Large Hadron Collider - Dangers?

Originally posted by gekko

Originally posted by OrangeAlarmClock
Yes, that's what they want to do with the LHC, to re-create the big bang. [...] I'm not too sure it's a safe idea to have another big bang happen right in our backyard.

There is possibly a little difference between a big bang involving two atoms, and one involving all the matter and energy in the universe.

But didn't the big bang CREATE the universe? Before the big bang, according to the theory, there was apparently nothing. So I don't see how it's any different than what the scientists are doing, even with 2 atoms.

It's flawed in so many ways.

Originally posted by OrangeAlarmClock
Before the big bang, according to the theory, there was apparently nothing. So I don't see how it's any different than what the scientists are doing, even with 2 atoms.

It's flawed in so many ways.

The theory says no such thing.

Rather is says that it's impossible to know what was before. As I understand it, any hints of what was before would have ben lost in the bang itself. Try and reconstruct the warnings written on a stick of dynamite after it's exploded...

Its a matter of simple logic. It's unlikely that two atoms contain the same amount of matter and energy that was released at the big bang.

The dangers are more profound than CERN scientist are saying. Here's an article from Yahoo news:

The safety of the collider, which will generate energies seven times higher than its most powerful rival, at Fermilab near Chicago, has been debated for years. The physicist Martin Rees has estimated the chance of an accelerator producing a global catastrophe at one in 50 million — long odds, to be sure, but about the same as winning some lotteries.

PEOPLE HIT THE LOTTERY ALL THE TIME.

Ellis said doomsayers assume that the collider will create micro black holes in the first place, which he called unlikely. And even if they appeared, he said, they would instantly evaporate, as predicted by the British physicist Stephen Hawking.

STEPHEN HAWKING IS A SWAMI NOW? HAWKING HAS BEEN WRONG IN THE PAST AND THIS IS PREDICTED NOT OBSERVED. IF HE'S WRONG, THEN WHAT? WILL THE BLACK HOLE GROW? WILL IT BE A DANGER TO THE EARTH?

As for strangelets, CERN scientists point out that they have never been proven to exist. They said that even if these particles formed inside the Collider they would quickly break down.

IF YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IF STRANGELETS EXIST, THEN HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY WILL QUICKLY BREAK DOWN IF FORMED?

news.yahoo.com...

The truth is, desire can sometimes override reason.

These scientist desire to do this, so they minimize any danger.

It's human nature. There have been times in the past where I wanted to do something and people said don't do it, there could be trouble. My desire to do it cancelled out the trouble and I did it. Sometimes there was no trouble and sometimes trouble hit me in the face.

With human nature, alot of times it's I should have listened.

These scientist are like kids in a candy store, so there not looking at this in an objective fashion.

Will it happen? Probably not.

Are the dangers being downplayed in order to get things going? Yes

Originally posted by polomontana
And even if they appeared, he said, they would instantly evaporate, as predicted by the British physicist Stephen Hawking.

STEPHEN HAWKING IS A SWAMI NOW? HAWKING HAS BEEN WRONG IN THE PAST AND THIS IS PREDICTED NOT OBSERVED. IF HE'S WRONG, THEN WHAT? WILL THE BLACK HOLE GROW? WILL IT BE A DANGER TO THE EARTH?

Funny you should mention that, as Stephen Hawking himself has recently come out and publicly stated that he "now believes that [he] could be wrong about his theory on hawking radiation."

The same theory that the scientists at CERN are using to tell us that this thing is safe and from black holes.

OMG someone told me the CERN accelerator will turn all seagulls into PINK GAY ELEPHANTS.

The physicists says they have never even heard about PINK GAY ELEPHANTS!!! So if they haven't heard about them how can they protect us against them?!??!!

/sarcasm

How about basing your posts on science instead of bad SF?

Originally posted by gekko
OMG someone told me the CERN accelerator will turn all seagulls into PINK GAY ELEPHANTS.

The physicists says they have never even heard about PINK GAY ELEPHANTS!!! So if they haven't heard about them how can they protect us against them?!??!!

/sarcasm

How about basing your posts on science instead of bad SF?

Obviously you didn't read the article.

I didn't mention strangelets, the CERN scientist did and said if they formed, they would quickly break down. How could he know this for sure?

Is the Higgs Boson science fiction because it isn't proven to exist?

Is Hawking Radiation science fiction because it isn't proven to exist?

These things are not science fiction.

Who said these scientist have never heard of these things?

What we are saying is some of these things can be wrong.

Are you willing to bet the earth as we know it on the existence of Hawking Radiation? If it doesn't exist or it doesn't follow theory and black holes don't evaporate like predicted, then what?

[edit on 29-6-2008 by polomontana]

reply to post by polomontana

EDIT: Sorry, I'm just tired and grumpy.

Better wait until I have something constructive to contribute.

Peace

g

[edit on 29/6/08 by gekko]

here is a link to a video about the atlas particle thingy

video.google.com...=atlas%20episode%201& hl=en&sitesearch=

reply to post by NJStomp


Nope. The largest black hole discovered is about 270 billion solar masses. That is the size of a small galaxy. A micro black whole would not destroy the universe.

Originally posted by polomontanaPEOPLE HIT THE LOTTERY ALL THE TIME.

