Space is full of dangers. And perhaps
one of the most terrifying is black
holes. Particularly the idea of one
suddenly materializing and Earth being
consumed. That's not something anyone
wants to happen. After all, once this
fatal cascade began, there would be very
little we could do to stop the growing
void sucking in everything in its path.
In time, the entirety of human existence
would be completely and utterly erased
from the universe, say for a handful of
lonely probes and space debris left
floating in the vastness of our solar
system. Now, this might seem more like a
movie plot than real life, but in 2008,
the European Organization for Nuclear
Research, known as CERN, turned on a
machine they believed had a nonzero
chance of creating a black hole here on
Earth. The good news is that we are all
still here and not hoovered up by a
black hole's relentless, inescapable
gravitational moore. But CERN's own web
page actually states that its machine,
the Large Hadron Collider, could yet
create a black hole. Have we got lucky
so far? And what are the risks if we
continue to push our luck in the name of
science?
I'm Alex Mccoan and you're watching
Astramm. Join me today as we explore the
science of artificial black hole
creation and uncover the truth about
whether CERN will one day make a black
hole that destroys us all.
The Large Hydron Collider is an
impressive piece of engineering. It's a
27 km circular tunnel filled with 9,593
magnets designed to accelerate beams of
protons and heavy ions towards each
other at 99.999991%
the speed of light. It can create a
billion collisions a second and uses
about 600 gatt hours of electricity per
year. enough to power a city of over
100,000 people. But why was it built?
Simple. Scientists use the LHC to
recreate the extreme conditions that
existed a fraction of a second after the
Big Bang, but on a microscopic scale.
When the particles it accelerates
collide headon, their energy can be
transformed into mass via Einstein's
famous mass energy equivalence, E= MC²,
creating heavy particles that didn't
exist before the collision. These new
particles survive for only the tiniest
fractions of a second before decaying
into lighter ones. Detectors surrounding
the collision points then record the
spray of particles produced in each
smash. By sifting through this debris,
they can work out what was created. The
elementary particles that make up the
standard model of particle physics.
Using the Large Hydron Collider, we have
been able to discover new particles like
the Higs Boson, which is ultimately
responsible for atoms having mass. We
would never have found this particle if
it were not for the Large Hadron
Collider. But it isn't only about
finding fundamental particles. CERN
hopes to answer other questions too,
like what are dark matter and dark
energy? Why is there more matter than
antimatter in the universe? Is there
evidence of super symmetry? To put it
simply, the Large Hatron Collider is one
of the best tools we have to investigate
the inner workings of our universe.
But whilst to many, particularly in the
science community, this is a great
benefit, there were some rather
worrisome potential drawbacks. In
particular, the risk of the LHC creating
black holes.
When this possibility was revealed, it
instantly hit headlines across the
globe. Understandably, the reaction to
this was mixed. Some downplayed the
risks, saying the machine, the Large
Hydron Collider, was perfectly safe. Or
else, why would scientists turn it on?
Some started lawsuits trying to legally
prevent CERN from activating the LHC,
although these were unsuccessful, and
others made jokes about our collective
impending demise. But not all this worry
was entirely justified. For starters,
some information that was passed around
at this time was not very factual. One
claim I'm going to settle for you right
now is that no, CERN is not creating a
portal to hell in the Large Hadron
Collider as some Facebook posts at the
time claimed. You will be glad to know
it was fact checked. But while this
particular claim was easily shown to be
fanciful, the black hole fear is more
resilient because according to science,
there is a chance it could happen. So
why did CERN turn the LHC on? If there
was a risk of planetary annihilation,
even a small one, isn't this action in
the pursuit of knowledge a little
reckless?
It's time to take a look at the maths
and science. What actually was the risk
that we were about to make a homemade
apocalyptic black hole? Well, black
holes are simple to make in theory, if
not in practice. In the wider universe,
this happens when collapsing stars go
supernova. The forces involved are
ridiculously powerful. so powerful that
atoms are crushed together to the point
where electromagnetic forces, the force
that keeps electrons away from other
electrons and even neutron degeneracy
pressure, the rule that says neutrons
cannot occupy the same position as other
neutrons are overcome. And with that, an
important threshold is crossed. Past
that level of compression, gravity is
strong enough locally that the mass
collapses infinitely into a singularity.
And around that singularity, an event
horizon forms.
