Thread: Science vs Pseudoscience

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Can you please post a link for that? Sounds like a bit of theoretical hocus-pocus going on there....

Here's the first example google brought me to:

"Although theory predicts that microscopic black holes decay rapidly, even hypothetical stable black holes can be shown to be harmless by studying the consequences of their production by cosmic rays."

From The safety of the LHC

I searched Google with: black hole cosmic ray earth atmosphere

I'd make a video, but I'm not as cool as X.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

Here's the first example google brought me to:

"Although theory predicts that microscopic black holes decay rapidly, even hypothetical stable black holes can be shown to be harmless by studying the consequences of their production by cosmic rays."

From The safety of the LHC

I searched Google with: black hole cosmic ray earth atmosphere

I'd make a video, but I'm not as cool as X.

It would seem that microscopic black holes only exist in theory, and that theory would also extend to say that they would rapidly decay. Not that they actually do exist.

Micro black holes are tiny hypothetical black holes, also called quantum mechanical black holes or mini black holes, for which quantum mechanical effects play an important role.^[1]

Wiki


Another interesting bit of propaganda in that link to the LHC:

Nature forms black holes when certain stars, much larger than our Sun, collapse on themselves at the end of their lives. They concentrate a very large amount of matter in a very small space. Speculations about microscopic black holes at the LHC refer to particles produced in the collisions of pairs of protons, each of which has an energy comparable to that of a mosquito in flight. Astronomical black holes are much heavier than anything that could be produced at the LHC.

They try to placate you by saying "look at these little protons....each has no more enrgy than a mosquito in flight..."

But in reality, they want to accelerate those cute little protons to close to the speed of light and smash them together, per another portion of their website:

Inside the accelerator, two beams of particles travel at close to the speed of light with very high energies before colliding with one another.

Well the definition of momentum is

p = mv

p= momentum
m= mass
v= velocity

When the velocity is as high as close to the speed of light (300,000,000 m/s) the mass of whatever you are moving at that velocity is really a rather insignificant part of the equation.

A weak analogy:
A bullet does not weigh very much, but when you accelerate it down the barrel of a gun, it aquires alot more *oomph* doesn't it?


Scientists play it "cute" with crap like that, just like we all do. But when they make a statement, it comes from Scientists "trust us".

Critical thinking must be applied to all fields.

I'm not saying anything against the LHC, or think it's a doomsday device.

But I do find it intereting the way they presented the information above. I think it illustrates rather well that scientists quite often "cook the books" to present the information how they want it to be seen.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

It would seem that microscopic black holes only exist in theory, and that theory would also extend to say that they would rapidly decay. Not that they actually do exist.

Very close to the truth. First let's remember that scientific theories are not the same as colloquial theories. They are based on the physical laws of the universe, so it's a little dishonest to say they 'only' exist in theory. It is truer to say they haven't been detected ... yet. Just like quarks were solidly theorised for many years before we were able to detect them.

Personally, I suspect that quantum singularities will be created before dark matter is directly observed.

Gravitational lensing has actually allowed cosmologists to make maps of dark matter in the universe!

Originally Posted by xman

Very close to the truth. First let's remember that scientific theories are not the same as colloquial theories. They are based on the physical laws of the universe, so it's a little dishonest to say they 'only' exist in theory. It is truer to say they haven't been detected ... yet. Just like quarks were solidly theorised for many years before we were able to detect them.

Personally, I suspect that quantum singularities will be created before dark matter is directly observed.

Gravitational lensing has actually allowed cosmologists to make maps of dark matter in the universe!

So, basically, microscopic black holes are on the same scientifically provable level as Russell's teapot.

It, and they, simply haven't been detected yet.

EDIT:

Forgot the Youtube link for the sake of veracity of truth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IlHgbOWj4o