I recall a documentary discussing the large Hadron collider, the study of the first moments following the big bang, and the potential concern for the creation of black holes. Is it theoretically possible for an amateur physicist to build their own on a smaller scale?
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Everything is theoretically possible, that’s one of the beauty’s of studying physics in an practically infinite universe. With enough time, everything isn’t just possible, but everything will happen. There’s a reason scientists don’t deal in possibilities, but probabilities.
But that isn’t really something suitable for a 5yo
Particle accelerators use powerful electro magnets to speed up and control particles. Particles are quite literally everywhere, and electro magnets aren’t rare either. You could build a functional model with some dedication and YouTube tutorials.
Building one that’s actually capable of influencing specific particle beams is a different matter, and would take years (if not decades) of hard work and relentless study. Using that to create a black hole would be even more difficult, and obviously a terrible idea.
> Is it theoretically possible for an amateur physicist to build their own on a smaller scale?
Hard no.
For reference, there’s enough copper wiring in the LHC that if you laid it all out in one long wire it’d go from the Earth to the Sun and back something like…5 times or so.
The energies and materials involved are such that an amateur wouldn’t be able to build one.
On top of what others have said, I want to mention the typical LHC particle collision has the same energy that a mosquito uses to fly for a few seconds. Basically nothing.
On the other hand, the universe is constantly showering you with particles which are tens of thousands, maybe millions, of times more energetic. If nature hasn’t managed to swallow the Earth in a black hole yet, I doubt CERN ever will!
> and the potential concern for the creation of black holes
This was never really a serious concern. When cosmic rays (high-energy particles from the sun or elsewhere) hit the upper atmosphere, the collisions sometimes have higher energies than those produced in the LHC, so any particles that are made in the LHC should regularly appear naturally in earth’s atmosphere. This fact sometimes leads people to question why it was necessary to build the LHC – well, unfortunately, vast machines are needed to observe the particle collisions, and it’s much easier to study collisions that are created under controlled conditions than ones that happen at random places and times.
It has been hypothesized that tiny black holes can be created in high-energy collisions, but if so, again, there must be loads of them being created in the upper atmosphere, and evidently they don’t swallow the earth – either they remain tiny, or they disappear. And nobody really knows for sure if tiny black holes are even a thing – it’s little more than a guess.
> Is it theoretically possible for an amateur physicist to build their own on a smaller scale?
There are plenty of simpler particle physics experiments you can do by yourself. For example, it’s possible to build your own cloud chamber. Or you could play around with a cathode ray tube (the thing that makes old TVs work), which is essentially a very basic particle accelerator. Obviously make sure to carefully research the appropriate safety precautions first, though.
> Is it theoretically possible for an amateur physicist to build their own on a smaller scale?
No. Its not even as much a physics issue as it is an engineering one. Super Colliders require massive amounts of energy and design and expertise from many fields, plus huge amounts of money and materials. Its necessary to have them be really large and powerful as well to get them up to the higher energies needed for these experiments.