Question: how do you make a black hole by smashing particles?

David Freeborn answered on 18 Jun 2013:

Hi lucysey,

Good question.

A black hole is made whenever the gravitational pull of something becomes so strong that nothing in the Universe- not even light can escape.

Normally this happens when a star becomes so heavy, it collapses in on itself, and gets denser and denser as it shrinks, until the gravitational pull is so strong, it creates a black hole.

We can make a gravitational pull stronger in two ways- make objects heavier (heavier objects have a stronger gravitational field) or move objects closer together (because gravity becomes stronger at shorter distances).

When we smash particles together, we do both. We give the particles *a lot* of energy (and because E=mc^2, giving them energy also gives them mass), and we force them really, really close together at high speeds. If we do it at high enough speeds, we should be able to get particles so close together they fuse and form a tiny black hole.

(These tiny black holes would only last a fraction of a second, before they decay due to a quantum process called Hawking radiation, so it’s perfectly safe.)