Ok, this is way OT, but ... they're making black holes in the lab now. Let's hope they don't let one out. :'o
http://news.com.com/In+labs+high-speed+collisions%2C+things+just+vanish/2100...
While they say they are different from the matter gobbling killer black holes, I'm not sure I buy the story completely. This accelorator is used by my old alma mater in NY and I was studying this field there. Never got a chance to do any experiments with it though. It seems to me they are similar types of blackholes, but due to the tiny mass they are not dangerous and if they'd stop and think about it a bit they might even get some insight into why massive blackholes decay over time. As it is likely that this type of black hole is created on a massive scale in the creation of killer blackholes. Now if only there was an efficient way of generating these mini "blackholes" we might be able to make a powerful engine for interstellar travel, although I suspect one could take the accelerator and make an effective engine out of it. If the accelerator can propel gold atoms to >.99 lightspeed that should be enough to propel a spacecraft at relativistic speeds. Of course this thing is quite large and I'm not sure what the fuel requirements would be. Maybe we could use something like tin instead of gold. ;')
(sorry about the OT post, but this was just a fun and cool subject.)
Brian D.
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Jack wrote:
Ok, this is way OT, but ... they're making black holes in the lab now. Let's hope they don't let one out. :'o
http://news.com.com/In+labs+high-speed+collisions%2C+things+just+vanish/2100...
While they say they are different from the matter gobbling killer black holes, I'm not sure I buy the story completely. This accelorator is used by my old alma mater in NY and I was studying this field there. Never got a chance to do any experiments with it though. It seems to me they are similar types of blackholes, but due to the tiny mass they are not dangerous and if they'd stop and think about it a bit they might even get some insight into why massive blackholes decay over time. As it is likely that this type of black hole is created on a massive scale in the creation of killer blackholes. Now if only there was an efficient way of generating these mini "blackholes" we might be able to make a powerful engine for interstellar travel, although I suspect one could take the accelerator and make an effective engine out of it. If the accelerator can propel gold atoms to >.99 lightspeed that should be enough to propel a spacecraft at relativistic speeds. Of course this thing is quite large and I'm not sure what the fuel requirements would be. Maybe we could use something like tin instead of gold. ;')
(sorry about the OT post, but this was just a fun and cool subject.)
Brian D.
Is it OT if the control software or modeling tools are Open Source?
According to the math I have seen for such experimental holes they are in the realm of that engineering math trick question about if a bath tub at 98F or a Oxyacetylene torch flame at 6300F has more heat in it . Answer provable by trying to boil a bath rub using a torch. Even with mass gain per velocity increment those cold equations of scaling are not your friend for drivers. Mass gain is still not a free lunch .
Now does anyone on this list have the real maths background to offer some intelligent comments on which of us is on or off track here.
The hole in question of that article is supposedly incapable of ingesting more than it "burps" .Though if someone screws up on the math and it eats enough to keep growing ? Arguably the difference between fiction and fact is mere applied testicular fortitude. Like as not everything we thought we knew about discontinuous singularities soon will be proved not quite so.
And I believe that the closest example we have for a true black hole is some government projects.
Oren
" I was told that higher math and booze do not mix as it's not smart to drink and derive"
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:56:35 -0600, Oren Beck oren_beck@hotmail.com wrote:
According to the math I have seen for such experimental holes they are in the realm of that engineering math trick question about if a bath tub at 98F or a Oxyacetylene torch flame at 6300F has more heat in it . Answer provable by trying to boil a bath rub using a torch.
uh, no. Heat of phase transition has nothing to do with specific heat. "How much heat is in this?" is usually relative, but an absolute amount for it can be obtained by converting the temperature to Kelvin and multiplying by the specific heat and the mass, after adjusting for phase transitions and the possibility that different phases have different specific heats. You can't weld with a bathtub, you can't bathe in a flame. Well maybe you can, but I can't.
Has anyone else read Gerard O'Neil's "The High Frontier" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/189652267X/tipjartransactioA/
the paperback is available used for under a dollar plus shipping
it's about building orbiting suburbs, but practical. The plan is to build a station on the moon that launches aluminum ore into lunar orbit, which is collected and refined, also in orbit. That way, the huge launch cost of building everything down here at the bottom of the atmosphere and lifting it out to space is saved.
My reccomendation for an ion rocket is to use iron. Choose a suitable iron asteroid, set up camp in it, accelerate your iron ions and fling them out one way, save enough mass to decelerate after you get wherever you're going, but the question of where the energy to do all the ion accelerating comes from is still up in the air.
Perhaps put Oren Beck on a treadmill.
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David Nicol -
Jack -
Oren Beck