It's 2015.
This year's Pi day will be awesome.
Also after 2 years of maintenance, repairs
and upgrading, the Large Hadron Collider will
start up again.
They've shut it down after they discovered
the Higgs Boson and they've made it even more
powerful.
And this leads us to a familiar question:
Could by any chance LHC create a black hole
that could destroy the Earth?!
They were worried back than, imagine how worried
they'll be now when they find that LHC is
twice as powerful than before?!
No!
LHC cannot create a black hole.
Even if it could, it would be so small, so
tiny, that it would evaporate in an instant.
So we don't have to worry about that (for
now).
But what if, it could create one?
For example, they manage to create a black
hole the size of this ball?
For the sake of the thought experiment here,
we're gona ingore the fact that a black hole
of this size would be much heavier than the
Earth.
Let's say that somehow, even though this is
a black hole, the densest object in the Universe,
it weighs the same as this ball.
What would happen?
Surprisingly a lot.
First of all, black holes aren't holes per
se.
They are spheres just like the Earth and the
Sun and almost everything else.
The boundries, or the top layer of this sphere
isn't solid.
You CAN go inside of this sphere.
That top layer is called the Event Horizon.
When you pass that point, the gravity becomes
so strong that nothing, nothing can escape
out.
So if this ball is a black hole, and if you
were to touch it, it would cut your finger
off.
It wouldn't devour you completely because
black holes aren't cosmic vacuum cleaners.
As long as you stay away from the Event Horizon
you'll be okay.
And this creates something here.
Because anything that touches it, anything,
will go inside and never come out.
So you can't really hold it in your hand.
You can't hold it anywhere.
If scientists were to create one, it would
go straight down.
Right through the concrete, dirt, rocks and
molten iron.
In about 15 to 20 minutes, it would go to
the center of our planet.
And it would continue going to the other side.
And back again.
Until it gets so heavy that it stays in the
middle.
And for a little while we wouldn't notice
anything out of ordinary.
Everything would be fine.
Up until the black hole sucks up the molten
iron in the center of our planet.
Than the mantle and crust wouldn't be able
to support themselves anymore, and they would
collapse right on top of the black hole.
Annnd that's it.
In just a few hours maybe, the whole planet
would collapse in on itself and it would disappear
into nothingness...