Nothing can escape an event horizon. Not
even light can move quickly enough to
outrun the curving spaceime. But
interestingly, while in nature, we only
see this happen with stars 20 times the
mass of our sun. There's no rule that we
know of that says you need that much
mass. Black holes can be any size, big
or small. You can do it at any amount of
mass provided you can compress it
together with sufficient amounts of
force. In nature, we just don't tend to
see those scales of forces outside of
sufficiently large supernova.
But in the Large Hydron Collider,
particles are smashed together with a
lot of force. The question is, is it
enough? To answer this question relies
on a little maths. But don't worry if
you unlimited daily access to everything Brilliant has to offer. Impacts in the
LHC are measured using terra electron
volts where one te is about the kinetic
energy of a flying mosquito. While this
may not sound like much, remember that
this energy is being imparted to
protons. That's a relatively large
amount of energy being packed into a
relatively small location. You're
getting a lot of bang for your buck.
When the LHC first started, particles
were moving with 3.5 TEV each for a
combined impact of 7TEV.
As time went on, this was scaled up to
6.8 TEV each for 13.6 TEV total. And
this is nothing compared to what CERN
has planned. When the LHC's 91 km
replacement, the FCC or the future
circular collider is eventually built,
it's hoped it will reach a total
collision energy of 100 TEV.
Yes, the kinetic energy of 100
mosquitoes squashed into protons.
But actually, even this is not enough
force to create a black hole. Not even
close. In 2010, scientists modeled
exactly how much energy you'd need to
smash together particles for them to
form a black hole. The answer came out
at a third of the plank energy, a value
at which our classical rules of physics
break down for atoms. And it starts
becoming necessary to think about the
effects of quantum gravity. As we don't
yet have an understanding of how quantum
gravity works, it's a bit of an enigma
what happens beyond this point.
Regardless, plank energy has a value a
quintilion times higher than what the
LHC is able to create. So, sounds like
we're safe. But if that's the case, why
did CERN themselves claim that they
might create a black hole with the LHC?
The answer lies in the nature of reality
itself. Scientists have not reached a
consensus about this, but some believe
that our universe is made up of the four
dimensions you are familiar with.
Forwards and backwards, left and right,
up and down, and time, but also a number
of other tiny dimensions that are packed
away in folds out of sight. String
theorists are a big fan of this idea, as
I've talked about in my video on the
unified theory of everything. If it
turns out that these other dimensions
exist, a fact far from proven, though I
do find it interesting to think about,
it changes the maths on plank energy,
and brings the value down low enough
that the LHC could be hitting particles
together with enough force to create
black holes. So, if that's true, CERN
could create a black hole. And if they
did, the string theorists would have
some evidence to prove them right, even
as the black hole started devouring the
planet. So, a consolation prize at
least.
Actually, string theorious would have a
long time to enjoy it because our planet
would survive a black hole's creation
surprisingly well. And there are a lot
of reasons why. To begin with, there's
fairly strong odds that according to our
understanding of physics, the black hole
would dissipate instantly. This may
sound a little contradictory. After all,
didn't we say that event horizons are
inescapable and thus nothing, mass or
energy, can ever get out. Initially,
this was believed to be true. But in
1974, renowned physicist Steven Hawking
suggested that black holes emit a very
long wavelength radiation due to quantum
effects. While we've not seen this
Hawking radiation directly, its
wavelength is comparable to that of the
event horizon of the black hole itself,
which means you'd need a very big
detector to see some. There is smaller
scale experimental evidence using sonic
black holes that says Hawking may have
been right.
By his theory, all black holes will
eventually lose all their energy and
hence mass. Usually, it takes place over
extremely long time scales. But this
process actually speeds up the smaller
the black hole gets. By the time it's on
the microscopic level, the black hole
would be detonating like a tiny
explosion.
How tiny? Even if we imagine a worstc
case scenario where all the energy in a
single LHC collision ended up in a
microscopic black hole and was then
released again. Einstein's famous
equation E= MC² lets us get a feel for
how much energy we're talking about. The
LHC can collide two protons with a total
energy of about 14 trillion
electrovolts. This works out to be
roughly the same kinetic energy of a
tiny grain of sand with a mass of about
a millig moving at about 2 m/s. If a
black hole that size exploded in your
hand, you might be able to feel it if
you are paying attention barely.
Of course, CERN is paying attention and
so would be very excited to detect such
hawking radiation in the Large Hadron
Collider. They've just not seen any yet.
But what if we're wrong about Hawking
radiation? After all, I mentioned it's
never been seen, and there is some
speculation that at microscopic levels,
black holes could actually stabilize
instead of evaporating into nothing.