Hello. Millions upon millions play the lottery so the odds for a winner are way lower than there would be if only one person played it. There's only one LHC on this scale, not millions, so the odds of something going wrong are astronomical, hardly worth thinking about. Hope that puts your mind at rest a touch.

Wow! So many experts posting what they assume are facts on here!!! So many statements saying "actually" and "in fact". Also so many people assuming science is "actual". Oh well, we're all human...

But therein lies the clue. Everyone has differing opinions on this - a classic example of human "reality".

My own opinion? Hmm, so many to choose from. I guess I could start with something like - nothing is certain when you dabble in theories. After that, well it's a lucky dip really...smoke screen for an elaborate experiment in time travel, etc, etc... I know, let me just take a direct quote from the LHC MACHINE OUTREACH main page cos they've pretty much summed it up themselves anyway right on the front of their own webpage -

"Particle physics is the unbelievable in pursuit of the unimaginable."

Unbelievable & unimaginable - need I say any more?

Why not build it in space, away from the earth? Like on the moon.

Why take any chance? It would have been the perfect justification of an international moon base. The only possible answer is that they needed proximity to a larger mass, the Earth.

Hmm, proximity to a large mass is a requirement for the time travel black hole concept. Which of course they say is not possible with such a puny device as the LHC. If they had put such a large scale manufacturing and resource harvesting operation into space, man would benefit from unlimited wealth for all time. These people have an objective in mind, but they seriously lack vision.

reply to post by gekko


So is it conceivable, that a few minutes before the big bang, a bunch of scientists were hunkered down in a room with a big Hadron Collider about to smash two protons into each other ?

Sorry for the off-topic post, but this is the single-most (and probably only) amusing thing I have ever read relating to the LHC:

Originally posted by tgidkp
i, for one, do not want to get caught peeking-up mother nature's skirt....she might get a little pissed.

I just don't think man should be playing around with this sort of things...its just not right

Dear oh dear,
What a lot of uninformed drivel. There are no such things as "black holes" it is a term used to describe the behaviour of observed matter at great distances whose behaviour can only be described by the proximity of something we can't see. What these objects are could be hyperdense matter with huge gravitational pull (no hole, no sucking in, no tear in the space time continuum, no dark matter) but it is ALL conjecture. A piece of this matter the size of a pea could weigh(on earth) several million tons and would have massive gravitational pull, like a magnet and would attract matter to it and grow. Black holes are NOT formed in our atmosphere the cosmic rays are not dense enough and are travelling at constant speed so do not have enough energy and only colllide with low speed particles. Clearly if no radiation (EM) of any kind can escape a "Black Hole" it can't anyway be detected.
The problem with the Cern Collider is that particles will still be accelerating when they collide and will therefore have much higher energy than anything observed in nature and there will be collisions between particles travelling in opposite directions with a closing speed that could be equivalent to twice the speed of light, that could only happen in nature if two stars were in very close proximity and that situation may be how natural "black holes" were formed. The problem then is that if two high energy particles collide and instead of breaking up they fuse together, a hyper dense particle could be formed which would then attract other particles and grow exponentially eventually attracting atoms, molecules and all other matter in our solar system. Any other matter is probably too far away to be affected. I have no idea what the odds of this happening are and neither does anyone else. Remember the phlogiston theory? Copernicus and Gallileo were excommunicated by the church for heresy for opinions that went against the then current scientific wisdom that the earth was the centre of the universe as were a handful of people who suggested that the earth was not flat. So expert scientists have often been wrong in the past and frequently foolishly so. Even at odds of a billion to one it seems to be madness to risk what they are doing when the consequences could be so dire. The problem is that if this experiment provides no information the madmen at cern will want to build a bigger more powerful collider and at some point they will lose control. I seem to remember that they tested the atomic bomb in the Nevada desert not down town Dallas or Houston or Geneva as this is. Fingers crossed!!!

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
Even if we did kill ourselves and this planet, who cares?

Where have you been all my life?

Seriously, why is everyone so worried about the world ending? Hypothetically speaking, say we knew 100% that the world would end on a certain day, lets say September 27th (because its my birthday, lol).... What would you do? You know that your life will be over on sept. 27th, but at the same time, so is everyone else' life, and the world's too.

Maybe its a select few of us that do not fear death in the slightest (hell, i think we'd all be happier to go together in a black hole rather than being stabbed or hit by a car or something). All I can say is Hakuna Matata.

I think science needs to stop right here.
With all the new discoveries ,industrial race where have we reached?
Global warming??- The end of the earth is here- All our selfish requirments for material goods and services has strained the eco system. How are we going to save the world from self destruction.
Only way for science is to realize that life does not emerge from a stone.
In quantum physics thru various experiments they have discovered that there is a consciousness out there . A force a power that wishes to be - And thru its wish the Universe manifests itself. Life cannot be created thru chance. Life is too complex to evolve thru chance. There is a universal mind. Not a mind as we perceive it thru our mind that it should have a face ,eyes ears etc.. it is formless like infinity - no begining and no end.
The experiments being conducted will only lead science to the truth - That a conscious force -- call it jesus, krishna ,allah etc ..THE DIVINE IS BEHIND THE PLAY. While we certainly have progressed materially thru science - we have disturbed the very sensitive eco system of the earth for which we may have to pay a larger price. The new frontier of research is not outside but inside ourselves - Our universe is within ourselves.