NationStates Jolt Archive

It seems scientists have (for some time now) mastered the art of black-hole creation.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,15410-13312730,00.html


Black Hole In Big Apple
Updated: 11:07, Thursday March 17, 2005

Don't panic but a black hole is far nearer than you may think.

Unitil now it would have taken a very long trip into outer space to see one but now scientists have created their very own black hole in a laboratory in New York.

But thankfully it was not the sort that could consume the Earth

It lasted for a tiny amount of time, a staggering 10 million billion billionths of a second.

The heat generated was 300 million times the temperature on the surface of the Sun.

Scientists used a particle accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, to shoot two beams of gold nuclei at each other at the speed of light.

The intense heat of the collision breaks down the nuclei into quarks and gluons, the most basic building blocks of all normal matter.

These particles then formed a ball of plasma which can be detected because it absorbs jets of particles produced by the collision, so creating a black hole.

Ed Shuryak, a physicist at Stony Brook University in New York said: "It's very useful in that it will inspire thinking in that direction.

"But it's going to be another thng to see if it produces any fruit."

Is this going to be the next nuke? Think of the possibilities, two nuclei producing heat 300 million times that of the surface of the sun. It could solve our energy problems forever. It could also wreak havoc on the battlefield. If you weren't concerned about self destruction when we had Nukes, you better be now. It's like an Ultra-Nuke without fallout. With a push of a button, Tehran could be obliterated into a vortex of void. Baghdad, Palestine (the whole country), or the entire middle east region are other possible contenders for the honour of first target to have its existens unwoven. Given their track record on Nukes, I would not be happy with the US having this technology (or anyone else, for that matter). Is it really a good idea to continue research on this project?

Personally I think that it isn't wise. However, I would definitely continue research if it were up to me. Curiousity perhaps. I think that it is rather Ironic that the discovery that could take human existence to utopia (unlimited energy) is the same thing which could undo it all together.

It seems scientists have (for some time now) mastered the art of black-hole creation.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,15410-13312730,00.html




Is this going to be the next nuke? Think of the possibilities, two nuclei producing heat 300 million times that of the surface of the sun. It could solve our energy problems forever. It could also wreak havoc on the battlefield. If you weren't concerned about self destruction when we had Nukes, you better be now. It's like an Ultra-Nuke without fallout. With a push of a button, Tehran could be obliterated into a vortex of void. Baghdad, Palestine (the whole country), or the entire middle east region are other possible contenders for the honour of first target to have its existens unwoven. Given their track record on Nukes, I would not be happy with the US having this technology (or anyone else, for that matter). Is it really a good idea to continue research on this project?

Personally I think that it isn't wise. However, I would definitely continue research if it were up to me. Curiousity perhaps. I think that it is rather Ironic that the discovery that could take human existence to utopia (unlimited energy) is the same thing which could undo it all together.

Two words : Oh noes

It seems scientists have (for some time now) mastered the art of black-hole creation.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,15410-13312730,00.html




Is this going to be the next nuke? Think of the possibilities, two nuclei producing heat 300 million times that of the surface of the sun. It could solve our energy problems forever. It could also wreak havoc on the battlefield. If you weren't concerned about self destruction when we had Nukes, you better be now. It's like an Ultra-Nuke without fallout. With a push of a button, Tehran could be obliterated into a vortex of void. Baghdad, Palestine (the whole country), or the entire middle east region are other possible contenders for the honour of first target to have its existens unwoven. Given their track record on Nukes, I would not be happy with the US having this technology (or anyone else, for that matter). Is it really a good idea to continue research on this project?

Personally I think that it isn't wise. However, I would definitely continue research if it were up to me. Curiousity perhaps. I think that it is rather Ironic that the discovery that could take human existence to utopia (unlimited energy) is the same thing which could undo it all together.
No it will not. It takes more energy to create the black hole than you get out of it. And it's impractical to use particle accelerators as weapons. Otherwise antimatter would be "the next nuke" some decades ago already.

No it will not. It takes more energy to create the black hole than you get out of it. And it's impractical to use particle accelerators as weapons. Otherwise antimatter would be "the next nuke" some decades ago already.
For now...

my thoughts were undicided (which is what I voted) until it occured to me that if they fuck it up the solar system gets sucked into a point smaller then a hydrogen atom....... ouchie

Scientists used a particle accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, to shoot two beams of gold nuclei at each other at the speed of light.

Since when were we able to accelerate things to the speed of light? I'm more impressed with that. Should I be, or is that old news?

