Physics Man to the Rescue

So, the internet has been a flutter with stuff about the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) which was fired up for the first time yesterday in Switzerland. Specifically Ben has wondered if this could lead to the end of the world, (not an idea he made up) and Carrie has thought that it may be effecting my pens. I don't really know much about the LHC, or tiny black holes, but I suppose I know more about it than a lot of people, so I might as well comment.

First off, particle accelerators and colliders have been around for decades. A problem we have with atoms and other tiny things is that we can't look inside them. We can't disassemble them; there aren't screwdrivers small enough. So instead, to look inside an atom you smash something into it, bust it into all it's consituents and take a look at those as they come flying out. Then you try to guess what was going on before all the destruction. Its the equivalent of trying to figure out how a VCR works by dropping one off a tall building and examining the rubble. Or maybe it would be more like dropping a VCR off a cliff onto a rocky beach where the remains are only there long enough for you to take a few pictures before the waves take the parts away. All you have to look at are some photos of what was inside. With both particles and VCRs, the harder you smash, the more the little parts inside come flying out and the better idea you get of what was inside. Dropping your VCR from the top of your bed isn't likely to be very informative.

Hadrons are things made of quarks. Quarks are the things that make up Hadrons (and tend bar on DS9). Seriously, that's the only definition for hadrons and quarks that will mean anything unless you take a handful of physics classes (which will in turn offer only slightly more knowledge on the topic, little of which is useful for this discussion). Hadrons which you are most familiar with would be Protons, Neutrons and perhaps Mesons. Typically in colliders it is the Protons that are accelerated, because they aren't virtually impossible to push (like Neutrons) and they have a lifespan of greater than a billionth of a second (unlike Mesons).

So, the LHC is a gazillion dollar contraption to get those protons moving just a little bit faster than colliders in the past, to hopefully get a little more information about what protons are made of, and stuff like that.

Now a question and answer session between me and me:
Q: So, will any cool discoveries come from all the money spent on the LHC?
A: If by 'cool discoveries' you mean something potentially useful to the average person, then No. If by 'cool discoveries' you mean something potentially useful at all, then No. If by 'cool discoveries' you mean something in any way useful to anyone, or anything even remotely intelligible to anyone without a Ph.D. in physics, then the answer would still be No. This is not the space program bringing us plastics, microwaves, cool pens and tang. This is particle physicists trying to understand how subatomic particles work. It will not affect your life at all. (Of course, I could always be wrong, but I bet I'm not.)

Q: So why did we (humanity in general) spend all this money?
A: The same reason we put up the Hubble Telescope, we study handedness patterns in polar bears, and we have sociologists. I guess we're curious, or at least willing to help pay for others' curiosity.

Q: So what about these black holes coming to destroy the earth?
A: Not gonna happen. Again, I could be wrong, but it won't. I haven't reviewed my Hawking books lately, but current theories for how everything works allows for the existance of tiny, tiny black holes. How tiny? They would have pretty much an infinately small event horizon. And they would have a super tiny mass (much smaller than the mass of a dust particle). So, there remains a possibility that these super tiny black holes could be created by the LHC. If they are, because of their tiny size, they could actually fly all over the place without even colliding with anything. Also, black holes evaporate. Big black holes could take billions of years to evaporate, but small ones go much quicker. So, these tiny black holes should be disappearing almost immediately even if they are created.

In summary, a tiny black hole, which may be possible (but may not) could potentially be formed which would be unlikely to hit anything, or to last for much time at all. Basically, I'm not worried.

One final point: Yes, the turned on the LHC the other day, but they didn't even collide anything yet. If anything causing the end of the world were to happen I would think that the actual collisions would be causing it, but of course the media won't be covering that which isn't likely to happen for a few weeks.