Would a black hole devour the planet if
it somehow stuck around?
Contrary to popular portrayal, black
holes are not actually all consuming
vacuums. Their event horizons are
inescapable. True, but you still have to
enter them in the first place. And at
that scale, there is a lot more to push
you out than to draw you in. Outside of
the event horizon, black holes will
behave in exactly the same way any other
mass would. It would exert whatever
gravitational pull is appropriate for
its mass. And remember, we're talking
about really tiny masses here. And
gravity is actually a really weak force,
especially compared to say
electromagnetism.
If you're not getting sucked into the
cup on your desk or the phone in your
hand, uh maybe that's a big if, you're
not going to get sucked into a black
hole with the mass of a proton or two.
And that's not even considering the push
a black hole like that would exude.
After all, black holes made of protons
would still have the charge of those
protons. Harvard professor Avi published
an article in 2024 where he hypothesized
about a black hole atom. In his
scenario, a black hole that ate a proton
would have the proton's charge and thus
could theoretically be bonded by an
electron. Its electron would exist
outside its minute event horizon. And to
all intents and purposes, the black hole
would exist like any other atom,
although perhaps a little more
compactly. Such a black hole atom
wouldn't be very stable, which is a
shame because how cool or terrifying
would it be to have a pen made out of
black holes that you could just safely
hold in your hand. What it does mean is
that if CERN created a tiny charged
black hole, it would just fall to the
floor and sit there thanks to the
electromagnetic push of the floor to
oppose it. That's what happens to your
feet after all. But let's get rid of the
black holes charge along with Hawking
radiation and a universe of only four
dimensions. Could we get a tiny black
hole to eat the planet then? No. Again,
I know this is almost starting to become
disappointing, or at least not
realistically.
With the absence of charge, a black hole
would not be repelled by the positive or
negative electromagnetic charges given
off by any protons or electrons it
encountered in the floor. And this leads
to a somewhat bizarre outcome. It would
easily be able to fall through the floor
right to the center of the planet and
out the other side with no harm done. To
be fair, along the way, any atoms that
bumped into it could be trapped within
the black hole's tiny event horizon,
gradually increasing the black hole's
mass and thus gravitational pole. So,
this theoretically could result in a
growing black hole. But realistically,
it's very unlikely to happen because it
turns out even in the absence of charge,
the odds of the black hole hitting
another particle in the first place is
minuscule.
Consider the fact that 100 trillion
nutrinos pass through your body every
second. And yet, over the course of your
entire lifetime, the odds of a single
nutrino actually bumping into one of the
atoms that make up your body is about 1
in4.
That's ridiculously tiny. This is
because atoms are actually mostly made
up of empty space. Think of an atom's
nucleus like a marble sitting in the
middle of an entire sports stadium and
so normally only interact thanks to
their charge. Nutrinos have no charge
just like our neutral black hole and so
just pass through that space. Marbles in
sports stadiums are hard to hit. It is
theoretically possible that our black
hole would get lucky and encounter the
occasional atom over the course of its
quick journey through our planet's core.
But even if it stays, it is unlikely to
gain any appreciable mass before the
planet dies when the sun turns into a
red giant in 5 billion years. And
there's one final crushing blow to the
idea that CERN is going to create a
black hole that will destroy the world.
CERN could form a black hole by hitting
particles together. But we as a planet
are bombarded by fastm moving particles
all the time. particles thrown our way
from space will hit particles in the
atmosphere at a comparable level to what
the LHC is doing. If that process could
actually create a black hole, it would
probably have already done so by now. So
there you have it. If reality has more
than four dimensions and if Hawking
radiation doesn't exist and if CERN
created a black hole with no charge and
if that black hole fell and got really
really really lucky then yes CERN could
create a black hole that would consume
the world from the inside out cing our
core and undermining our crust until
everything and everyone dropped into a
void beneath our feet. But it probably
won't ever happen. In truth, there have
been times when scientists have taken
risks that their experiments could cause
real harm, even as they pursued
scientific understanding. This is why we
try to avoid recklessly running
experiments on humans, particularly if
there are no guardrails in place.
But hopefully you now agree that CERN
and the LHC is not one of those times.
The odds of them creating a black hole
are just too low. And even if they did,
there would be practically no danger.
So, I think we can safely say that we
are not at any risk from CERN, unless
they finally open up that portal to
hell. H maybe to be on the safe side, we
should look into that theory instead.