It seems scientists have (for some time now) mastered the art of black-hole creation.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,15410-13312730,00.html




Is this going to be the next nuke? Think of the possibilities, two nuclei producing heat 300 million times that of the surface of the sun. It could solve our energy problems forever. It could also wreak havoc on the battlefield. If you weren't concerned about self destruction when we had Nukes, you better be now. It's like an Ultra-Nuke without fallout. With a push of a button, Tehran could be obliterated into a vortex of void. Baghdad, Palestine (the whole country), or the entire middle east region are other possible contenders for the honour of first target to have its existens unwoven. Given their track record on Nukes, I would not be happy with the US having this technology (or anyone else, for that matter). Is it really a good idea to continue research on this project?

Personally I think that it isn't wise. However, I would definitely continue research if it were up to me. Curiousity perhaps. I think that it is rather Ironic that the discovery that could take human existence to utopia (unlimited energy) is the same thing which could undo it all together.

Sorry, but I think you and maybe the reporter took the word blackhole the wrong way. The quarks etc formed a plasma that absorbed other particles generated in the collisions which meant that the scientists saw a gap in their data (i.e a black hole because nothing was seen). This however does not mean a black hole in the strict sense that it formed a massively powerful gravitational well which drags everything around it into itself.

On another note, if you wanted to use a blackhole as a weapon it would not be a very good one. The reason being that a proper black hole would result in the destruction of the entire solar system over a period of time. Why use a weapon that is going to wipe out all sides of a conflict.

Sorry, but I think you and maybe the reporter took the word blackhole the wrong way. The quarks etc formed a plasma that absorbed other particles generated in the collisions which meant that the scientists saw a gap in their data (i.e a black hole because nothing was seen). This however does not mean a black hole in the strict sense that it formed a massively powerful gravitational well which drags everything around it into itself.

On another note, if you wanted to use a blackhole as a weapon it would not be a very good one. The reason being that a proper black hole would result in the destruction of the entire solar system over a period of time. Why use a weapon that is going to wipe out all sides of a conflict.
My understanding (not well founded, but reasonably assured) is that a black hole represents a supercondensation of mass. That is to say, you could make a (nanoscopic) black-hole out of a cricket-ball, but the black-hole would have the same gravity as the crcket-ball from which it was composed. Further more, the smaller black-hole tend to fizzle out quickly (like the one in the experiment). So theoretically, it wouldn't be far off creating localised black holes to produce energy, of destroy enemies...

For now...
For ever. You can't get more energy out of anything than it contains. And when you create things in an accelerator you must put in all the energy that what you create will contain. So all energy that you want to take out of the black hole you must first put into it.

Also, this thing had a high temperature, yes. But it was the size (mass) of a small atom. If the energy was dispersed in a room it would not be heated up enough to even be measured.

Since when were we able to accelerate things to the speed of light? I'm more impressed with that. Should I be, or is that old news?

No we have not achieved that, we have just come very very close to the speed of light.

My understanding (not well founded, but reasonably assured) is that a black hole represents a supercondensation of mass. That is to say, you could make a (nanoscopic) black-hole out of a cricket-ball, but the black-hole would have the same gravity as the crcket-ball from which it was composed. Further more, the smaller black-hole tend to fizzle out quickly (like the one in the experiment). So theoretically, it wouldn't be far off creating localised black holes to produce energy, of destroy enemies...


Ok I accept that you are correct about the fizzle out and the possibility of nanoscopic black-holes (though technically all black holes are that size or smaller it is just the event horizon which changes in size).

However if these blackholes are not in a vacuum (which they are in the accelerator) then the black hole will rapidly grow in gravitaional strength if it able to in its lifetime to absorb enough material. If you destroy with a black hole that means it is tearing something apart and sucking it in. Thus getting a run-away black hole like I described previously.

Don't be too scared guys, It lasted for a smaller amount of time than you could imagine and was smaller than you can imagine. The amount of energy needed to create that one was horrendously large. Yes a blackhole feads itself but the fact that it didn't last long tells you that they can die. Also you should realise that particle accelerators are huge. Not big.....HUGE. The big ring is the accelerator at cern (european experiment) and you can see an airport next to it which you'll notice is far smaller. The thing crosses an international border!

http://www-zeuthen.desy.de/technisches_seminar/texte/blind/Image1.jpg

This really isn't good. If they create one that can sustain itself, then the earth will be destroyed. Because from then on it just gets bigger and bigger... and you really cannot stop it. However if we can create ones that are reliant on slight outside forces to remain in existence, we can feed of the transferal of matter to energy basically forever, certainly enough to give us infinite energy, in effect.

