Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 4/5/2006

Question
Now I have a very important question:
What's the possibility of mis-caculations? What's the posiibility that the world will end on 2009?

-------------------------
Followup To
Question -
According to new calculations by a team of physicists, black holes might be produced by Europe's CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) particles accelerator near Geneva, Switzerland, once the accelerator is up and running on 2009. At the accelerator, experimenters will slam together beams of protons traveling at close to the speed of light. With such ferocity, it will produce miniature black holes a thouand times smaller in size than an atomic nucleus. These black holes will evaporate in 10 -26  seconds.
Do you think above statement is true?   
-------------------------
Followup To
Question -
If a spaceship is moving about or almost in a speed of light, could it become a black hole?
Answer -
Hi w qian,
No!
You are making a fundamental mistake.
your argument is running thus.
As the spaceship increases its speed, its mass increases.
At the speed of light, that becomes infinite, thus the ship becomes a black hole!

But no, read this carefully..

The term mass in special relativity can be used in different ways, occasionally leading to confusion. Historically, mass can refer to either the invariant mass or the relativistic mass.

The rest mass or invariant mass is an observer-independent quantity.
The relativistic mass or apparent mass depends on one's frame of reference.
In particular, the relativistic mass increases with observed velocity while the rest mass is an intrinsic property of an object, a so-called invariant.

In the earlier years of relativity, relativistic mass was taken to be the "correct" notion of mass, and the invariant mass was referred to as the rest mass. Gradually, with the development of Minkowski four-vector notation and general relativity, it was realized that the invariant mass was the more fundamental quantity in the theory of relativity.

read all about it at the wikipedia site...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rest_mass

hope that suffices,
jayen

Answer -
Hi w qian!
I frankly am NOT qualified to answer that! :)
[my problem i know!]

Anyway there is this prediction that blackholes radiate energy slowly over large periods of time and "diminish" that way. [hawking's radiation].
I am NOT an expert on this topic.
But by that token very small holes would disappear in very little time!

Hope that is ok for you.
Jayen  

Answer
Hi W qian,

1 - A request...please post any further questions as new questions...this scrolling is becoming a bit too much!

2 - No do not worry! Scientists are more often correct rather than wrong. Statistics shows that.
Had they this habit of going wrong on such crucial issues, teller and andrei sakharov would not have been bale to make the H-BOMBS for america and USSR respectively.

Have faith, be assured.
Jayen