EVEN the tiniest black holes could cause gargantuan explosions, a theoretical physicist has worked out. His calculations rely on the theory that the Universe has several extra dimensions, much too small for us to notice. If a minuscule black hole grew too big for the little dimensions, it would be forced to change its shape to fit into fewer dimensions, says high-energy physicist Barak Kol of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
He calculates in a paper submitted to Physical Review D that for a tiny fraction of a second the resulting explosion would be many trillions of times as powerful as the Sun. l