On another note, if you wanted to use a blackhole as a weapon it would not be a very good one. The reason being that a proper black hole would result in the destruction of the entire solar system over a period of time. Why use a weapon that is going to wipe out all sides of a conflict.
Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines. :D

Is this going to be the next nuke? Think of the possibilities, two nuclei producing heat 300 million times that of the surface of the sun. It could solve our energy problems forever. It could also wreak havoc on the battlefield. If you weren't concerned about self destruction when we had Nukes, you better be now. It's like an Ultra-Nuke without fallout. With a push of a button, Tehran could be obliterated into a vortex of void. Baghdad, Palestine (the whole country), or the entire middle east region are other possible contenders for the honour of first target to have its existens unwoven. Given their track record on Nukes, I would not be happy with the US having this technology (or anyone else, for that matter). Is it really a good idea to continue research on this project?



Creating black holes is fun, but you are missing a fundemental point
Black holes have a mass limit, I think its about 12 000 tons, any black hole with a mass below this goes POP and cannot hold itself together.
Now.... take 2 gold nuclii...... how much do they weigh in at? (I bet its not 7000 tons each)................:rolleyes:

As for using a black hole as a weapon, :eek: , Since releasing it anywhere on earth will cause the earth to disappear and become a quark-gluon flux and a blast of gamma/X-rays and end with a slightly fatter black hole

Since when were we able to accelerate things to the speed of light? I'm more impressed with that. Should I be, or is that old news?

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but don't we accelerate things to the speed of light everytime we light a fire, or for that matter turn on a lightbulb? Or do those things not count as being strictly accelerated?

I don't see this ever being useful for power generation. If they aren't self-sustaining, you'd be better off using whatever you did to create them for energy production. And if they were, they would really, REALLY suck!

I don't know about weapons use, but do we really need another snazzy new weapon? What would it do that we can't do with existng weapons?

If USA disappears in a second, we know why now.

My understanding (not well founded, but reasonably assured) is that a black hole represents a supercondensation of mass. That is to say, you could make a (nanoscopic) black-hole out of a cricket-ball, but the black-hole would have the same gravity as the crcket-ball from which it was composed. Further more, the smaller black-hole tend to fizzle out quickly (like the one in the experiment). So theoretically, it wouldn't be far off creating localised black holes to produce energy, of destroy enemies...

Why would one need a black hole with the gravity of a cricket ball?

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but don't we accelerate things to the speed of light everytime we light a fire, or for that matter turn on a lightbulb? Or do those things not count as being strictly accelerated?

Well... Supposing the speed of light is constant, it seems to me it wouldn't be accelerated.

My understanding (not well founded, but reasonably assured) is that a black hole represents a supercondensation of mass. That is to say, you could make a (nanoscopic) black-hole out of a cricket-ball, but the black-hole would have the same gravity as the crcket-ball from which it was composed. Further more, the smaller black-hole tend to fizzle out quickly (like the one in the experiment). So theoretically, it wouldn't be far off creating localised black holes to produce energy, of destroy enemies...


You answered your own conjecture there. You can't use a blackhole as a weapon, there's no way to move one. If you created one on site, it wouldn't do anything anyway, aside from vanish in a puff of Hawking Radiation.

It should also be noted this is not a method for power generation, the energy requirements to create the micro-singularity outweigh the energy you could get out of it. Even if you created a semi-stable singularity lasting years it would take massive amounts of energy and couldn't be done anywhere on Earth without it absorbing the matter of the planet. Kind of a neat doomsday scenario, but it's not feasible to do.

Also turning on a lightbulb doesn't really count as accelerating things to the speed of light. The energy from the electricity heats the filiment white hot, since the bulb is a contained vacuum the filament doesn't burn but rather glows white hot. Since photons have no mass they don't create any bends in space-time when they move.


Now can we stop the uneducated doomsday crap?

Personally I think that it isn't wise. However, I would definitely continue research if it were up to me. Curiousity perhaps. I think that it is rather Ironic that the discovery that could take human existence to utopia (unlimited energy) is the same thing which could undo it all together.
Virtually any advance in technology has this same dichotomy. Harnessing fire helped keep early man warm and better fed, but the downside was accidental self-immolation.

Also turning on a lightbulb doesn't really count as accelerating things to the speed of light. The energy from the electricity heats the filiment white hot, since the bulb is a contained vacuum the filament doesn't burn but rather glows white hot. Since photons have no mass they don't create any bends in space-time when they move.

