Don Havey

I read this conversation in the comments of this article about the LHC. It’s pretty great.

Skeptic: Just exactly how do black holes ‘evaporate’? Do they also exhibit this behaviour in outer space, and if so at what rate? Also what is the ‘unimaginably short period of time’ it will take for them to do so–a picosecond, a femtosecond?

Science: Hawking Radiation. In fact, if the LHC proves this, Stephen Hawking will probably finally get his Nobel.
The speed at which a black hole evaporates is inversely proportional to its mass. Macroscopic black holes trap mass much faster than they lose it from radiation, and thus persist. Quantum-size black holes (the ones from the LHC will be much smaller than even a proton) will evaporate on the order of a femtosecond.

Skeptic: (referring to Hawking Radiation) So it’s not proven yet-

Science: The same theory which posits the creation of black holes also predicts evaporation due to Hawking Radiation. Thus, if you choose to be worried about black hole formation, you also have to accept the fact that they will evaporate. If you dispute that they will evaporate, no problem, because if that’s true then they won’t be formed in the first place. Either way, much ado about nothing.

Awesome! Sadly, the skeptics rarely concede defeat. (That is the difference between science and religion.)