Artificial black holes: on the threshold of new physics

Can that be a good thing? Help me live, we don't need to be creating black holes so close to home, don't these scientists realize that although they may think they know what they are doing, this could be disastrous?! Apparently splitting the atom and fusing hydrogen is not enough to keep these types happy. No, they want to go and create mini universe-eating objects. I think they need a new hobby or else we are all in trouble!

This is the part of the article I personally love:

"In reality, there is no risk posed by creating artificial black holes, at least not in the manner planned with the LHC."

"[A]t least not in [this] manner?!?!?!" Oh so you acknowledge that, although these guys at the LHC are not doing it, there is some other manner in which to create these things, and maybe that is not so safe! Great, go ahead and plant the idea in our heads (and the heads of those that might want to use it to their advantage!). Yeah, we thought nukes were bad? No, the next WMDs are going to be little black holes. Seriously, I wonder just what conditions happen to cause the manner in which these are made to become critical? One well-placed black hole would ruin our day for sure. It would just feed itself until it had eaten all of earth and then start feeding on our solar system in some sort of cosmic all-you-can-eat buffet.

"The black holes produced at CERN will be millions of times smaller than the nucleus of an atom; too small to swallow much of anything. And they'll only live for a tiny fraction of a second, too short a time to swallow anything around them even if they wanted to."

Oh really?!?! You sure about that? Scientists have had many theories in the past that have been proven incorrect, and I don't think this is one we want to be proven as such by virtue of our planet getting sucked into one. Seriously, can't we do this somewhere else, say maybe one quintillion light-years away from here?

"If it makes you feel any more comfortable, we're pretty sure that if the LHC can produce black holes, then so can cosmic rays, high-energy particles that smash into our atmosphere every day. There are probably a few tiny black holes forming and dying far above you right now. So I think we should all relax, fire up the Large Hadron Collider, and get ready for a view of the universe that we've never seen before."

Oh sure, I feel so much better. Whatever! Stop this madness now! I think Senator Kerry should address this situation and make it an important issue for the election, it may help him win . . .

See you in the singularity!

So, I am always interested to see how people land on my blog, so I go looking at my traffic logs. There have been 3 occasions in the last week or so where people have searched for "free porn" and "free smut" and such things and landed here. First, it is sad that people go looking for such deplorable material, and secondly that my blog shows up in the results! I wonder if the people that click to come to my site think they are going to see links to such stuff, I bet they are really disappointed when they see this place for what it is . . .

This morning I played Disc Golf at the Solitude ski resort here in the lovely state of Utah. Talk about not having fun. The view, the air, and the peace and quiet were remarkable and worthwhile, but spending most of the time hiking and looking for a disc that travelled hundreds of feet and landed in a mess of bushes was not my idea of fun.

When we (myself and my friend Aaron) started hiking to the 1st tee-off point, I found a disc that someone must have lost (we were the only ones up there this morning). I used that as my first throw to test things out. Well, it's lost again. It literally travelled over 1500 feet to what I assume is its current (and probably permanent) resting place. Wow. There was a light wind and the moutain fell away faster than gravity had its way with the disc. It just kept going. It was awesome.

No markers (indicating the hole number) could be found, and the map of the course must be incorrect. We were all over the place. And let me tell you, hiking in was not fun, partly because we didn't know where in the world we were going half the time. If I ever play this course again (don't know why I would at this point), I would take the lift ($5). This was not an option for us, as the lift does not run until 1:00 on Fridays.

Can't wait to go back to our weekly game at Creekside, where no intense hiking or hunting for your disc is involved! Unless, of course, you go too far to the right on holes 5 or 6!