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the end of the world on wednesday?

I was reading an article in the newspaper about some people in switzerland testing stephen hawkings theory on black holes (or something to do with that), and from what I understand, theyre trying to speed some atoms up faster than the speed of light (sorry, but my information may be completely wrong, I don’t understand it really)

But basically I was told it was going to be the end of the world and we’d all be sucked into a black hole. I mean, if my info is right, how can this possibly be allowed? Or does someone want to tell me what’s going in?

Because from what I see it, how can it be allowed for someone to do an experiment that could kill the population of the world?

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Answer #1

Nope. The people writing those types of articles are fear mongering scientific illiterates. :)

You can’t accelerate particles with mass to the speed of light, but they are speeding them up pretty darn fast. Once they bash them together, they’ll be able to make observations that could answer some fundamental questions in physics, such as where mass comes from.

We’re not doing anything new in particle accelerators. These types of collisions happen constantly as streams of particles ejected from the Sun smack into our atmosphere. The only reason we have to build particle accelerators is that we want to observe them close up.

It is possible that the experiments will create miniature black holes, but the very same equations that define black holes tell us that these types would instantly fizzle out. If stable black holes or reality-ending chain reactions would come out of these types of collisions, the particles hitting our atmosphere would have destroyed Earth long ago.

Answer #2

amblessed, this is a question about real science. Not superstition. Your answer has no relevance.

Answer #3

I think you shouldn’t be so concerned about it… I don’t think its as severe as you’re taking it.

If there IS a threat, and the world DOES end; you won’t know soon enough for it to matter.

Answer #4

It’s going to be fine. Scientists can already create tiny black holes in labs–and they do. Everything is fine.

Answer #5

I hope not…I’m supposed to get a perm on Thursday! :)

Answer #6

thank youuu :)

Answer #7

Only God knows the date and time.

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