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An Apology
Jun. 7th, 2005 10:24 amI would like to offer my heartfelt apologies to those people who may die if we accidentally destroy the world in 2007. We're sorry about that. You can blame Stephen Hawking. We certainly will.
The long version goes something like this. When the Large Hadron Collider goes online in 2007, we might start creating miniature black holes. This is normally not a problem, because black holes of that size normally decay in something of the order of 10-26 seconds. However, this depends on Hawking radiation working properly. All the math we have says that Hawking radiation should work. Nevertheless, the fact that we haven't seen any yet makes me slightly nervous.
Of course, if we do create a black hole, it will be very small. Should have a radius of 10-19 meters, which is so small that it can't even swallow an electron (the minimum probability cloud for the electron should be larger than the black hole). So it should not be able to grow. Nevertheless, the thought of a black hole sitting in the center of the earth for several million years makes me nervous too.
Oh, and it should be going fast enough that we should throw it somewhere off into space.
Still, if science breaks down and we accidentally swallow the Earth, remember this. You've already received all the apology you're going to get from us.
The long version goes something like this. When the Large Hadron Collider goes online in 2007, we might start creating miniature black holes. This is normally not a problem, because black holes of that size normally decay in something of the order of 10-26 seconds. However, this depends on Hawking radiation working properly. All the math we have says that Hawking radiation should work. Nevertheless, the fact that we haven't seen any yet makes me slightly nervous.
Of course, if we do create a black hole, it will be very small. Should have a radius of 10-19 meters, which is so small that it can't even swallow an electron (the minimum probability cloud for the electron should be larger than the black hole). So it should not be able to grow. Nevertheless, the thought of a black hole sitting in the center of the earth for several million years makes me nervous too.
Oh, and it should be going fast enough that we should throw it somewhere off into space.
Still, if science breaks down and we accidentally swallow the Earth, remember this. You've already received all the apology you're going to get from us.