Large Hadron Collider = The End For Earth???

[Jatakat]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...570487,00.html

08/06/2008

BLACK HOLE WORRIES
Physicists Allay Fears of the End of the World

By Charles Hawley

There are some who think that the new particle accelerator built outside of Geneva in Switzerland might create tiny black holes -- which could grow big enough to suck up the Earth. Balderdash, say physicists.

YouTube Video of Earth

The video looks a bit like a scene from a low-budget sci-fi horror film. A tiny hole slowly begins sucking in bits of the Earth in Switzerland with mountains, lakes and cities quickly falling into the growing gap. And it just keeps on growing -- and growing. By the end of the 38 second movie, the entire planet has been swallowed up -- and all that's left is a shimmering ring in the inky blackness of outer space.

Absurd, perhaps. But a brief look around Internet blogs, and especially YouTube, makes it clear that there are a number of people out there who believe it is a very real possibility. The gigantic particle accelerator just now being completed outside Geneva at the European Organization for Nuclear Research -- known as CERN -- is set to be switched on soon. And some are concerned that, once the research facility begins bashing subatomic particles together at 99.999991 percent of the speed of light, dangerous black holes could be created and spread out of control.

The fear has spread fast and far in cyberspace. In addition, a scientist at the University of Tübingen, Dr. Otto E. Rössler, has lent a certain amount of academic weight to the skepticism. So much so that a group of German physicists has now published an open letter carrying assurances that the particle accelerator, known as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), is in fact safe.

"There is no way that the LHC will produce black holes capable of swallowing up the Earth," reads the letter from the Committee for Elementary Particle Physics (KET), a group of leading quantum physicists in Germany. "This claim is based on extremely well tested theories of physics and on observations of the cosmos."

The head of KET, Dr. Peter Mättig, a particle physicist with the University of Wuppertal, concedes that disaster theories have not made much headway in the general public. "I don't think there are many who believe it," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "But it is notable how often we have been asked about the problem. And we especially want to refute those, like Dr. Rössler, who try to use science to back up their claims."

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It goes on to state how it's not possible and yadda yadda but still... im more worried about this thing someday being turned into a global threat to mankind or used as some sort of terrorism.

Oh, and I hear the scientists are turning the thing on this weekend. Sleep well.

[Flagg]

I've read all the scare-mongering concerning the Haddon Collider, NO BLACK HOLE IS GOING TO APPEAR AND SUCK THE EARTH AND THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE INTO IT!

[Kärnfysikern]

There is one argument that kills the entire idea. Cosmic rays of far higher energy hits the eart contionously and have been doing so for earths entire existance, we have still not been consumed by a black hole So Id say we have nothing to worry about.

This is a nice article about the highest energy cosmic ray we have so far picked up
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/OhMyGodParticle/
Its just unbelivably silly how much of a punch that little ****er packed.

[Flagg]

I can't wait until they find out if Dark Matter exists or not. If it does, the implications could be phemonal. It would tell us more about the Universe, and just think of what could be done with Dark Matter...maybe a new energy source?

What I find quite amusing is how when the Haddon Collider is turned on, how time travel windows will open up from the future!

[Flagg]

September 10th is when LHC is being turned on!!

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archi...aspx?GT1=43001

Quote:
If the schedule holds, the collider on the French-Swiss border will make a splash at 9 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET) Sept. 10, a week after a federal judge in Hawaii begins hearing a motion to dismiss a civil lawsuit claiming that the device could destroy the world. Over the past few months, scientists at CERN (and the federal government) have laid out their case that a globe-gobbling catastrophe could never happen. Nevertheless, the court proceedings could provide a sideshow for the main event. Or they could be finished up by that time.

"The LHC is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, producing beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, and around 30 times more intense when it reaches design performance, probably by 2010. Housed in a 27-kilometer tunnel, it relies on technologies that would not have been possible 30 years ago. The LHC is, in a sense, its own prototype.

[Kärnfysikern]

Im acctually hoping they find neither the higgs or any of the predicted dark matter particles and instead totaly unpredicted particles. That would be very exciting, nothing is better than a upheaval

[JTankers]

There is one argument that kills the entire idea. Cosmic rays of far higher energy hits the eart contionously and have been doing so for earths entire existance, we have still not been consumed by a black hole So Id say we have nothing to worry about.

Several prominent physicists who do not appear to display a competent understanding of LHC Safety issues proclaim that more powerful cosmic rays harmlessly strike Earth regularly proving safety. This argument is nonsense.

Stable micro black holes created by cosmic ray collisions with Earth would travel through Earth at nearly the speed of light, leaving the Earth unharmed. CERN’s LHC Safety Assessment Group acknowledged this in a March 2008 email.

[JTankers]

Abstract below from Dr. Rossler's plea to the world, copy available on LHCFacts.org.