Ok, if I shine a light in a vacuum through a piece of glass and out the other side back into a vacuum, does that count?*


* trick question.

Harnessing fire helped keep early man warm and better fed, but the downside was accidental self-immolation.

Are you sure it was accidental? ;)

What an exciting way to destroy the galaxy!

No, this cannot be used practicly as a weapon, the black hole winks out under its own mass in under a microsecond.

What an exciting way to destroy the galaxy!

Oh bollocks. The Milky Way has a fair share of black holes and in case you hadn't noticed, we're still here.

I doubt such a weapon would be feasible.

"Um... hi, Iran... uh... you and I both know we want to go to war with each other, am I right? But just before we do, could we build a particle accelerator just outside of Tehran and import a couple thousand tonnes of Gold?"

Assuming you use a mass below the self-sustaining yield (so the black hole winks out of existance again), the black hole would damage the ground most, as that's where the most mass is. This could lead to destablising the planet. Imagine if you have a bowl of water and you scoop some out. That hole that you created doesn't stay there, the surrounding water fills in the gap. Now imagine the water was actually the Earth. Think about all that mantle oozing to fill in the gap, and thus leaving nothing to support the crust.

the scary part is that they are producing black holes in laboratories but cannot use spell check!

"But it's going to be another thng to see if it produces any fruit."

Oh bollocks. The Milky Way has a fair share of black holes and in case you hadn't noticed, we're still here.

Well, for one I was being silly. None of those black holes are "controlled" though, so...

No it will not. It takes more energy to create the black hole than you get out of it. And it's impractical to use particle accelerators as weapons. Otherwise antimatter would be "the next nuke" some decades ago already.
Unless you could theoretically create a stable black hole and keep it in the place where you wanted it. Then you could have an extremely efficient power station as you pumped matter into it.

The FOX Network has been harnessing a black hole for years, making themselves tons of money.

Bill O'Reilly.

Unless you could theoretically create a stable black hole and keep it in the place where you wanted it. Then you could have an extremely efficient power station as you pumped matter into it.


Couldn't be done on a planet, it'd have to be orbital. Which means you'd have to somehow create a black hole in orbit, which would require machinery, and immense power.

Ooooh, nice.
I read in some recent issue of Popular Science that if we were able to do this, it would reconcile a lot of the discrepancy between macro and microphysics. Is that right?

The FOX Network has been harnessing a black hole for years, making themselves tons of money.

Bill O'Reilly.

He's been talking out of his black hole for a loooong time.

Since when were we able to accelerate things to the speed of light? I'm more impressed with that. Should I be, or is that old news?


Turn on your light bulb. you've just accelerated more than a few particles to the speed of light.

This reminds me of Spiderman 2. The only difference is instead of almost destroying NYC and eventually the world with a mini-sun, it is a mini-black hole.

They installed a black hole in the white house years ago, there is nothing awesome about it.

Ack! I clicked thw wrong button...

I don't think ANYONE should be able to experiment with that kind of stuff...

Scientists working on it should be executed, and all their data and equipment incinerated.

Since when were we able to accelerate things to the speed of light? I'm more impressed with that. Should I be, or is that old news?
*Turns on flashlight.*

Couldn't be done on a planet, it'd have to be orbital. Which means you'd have to somehow create a black hole in orbit, which would require machinery, and immense power.But even in orbit you'd have a problem (if you created a sustainable black hole). You can't touch it in any way, so you can't pull or push it to keep it in orbit. As it will be in a vacuum to stop it getting bigger an increase in the momentum of the ship, will not equate into an increase in momentum of the black hole.


Hmm... well that means it shouldn't lose momentum either, so you only have to worry about the ships momentum to stop the whole thing from crashing into earth like Mir. I guess you'd just have to organise how you feed the black hole so that equal amounts of mass hit it from opposite sides.

But the ship would have to be balanced so that the black hole was in the centre point of its mass. And if a satelite or meteor passed by you'd have to increase the amount of mass being fed to the opposite side of the black hole to balance out the change in gravitational forces.

*Turns on flashlight.*All these people who are replying with comments about lights... well... sure when you turn on a light a particle is emited at the speed of light, but that particle has no mass... or as far as I know it couldn't be traveling at the speed of light. As I remember if you accelerate a particle with mass it gains more mass. At low speeds this effect is very small, but as you approach the speed of light it becomes very significant. And I think there's asymtotic relationship between acceleration and mass. With the asymtote being the speed of light.

