Radius. But the scale is radically different from a stellar black hole. Matter is 99.99% empty space. If the moon were compressed into a 0.2 mm ball, could it eat the earth? There isn't enough energy in the sun to do that, so it's a non-question. The micro black holes that the Large Hadron Collider produces, if praise Jesus it does, will be extremely short-lived. In fact, if it does produce them, they may exist for so short a time that they can't be detected. Oh, well.
As I said, energy, thanks to the stong nuclear force, can be made to produce matter. Any LHC micro black holes will be sustained by energy, not gravity. They will be weak compared to gravity by many zeros. Anyone who has an interest in this, I hope this post has done something to reassure you.
