The History Channel, on March 18, presented an hour-long documentary "Decoding the Past: Earth's Black Hole" that presents the controversial idea that a mini-black hole could exist in the earth, possibly below the ocean in the Bermuda Triangle, and a hemisphere away in the Dragon's Gulch. The disappearance of planes and ships, such as the five Avengers in December 1945, followe by a flying boat looking for them (they show up in the first scene of Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"), according to this documentary, could be explained this way. Some scientists are interviewed with their devices to measure magnetic and compass anomalies in the Triangle.
There has been science-fiction like speculation that micro black holes could be created, maybe by certain transformations in radioactive elements, or maybe by physics experiments that tinker with the nature of matter, creating "strangelets", a quark-like configuration change that could restructure all matter by template change the way prions can infect brains and cause scrapie. Martin Rees raised that speculation in his book "Our Final Hour." If mini-black holes really exist, in time they could become disruptive. This movie offers speculation that they can cause hurricanes, just like global warming.
Here is the Wikipedia reference on micro black holes. Even elementary particles like electrons might be "micro black holes" according to some theories.
Also broadcast today was Siberian Apocalypse, about the 1908 comet (or, perhaps more likely, carbonaceous or stony asteroid -- maybe an "old" comet, compared to a dense iron-nickel asteroid) hit on the tundra on June 30 1908 at Tunguska. The sky remained a "bright night" in Europe. A similar blast over New York City would obliterate the city.
Another important History Channel show today was "Last Days on Earth," blogger review here.
10 comments:
I watched the "Earth's Black Hole". One of the statements made was that the Marianas Trench and the Puerto Trench are exactly opposite each other (antipodal). This is not true. Making such an obviously false statement discredits not only the program but the History channel as well.
My favorite quote "Matter is being created at the bottom of the Puerto Rican trench.".
Like the Magma is actually pure energy until it reaches the sea floor and than magically becomes matter.
Thins show belongs on the Sci-Fi channel.
The History Channel should be ashamed of itself for airing this crap.
micro black hole + Earth = slightly larger black hole (burp!)
What a bunch of idiots. I kept expecting them to explain how a micro black hole could "rest" at the bottom of the ocean, but they never even tried.
If a micro black hole were to encounter the Earth, it would pass right through the Earth like a bullet through fog; it would hardly even slow down. It would drill a microscopic hole clean through the Earth and exit out the other side at almost the exact same speed as it entered (plus or minus any slingshot effect), jettisoning right back out into space. Remember that solid rock is still 99% empty space at the atomic level. And a black hole is infinitely dense, so... a bullet passing through fog. A very, very light fog.
And even if the micro black hole somehow became captured in Earth's gravity well, it would NOT come to rest at any one point. It would circle inside the Earth continuously, orbiting the center of the Earth and eating, eating, eating. The more it eats, the more it grows; and the more it grows, the faster it eats. Eventually, it eats the whole Earth. The end.
I also noticed that the History Channel has apparently given up on anything vaguely resembling journalistic integrity. It was clear from watching the show that only one of their "experts" actually believed in black holes on Earth; the rest were talking about global warming and plate tectonics. The narrator would come on and say "And this next scientist has spent 10 years investigating the dangers posed by Earth's black hole", and then the guy would talk about global warming or magnetic undersea rock fields or something. Not a single mention of black holes, at all. Not even a hint at them. It seemed like most of these guys were not even aware they were being interviewed for a documentary (mockumentary?) about black holes. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them sues the producer.
Earth's Black Hole was the stupidest thing I've seen on TV for a long, long time.
I was amazed to find out the earth was actually round, I mean, who would have thought?
It's nice to see that people are employing their imagination along with their research, no matter how "off the wall" it may be.
What a horrible program. Too bad you can't post opinions directly on the History Channel's website. The whole "matter is being created..." bit made me want to hurt someone.
Spectacularly awful...
I wonder whether any of the scientists (the ones that actually WERE scientists, not the long-haired clown whose name I forget identified as a "theoretician") have complained about the out-of context abuse of the few bits of truth in the show?
If any of them sues I'd be happy to contribute to the legal costs
I watched the show and shared the topic with a friend of mine who is a retired physics professor. We both had a good laugh. Some of the programs on the History Channel are bogus at best!
This is some of the worst stuff I have ever seen. First off, it started out normally enough, something about black holes. Then they go to the Bermuda Triangle. Then they start talking about a black hole IN the Earth, and that's where I was like... "wait a sec... why doesn't it just, you know, suck it all up? And how does that manage to form there in the first place?" And then they mentioned "matter being created" at spreading centers... OMG!!! That was so blatantly wrong and crazy! They obviously didn't know anything about geology! Matter comes up from the INSIDE of the Earth! It does not magically "poof!" appear from some other dimension or whatever they were claiming. That was probably the worst thing I ever heard. They must subscribe to that "Hollow Earth" crap, that's the only thing I could see that would possibly allow them to dismiss the idea that the matter comes out from the inside of the Earth. But that Hollow Earth stuff is crap too!
This was the really worst thing I'd seen. This this stuff is sad and dumb, it just either makes people go into more "pseudoscientific" methods to try and "solve" mysteries and also keeps trained scientists away from going too far outside the mainstream, possibly stifling genuine new discoveries. This stuff is a disgrace and can be even damaging.
And as for the Bermuda Triangle, it was a good mystery for a while, but now the answer seems fairly clear: It's just a lot of storms. The same goes with its Coruscic Ocean counterpart, the Dragon's Triangle. Ever notice the similarity of the geometry of the West Coruscic (Asia-Australia) and West Atlantic (North-South America) coastlines? The way the currents go through those areas are similar too. This could lead to similar meteorological activity, and that seems a far better explanation to me than this black hole stuff. These people do not know a thing about science.
And I'm willing to let the mystery go to rest. There are always plenty more mysteries, many of which we've never even recognized yet.
We may not know everything, but we also do not know nothing, either.
i saw this show recently. it's totally true. fuck all you morons for not believing it. LAMERS.
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