When at low speeds an increase in momentum will be mainly distributed into acceleration, but at high speeds an increase in momentum will increasingly be distributed into the particles mass. Thus requiring larger increases in momentum for smiliar increases in acceleration

Argh, I'm getting myself confused. But that's what I remember, current physics dictates a particle with mass can't achieve the speed of light. Only problem is they think photons might exhibit properties of mass. Which would throw that part of relativity into chaos. I think.

Turn on your light bulb. you've just accelerated more than a few particles to the speed of light.

Actually, you've just added energy to the atoms in the filament, causing their electrons to rise to a higher excited state, then fall to a lower, releasing radiation in the form of photons.

I think.

What I'm worried about is the black hole having enough momentum that time dilation can keep it around long enough to pick up nucleons on the way through the Earth.

For ever. You can't get more energy out of anything than it contains. And when you create things in an accelerator you must put in all the energy that what you create will contain. So all energy that you want to take out of the black hole you must first put into it.

Also, this thing had a high temperature, yes. But it was the size (mass) of a small atom. If the energy was dispersed in a room it would not be heated up enough to even be measured.

Black Holes don't exist in the same state as we do. You can put something in and, if it stays in this universe, get more out. On the othe hand you might get less.
And Black Holes have been found to not suck everything in if thay don't rotate and the object doesn't hit them head on.
Black Holes also release radeation that marks what was consumed, so you could enter an unlimited amount of infomation, and analize the imeadet radeation release. Presto, perfict computer!

Ack! I clicked thw wrong button...

I don't think ANYONE should be able to experiment with that kind of stuff...

Scientists working on it should be executed, and all their data and equipment incinerated.

I agree, after all, what has science ever done for us? FUCK SCIENCE!

Well... Supposing the speed of light is constant, it seems to me it wouldn't be accelerated.

It isn't actually. A few years back, scientists fired a laser through a chamber containing cesium gas, the laser literally hit the other side of the chamber before it fired. According to the researchers the photons were actually moving several times the speed of light.

And something I read years ago mentioned that researchers had discovered that the speed of light has actually been falling since the Big Bang.......

Unless you could theoretically create a stable black hole and keep it in the place where you wanted it. Then you could have an extremely efficient power station as you pumped matter into it.
Yeah, like we build a death-star-like artificial moon for earth. Inside is a small stabilised blackhole. the sphere wouldb be built to withstand the gravity of the black-hole inside (until it grew from our matter dumping, at which point it would need renovation). Then we could farm asteroids from the belt of Saturn to throw inside of it. Then the colony on planet chernobyl (in the Alpha centuari system) would have a huge disaster wherein its blackhole ranomly fluctuated its size by eating radons or light or something, resulting in a implosions of the powerstation enclosing it. The black hole then went on to consume the whole planet. Less than half of planet chernobyl made it of in time...
Perhaps they will serve as a lesson to us all next time.

Couldn't be done on a planet, it'd have to be orbital. Which means you'd have to somehow create a black hole in orbit, which would require machinery, and immense power.
It sounds a bit like wealth "it takes money to make money". Basically, the more energy we have, the exponentially more we can produce.

Ack! I clicked thw wrong button...

I don't think ANYONE should be able to experiment with that kind of stuff...

Scientists working on it should be executed, and all their data and equipment incinerated.
But think of the energy! You could leave the lights on in every room, even the ones you aren't in! Hold on, you could even leave them on...when you weren't home!

The science fiction novel Cosm by Gregory Benford (a physicist in his day job) was sort of about this very thing. At Brookhaven, no less! The scenario wasn't exactly the creation of a black hole, but the creation of new universes by the experiments.

I wouldn't worry too much about this happening. Much higher energy collisions occur all the time in the upper atmosphere (from cosmic rays), and the Earth hasn't been devoured yet!

I thought the US had already done that. Only the hole resides inside G.W.'s head.

Naaw, you want to look at the budget. Stuff goes in, stuff doesn't come out. As my lecturer was wont to say about diagrams, "That's an infinite sink. You don't do infinite sinks"

I thought the US had already done that. Only the hole resides inside G.W.'s head.
No that is a White Hole.
Condolesa Rice is the Black Hole.

The only way we can create a Black hole is with a particle accelerator. We slam nuclei together so that they become so compact that it reaches its schwarzchild radius and forms an event horizon. The mass of the black hole is going to be extremely small. Therefore it will not have enough gravity to pull anything of reasonable size into it, and will evaporate almost instantaneously. There is no danger of a black hole that we have created swallowing the solar system. To do that would require a stellar black hole. Not the micro-blackholes we create in the accelerator.

