Celestia Forums

I recently read that scientists hope to create microscopic black holes with the large hadron collider. Is that really safe? Do microscopic black holes evaporate immediately? Does anyone know?
Prior to the first underwater a-bomb detonation scientists allegedly tried to determine the possibility of starting a out-of-control fusion reaction in the sea, and came to the conclusion that it was "not likely to happen". I hope this is not a similar case

Where did you read something about microscopic black holes? It sounds like speculation by someone with a limited background in high energy physics.

The LHC is just another high energy particle accelerator. Granted it'll be working at higher energies than existing accelerators, but it's not likely to be producing black holes. There are incoming cosmic rays with much higher energies than the LHC can produce and no indications of black holes have been detected associated with them.

added later:
I found a theoretical paper on the Cern web site discussing the possibility. Black holes of the type they describe evaporate immediately because of their tiny size, so that only their decay products would be visible. Also, let's just say that the type of theory that predicts them is one of the more unlikely ones.

The possibility of producing tiny Black Holes at the LHC is definitely serious. It basically relies on and thus probes the possible presence of relatively large Extra Dimensions. The idea certainly induced high publication activity in my High Energy Physics community!

For example, here is a press interview with a good friend, colleague & long-time collaborator of mine about a very popular respective paper, he wrote with his PhD student about the subject at an early stage.

http://esi-topics.com/blackholes/interviews/AndreasRingwald.html

Also this one:
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020323/bob9.asp

Bye Fridger