erosannin - Slashdot User

Comment Misunderstanding (Score 5, Informative) 124

by erosannin on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @06:27PM (#18017330) Attached to: New Accelerator Technique Doubles Particle Energy

I assume you are referencing Dimopoulos and Landsberg's paper http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v87/i16/e161602 . There is nothing to worry about. These physicists proposed that if certain theories were true (M theory, quantum loop gravity, super symmetry) then the energy densities seen in the RHIC or LHC experiments could produce something "mathematically analogous" to a black hole. There is no possibility under any current theory that an event horizon could form and attract matter.

New Accelerator Technique Doubles Particle Energy 124

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @06:04PM from the double-your-pleasure dept.

ZonkerWilliam writes "Plasma wake particle accelerators are making surprisingly quick advances. It was a just a little while ago we had GeV acceleration in 3cm. Now they are capable of doubling the energy of electrons. 'Imagine a car that accelerates from zero to sixty in 250 feet, and then rockets to 120 miles per hour in just one more inch. That's essentially what a collaboration of accelerator physicists has accomplished, using electrons for their race cars and plasma for the afterburners. Because electrons already travel at near light's speed in an accelerator, the physicists actually doubled the energy of the electrons, not their speed.'"

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