A Black Hole Ate My Socks!
August 12, 2009 by natalina
Filed under The Unexplained
Or so some really smart guys are actually saying!
The question was posed recently at a science-fiction and fantasy convention in Spokane, Wash., where a panel of theorists got together and pondered some of life’s great mysteries:Â Where do the missing socks from the dryer actually go?
My theory was always that an angry god bent on destroying the twisted catharsis I get from doing laundry was smiting my socks from afar. But it appears that the real story might actually be weirder. Ok, well probably not weirder, but different.
Alan Boyle and some of his fellow theorists noticed a striking similarity between the modern clothes dryer, and the ATLAS detector at Europe’s Large Hadron Collider. The theory is that while the dryer is spinning, it drives the clothes (socks) inside to such energetically driven collisions that they build a tremendous static charge. Due to this activity, Boyle says that there is a chance…and undeniable scientific chance… that within the dryer could form a miniature black hole powerful enough to suck up one of a pair of socks! I knoooow, that’s the coolest thing I’ve heard all week, too!
Says Boyle: “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you … the Not-So-Large Ban-Lon Collider. Your laundry room contains a device perfect for doing small-scale experiments in string theory. (Or is that yarn theory?)”
In a fantastic column on MSNBC.com, Boyle discusses this and many other questions that might seem silly to some. The thing that I admire is that he tackles all of these things with the enthusiastic pursuit of knowledge that one would hope most great scientists and theorists would have. Other questions pondered in the article:
Interstellar Travel – How could we possibly travel to distant stars and galaxies?
Perpetual Motion – The age old question that I remember learning about in grade school…is it possible?
Mars and the Maya – Should we prepare for a close encounter with the Red Planet?
The 12th Planet – Is the great black spot on Jupiter actually the legendary planet Nibiru?
Boyle answers all of these myths, legends, and general inquiries with his trademark wit and common sense approach. To read the whole article Click Here:
Silly mysteries solved
Alan Boyle is the Science editor for msnbc.com and writes the regular column Cosmic Log.
I lose socks all the time. But the other day I somehow managed to lose my son’s school trousers. They were put in the washing machine and then they completely disappeared. I have no idea where they went.
I don’t have a drier though. Does the black hole theory work for washing machines or clothes lines? My sons’ theory for missing socks was that the cockatoos stole them off the clothes line because they were cold. (I know they do take the pegs off the line. So it is possible.)
Liz
There is something so cute and appealing about the possibility that cockatoos are stealing socks! Somewhere high in a tree they’ve got a magical collection of colorful footwear
I don’t think the black whole theory would work for a washing machine, however. The water would prevent the suitable static charge necessary as the laundry collides against each other.
Maybe we’re over thinking this?