The only way we can create a Black hole is with a particle accelerator. We slam nuclei together so that they become so compact that it reaches its schwarzchild radius and forms an event horizon. The mass of the black hole is going to be extremely small. Therefore it will not have enough gravity to pull anything of reasonable size into it, and will evaporate almost instantaneously. There is no danger of a black hole that we have created swallowing the solar system. To do that would require a stellar black hole. Not the micro-blackholes we create in the accelerator.
And if we are really lucky we might suck the whole Solar system in on itself.

Turn on your light bulb. you've just accelerated more than a few particles to the speed of light.

Uh, no you havent. Light is NOT a particle. It has particle-like qualities, but is not a particle, it has no mass.

The question regarding being able to accelerate particles to the speed of light:

As far as I know, yes, we can create light, which duh, has the speed of light.

However, last time I checked, accelerating even the lightest atom to the actual speed of light was pretty damn impossible. And gold is fairly heavy by those standards, so I don't see how they could even accelerate it to the speed of light.

It's certainly possible to direct 80 percent of a fission explosion's energy in one direction, as proven by the various tests in the late 1950's early 1960s of this technology.

Now, just get two of these devices aimed at each other, and make the driver plate out of gold.

I bet it would have a lot more incidental energy than a particle accelerator.

See references to the Casaba-Howitzer project.

It seems scientists have (for some time now) mastered the art of black-hole creation.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,15410-13312730,00.html




Is this going to be the next nuke? Think of the possibilities, two nuclei producing heat 300 million times that of the surface of the sun. It could solve our energy problems forever. It could also wreak havoc on the battlefield. If you weren't concerned about self destruction when we had Nukes, you better be now. It's like an Ultra-Nuke without fallout. With a push of a button, Tehran could be obliterated into a vortex of void. Baghdad, Palestine (the whole country), or the entire middle east region are other possible contenders for the honour of first target to have its existens unwoven. Given their track record on Nukes, I would not be happy with the US having this technology (or anyone else, for that matter). Is it really a good idea to continue research on this project?

Personally I think that it isn't wise. However, I would definitely continue research if it were up to me. Curiousity perhaps. I think that it is rather Ironic that the discovery that could take human existence to utopia (unlimited energy) is the same thing which could undo it all together.

No, it isn't the next nuke. No, it isn't going to consume the planet. No, it isn't going to collapse the false vacuum. And no, it isn't going to produce a strangelet and convert Earth into degenerate matter.

It's a quantum black hole. They generally have a mass in the general area of Mount Everest, - compared to the mass of multiple large stars for a normal black hole - are a fraction the size of an atomic nucleus, which itself is so small that if you packed them together, the number you could fit on one period in a sentence would be greater than we have an "-illion" word for, and they exist for a period of time only just barely above the smallest quantized time demarcation possible.

The fact that it for that unimaginably brief period is many hundreds of times hotter than the Sun? Completely irrelevant. The actual energy released by a quantum-particle-sized decaying singularity that exists for only a bit more than a Planck second, even at that temperature, is minute, only detectable by highly sensitive scientific instruments.

The only purpose here is research. For example: there is a certain, extremely precise amount of energy predicted to appear when a quantum black hole decays. If significantly less than that amount appears, it may be experimental proof of the existence of other universes, especially in the context of string theory. See a Scientific American article from a few months ago for a more in-depth discussion of that.

Now, if the black holes could be created somewhat larger, and be preserved stably for a significant period of time, then you open up all sorts of interesting possibilities for singularity-based technology (transportation, gravity control, weaponry, energy generation, computing) and really interesting scientific research into the fundamental, immediate nature of time, space, and causality.

I think a better poll question would be "Is human control of black holes possible?"

I refuse to give credance to anything that uses "million billion billionths" as a measurement.

But anyway, I am not too concerned about having the power to create little black holes. We seem to have mastered nuclear power without too much cost (Although given that we are just past the twentieth anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster, an obvious caveat is that we have to take care in what we do and use the proper training and equipment in all endeavours). I think it would be wrongheaded to take the technology in a militaristic direction, if indeed it does has military applications.

I refuse to give credance to anything that uses "million billion billionths" as a measurement.

Most of the non-scientist population would be hard-pressed not to just stop reading after a journalist mentioned femtometers or scientific notation with negative exponents. "10^-12 um" doesn't mean much to the average American. (or Canadian or European)