There was quite a bit of consternation about whether you would still exist to read this now.
In case you are in fact reading this particular message, that meant the Large Hadron Collider in Europe has not created little black holes that will swallow the Earth. The particles are being smashed in an effort to recreate conditions present at the beginning of the universe.
For a little background on that topic, I present the scholarly works of MC Hawking.
Side note… when I get home, I have to explain to my six-year-old what a “black hole” is. I’m not allowed to show her the video. Any suggestions?
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, humor, LHC, CERN, YouTube, Stephen Hawking, black holes[/tags]
The challenge becomes helping her understand what they are without getting scared. When my stepson first saw a show on super-massive black holes, he could not sleep for days. It is still something that haunts him.
Try this:
Black hole= someone so heavy that when they jump on the bed of the universe, everyone else rolls towards them and underneath and no one can escape out from under them ever ever again.
Take her to the park, then to an ice cream shoppe. And when you get home, read her a story.
The heck with black holes. She’ll have plenty enough to worry about soon enough.
ike they just made a beam circulate this week, they have not done any high energy collision yet.. that’s to come, probably 6-8 weeks from now they will do 10TeV high energy collisions.. (at it will still not be at the maximum possible enrgy of 14 TeV which they will do next year) so don’t give up hope too soon, u might be able to actually show a black hole to ur kid next year rather having to explain it : )