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An insight might emerge from these micro black holesThe search for a "Theory of Everything" is looking for evidence of extra dimensions.By JOHN MANGELS, Newhouse News Service Last update: November 6, 2008 - 9:15 AM

The quest to make micro black holes at the $8 billion LHC springs from physicists' attempt to solve a profound mystery. Of nature's four fundamental forces, three operate at roughly the same strength: the strong force, which binds the restless bunches of quarks in an atomic nucleus together; the weak force, which enables nuclear decay, and electromagnetism, which keeps electrons locked in their frenzied orbits.But the fourth force, gravity, is the weakling of the family. It might seem powerful when you're trying to get off the couch, but it pales compared to the abilities of the other forces.Physicists call this vexing disparity a major speed-bump on the road to a Theory of Everything. In 1998, a trio of physicists proposed a radical explanation for gravity's apparent wimpy-ness.Maybe gravity is weak, they reasoned, because it's diluted. Maybe, unlike the other forces, it extends into extra dimensions beyond the three we inhabit.

If our 3-D universe is the top of a stack of pancakes, gravity is the syrup that dribbles over the flapjack's edge, down the sides and onto the plate below."If there are extra dimensions, you almost can't stop gravity from spreading out into them," Starkman said. "You imagine that gravity spreads out for a while, then stops. It could stop spreading if space wasn't infinite in those extra dimensions."Physicists have worked out different scenarios in which extra dimensions vary by size, number and even shape. One large extra dimension, or several smaller ones, could account for gravity's diluted strength in our own universe.If, if, if. How could anyone test for the existence of extra dimensions and leaking gravity? Black holes and the formidable particle-slamming power of the LHC suggested a way.You know black holes, right? Those fearsome cosmic quicksand pits that swallow everything, even light?They're the unhappy consequence of exhausted stars that collapse in on themselves. The resulting maw seethes with gravity so powerful it can rip apart anything that strays too close.Given such a nasty disposition, why would scientists want to try to create black holes on Earth? And not just one, but lots of them -- miniature black holes belched out as often as once per second like exploding popcorn kernels by the just-activated Large Hadron Collider (LHC), an underground machine so colossal it straddles two countries, Switzerland and France?Because of the remarkable things they would reveal about the universe, physicists say."It's the biggest experiment in human history," said Nima Arkani-Hamed of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., whose theories helped lay the groundwork for the black hole hunt.

If the LHC succeeds in a long-shot effort to make so-called micro black holes -- which experts contend would vanish harmlessly in less than a trillion-trillionth of a second -- that would provide powerful evidence of extra dimensions.It would illuminate astounding new properties of gravity and perhaps aid physicists' search for a "Theory of Everything" knitting together all of nature's particles and forces in one seamless explanation.Many news accounts of the LHC's September start-up (an electrical failure has since idled the collider until next spring) focused on the doomsday scenario, portraying black holes as the offspring of an experiment run amok, an unintended byproduct of smashing protons into protons. But physicists like Glenn Starkman of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland have been methodically planning (and hoping) for their production.Starkman is a kind of black hole profiler, anticipating what properties a stealthy micro black hole should have and how to spy it among the blizzard of exotic particles the LHC will produce.The quest to make micro black holes at the $8 billion

LHC springs from physicists' attempt to solve a profound mystery. Of nature's four fundamental forces, three operate at roughly the same strength: the strong force, which binds the restless bunches of quarks in an atomic nucleus together; the weak force, which enables nuclear decay, and electromagnetism, which keeps electrons locked in their frenzied orbits.But the fourth force, gravity, is the weakling of the family. It might seem powerful when you're trying to get off the couch, but it pales compared to the abilities of the other forces.Physicists call this vexing disparity a major speed-bump on the road to a Theory of Everything. In 1998, a trio of physicists proposed a radical explanation for gravity's apparent wimpy-ness.Maybe gravity is weak, they reasoned, because it's diluted. Maybe, unlike the other forces, it extends into extra dimensions beyond the three we inhabit. If our 3-D universe is the top of a stack of pancakes, gravity is the syrup that dribbles over the flapjack's edge, down the sides and onto the plate below."If there are extra dimensions, you almost can't stop gravity from spreading out into them," Starkman said. "You imagine that gravity spreads out for a while, then stops. It could stop spreading if space wasn't infinite in those extra dimensions."Physicists have worked out different scenarios in which extra dimensions vary by size, number and even shape. One large extra dimension, or several smaller ones, could account for gravity's diluted strength in our own universe.If, if, if. How could anyone test for the existence of extra dimensions and leaking gravity? Black holes and the formidable particle-slamming power of the LHC suggested a way.