Quantum tunnelling and the Large Hadron Collider
Created | Updated Sep 10, 2008
Some of us wondered whether the world would end on 10 September 2008, when the LHC (the Large Hadron Collider) at CERN, in Switzerland, was switched on for the first time. It was said that it might generate black holes - only small ones, they reassured us. But who could say whether these small holes would suck in enough matter to get bigger. Just after 8am British Summer Time, we might all be crushed down to nothing. Lets hope it will be quick and painless, since we're powerless to do anything but hope.
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Doomsday came and went and the scientists were ecstatic. The collider worked. No black holes were observed. Maybe later.
Over the course of the months that followed, people and things disappeared, all over the world. People and things are always disappearing, for reasons too many and various to count. Nobody made any connection with the LHC. Nobody noticed the subtle increase in numbers.
Even though electrons had been caught in the act of "tunnelling", and physicist had become used to the weirdness of the phenomenon, it had not yet been noticed that black holes could also tunnel. Nobody was looking for it, and so, of course, nobody saw it.
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Ben was woken by a sudden hard vibration. His eyes, directed at the bedside table, strained to focus on a glass of water that appeared to be vibrating. A passing lorry might account for the effect, but there was no engine noise. The dull light of a wet day filtered through the green curtains. He sat up blearily rubbing his face and then tried to focus his eyes once more, on the glass of water. It was not moving, but the air around it seemed to shimmer. A series of lazy waves formed in the empty space to the right of it and washed outward like ripples on a pond. They went through him, through the bed and through the wall. He felt sea-sick. At the centre, where the pebble must have landed (if it had been a pond instead of empty space), a darkness started to grow, from a black spot into a black hole. There was a rush of air into the hole. It sucked in the glass, the clock and his spectacles. Then it closed, abruptly, with a small popping sound.
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Work in progress
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Doomsday came and went and the scientists were ecstatic. The collider worked. No black holes were observed. Maybe later.
Over the course of the months that followed, people and things disappeared, all over the world. People and things are always disappearing, for reasons too many and various to count. Nobody made any connection with the LHC. Nobody noticed the subtle increase in numbers.
Even though electrons had been caught in the act of "tunnelling", and physicist had become used to the weirdness of the phenomenon, it had not yet been noticed that black holes could also tunnel. Nobody was looking for it, and so, of course, nobody saw it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ben was woken by a sudden hard vibration. His eyes, directed at the bedside table, strained to focus on a glass of water that appeared to be vibrating. A passing lorry might account for the effect, but there was no engine noise. The dull light of a wet day filtered through the green curtains. He sat up blearily rubbing his face and then tried to focus his eyes once more, on the glass of water. It was not moving, but the air around it seemed to shimmer. A series of lazy waves formed in the empty space to the right of it and washed outward like ripples on a pond. They went through him, through the bed and through the wall. He felt sea-sick. At the centre, where the pebble must have landed (if it had been a pond instead of empty space), a darkness started to grow, from a black spot into a black hole. There was a rush of air into the hole. It sucked in the glass, the clock and his spectacles. Then it closed, abruptly, with a small popping sound.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Work in progress