"A nightmarish situation, that can still be hoped to be averted in time through communication within the scientific community, is drawn attention to. Only a few weeks remain to find out whether the danger is real or nothing but a mirage. After this time window is closed, it will take years until we know whether or not we are doomed. The story line has all the features of a best-selling novel. The reader is asked to contribute constructively."

Quote from Dr. Otto E. Rossler, Professor Theoretical Biochemist, visiting Professor of Theoretical Physics, inventor of the Rossler Attractor, founder of Endophysics, winner of the 2003 Chaos Award of the University of Liege and the 2003 Rene Descartes Award.

[Lexed]

if they do find dark matter then I guess that disproves the theory of god

[Kärnfysikern]

Several prominent physicists who do not appear to display a competent understanding of LHC Safety issues proclaim that more powerful cosmic rays harmlessly strike Earth regularly proving safety. This argument is nonsense.

Stable micro black holes created by cosmic ray collisions with Earth would travel through Earth at nearly the speed of light, leaving the Earth unharmed. CERN’s LHC Safety Assessment Group acknowledged this in a March 2008 email.

Seriously did you just sign up on a bodybuilding forum just to bash LHC

Rössler is not taken serious by (m)any particle physicists as far as I know. If he cant even raise a objection scientificly rigorus enough to be cause for concern for experts in the field I se no reason to worry.

Now the point of building these things are to find unkown things, if we know what we where going to find there is no point in building it. That means no one can promise that nothing will happen since its impossible to promise things about whats not known. But if the danger according to Rössler is all due to his own work on the schwarzschild metric http://www.achtphasen.net/index.php/...rsity_of__2008 then I wont stay awake at night.

[Kärnfysikern]

One other thing that strikes me is that if nano black holes are created by cosmic ray collisions than this happens everywhere of course. Not only in earth, it happens in the sun, in all the planets, in nebulas etc.

If one had any ide of the "black hole creation cross section" from cosmic ray interactions and the avarage material density in the galaxy(and universe) then it would be easy to loosely estimate how many nano black holes are zipping around in the galaxy. Has Rössler done anything like that? If nano black hole creation is likely and if the nano black holes are stable then we would probably expect that earth and the solar system has encountered many nano black holes with all kinds of energies.

[Jakspro]

if they do find dark matter then I guess that disproves the theory of god

Could you or someone elaborate on this? I'm not to familiar with dark matter and its implications if discovered.

Also, as I understand, science cannot 'disprove' religion, as religion is out of the bounds of science.

[Flagg]

Could you or someone elaborate on this? I'm not to familiar with dark matter and its implications if discovered.

Also, as I understand, science cannot 'disprove' religion, as religion is out of the bounds of science.

No, but Dark Matter will tell us a Hell of a lot about how the Universe was created, which pretty much blows the whole "God made everything cause we havent a clue how everything came to be" religous crap out the water.

[Bio-boosted]

^^^ Roll on Sept 10th...

[Hoggage_54]

Read the book Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer. It's a science-fiction novel about the LHC.

http://www.amazon.com/Flashforward-R.../dp/0812580346

[warchild]

we all got togo sometime

[Jatakat]

^^^ Roll on Sept 10th...

You're right, I guess they were just doing some sort of "tests" this past weekend. For the record I don't believe it's gonna destroy earth... but the YouTube videos are pretty hilarious if you watch it with someone who truly believes that.

[Bio-boosted]

Could you or someone elaborate on this? I'm not to familiar with dark matter and its implications if discovered.

Also, as I understand, science cannot 'disprove' religion, as religion is out of the bounds of science.

In reality it already has. Thanks to folk like Charles Darwin, Gallileo, Hubble and geologists. Religion wishes to be out of reach of science, but it is finding nowhere safe to hide, we are learning too much about the universe to make all that old stuff viable anymore.
Hey, if the machine does blow a hole in the earth it'll destroy half of france. So, that's nothing to lose sleep over
LOL

[warchild]

You're right, I guess they were just doing some sort of "tests" this past weekend. For the record I don't believe it's gonna destroy earth... but the YouTube videos are pretty hilarious if you watch it with someone who truly believes that.

THERE is always some idiot who thinks that

[Tock]

If the world ends, how will we know it happened?

[paulzane]

Wll I am going to spend all my money before the 10th Sept .... sell my houses and blow everything!! I wonder how my wife will feel on the 11th Sept?

$1,000,000 in 4 weeks? Can I?

[mattj255]

You will be silly not to

[gixxerboy1]

Wll I am going to spend all my money before the 10th Sept .... sell my houses and blow everything!! I wonder how my wife will feel on the 11th Sept?

$1,000,000 in 4 weeks? Can I?

i just bought a ton of stuff on 30 day credit

[Bio-boosted]

You will be silly not to

HAHAHA that's good!!!