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how strange!
Sep. 11th, 2008 12:27 amI was reading about the Hadron Collider and stumbled upon a wikipedia article on particles called strangelets. There are many things that amused me in that article, but the best section was one titled, dramatically, "Dangers." The first paragraph reads:
"If the strange matter hypothesis is correct and a strangelet comes in contact with a lump of ordinary matter such as Earth, it could convert the ordinary matter to strange matter. This "ice-nine" disaster scenario is as follows: one strangelet hits a nucleus, catalyzing its immediate conversion to strange matter. This liberates energy, producing a larger, more stable strangelet, which in turn hits another nucleus, catalyzing its conversion to strange matter. In the end, all the nuclei of all the atoms of Earth are converted, and Earth is reduced to a hot, large lump of strange matter."
Rest assured, however -- we don't know if the strange matter hypothesis is actually correct, and evidence is leaning towards not. Still, I giggled for a little while, especially at the fact that the Earth might be reduced to a hot large lump of strange matter.
"If the strange matter hypothesis is correct and a strangelet comes in contact with a lump of ordinary matter such as Earth, it could convert the ordinary matter to strange matter. This "ice-nine" disaster scenario is as follows: one strangelet hits a nucleus, catalyzing its immediate conversion to strange matter. This liberates energy, producing a larger, more stable strangelet, which in turn hits another nucleus, catalyzing its conversion to strange matter. In the end, all the nuclei of all the atoms of Earth are converted, and Earth is reduced to a hot, large lump of strange matter."
Rest assured, however -- we don't know if the strange matter hypothesis is actually correct, and evidence is leaning towards not. Still, I giggled for a little while, especially at the fact that the Earth might be reduced to a hot large lump of strange matter.
