Reasonably conCERNed... Is Smashing Quarks Together a Good Idea or Pure Insanity?

Since the discovery of the legendary Higgs Boson or "God Particle" at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the collider has been shutdown and undergoing an upgrade that will allow scientists to use more energy in order to smash heavier particles together (among other things).

A couple of the concerns that have plagued the LHC since its conception include the possibility of creating mini-black holes and the production of yet to be discovered particles called strangeletes.

A strangelet is a hypothetical particle consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. Its size would be a minimum of a few femtometers across (with the mass of a light nucleus). Once the size becomes macroscopic (on the order of metres across), such an object is usually called a quark star or "strange star" rather than a strangelet. An equivalent description is that a strangelet is a small fragment of strange matter. The term "strangelet" originates with E. Farhi and R. Jaffe.[1] Strangelets have been suggested as a dark matter candidate.

The surface tension of strange matter is unknown. If it is smaller than a critical value (a few MeV per square femtometer[5]) then large strangelets are unstable and will tend to fission into smaller strangelets (strange stars would still be stabilized by gravity). If it is larger than the critical value, then strangelets become more stable as they get bigger.

At heavy ion accelerators like RHIC, nuclei are collided at relativistic speeds, creating strange and antistrange quarks which could conceivably lead to strangelet production.

Wiki

And Here Comes The Doom...

If the strange matter hypothesis is correct and its surface tension is larger than the aforementioned critical value, then a larger strangelet would be more stable than a smaller one. One speculation that has resulted from the idea is that a strangelet coming into contact with a lump of ordinary matter could convert the ordinary matter to strange matter.[13][14] This "ice-nine"-like disaster scenario is as follows: one strangelet hits a nucleus, catalyzing its immediate conversion to strange matter. This liberates energy, producing a larger, more stable strangelet, which in turn hits another nucleus, catalyzing its conversion to strange matter. In the end, all the nuclei of all the atoms of Earth are converted, and Earth is reduced to a hot, large lump of strange matter.

Now I don't know about the rest of you guys, but anything with the potential to reduce the Earth to a hot lump of strange matter is worthy of concern to me.

Of course the scientists at CERN are insisting that the odds of creating a stable strangelet star are about the same as winning the lottery jackpot 3 times in a row, but I'd like a little more reassurance.

After all, these are the same people who said that if the Higgs Boson exists, it should have no spin and no charge, and it should weigh within a certain range. Well as it turns out, the particle they found and are still claiming is the Higgs Boson, is much lighter than they were expecting.

I can only draw one of 2 conclusions from this... either the particle they found is not the Higgs Boson, or their original calculations were incorrect. Either way it shows that maybe the scientists pushing the buttons of these machines don't understand enough about what they're doing to be risking the destruction of our entire planet.

Now whether or not the change in weight of this particle is going to change the model enough to affect the production rate of strangelets within the LHC is something I can only speculate on given my limited understanding of the sciences involved. But hey, this is ATS and we're full of geniuses. Maybe someone can come along to put my mind at ease.

You can read the blogpost that inspired this thread HERE.

reply to post by Bone75

Reasonably conCERNed... Is Smashing Quarks Together a Good Idea or Pure Insanity?

Hm, maybe both?

A couple of the concerns that have plagued the LHC since its conception include the possibility of creating mini-black holes

Don't worry about these, they are so small they evaporate quickly out of existence. Very quickly. No threat to Earth.

Besides, it's already been done before, and we're still in one piece.

EDIT:

Ouch, that last sentence of mine sounded incredibly american. Let me re-phrase this:

It's already been done before, and it resulted in no doomsday.

Ugh, it's even worst. Well, you get the idea. No threat. Here's a link to the topic on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Bone75

If the strange matter hypothesis is correct and its surface tension is larger than the aforementioned critical value, then a larger strangelet would be more stable than a smaller one. One speculation that has resulted from the idea is that a strangelet coming into contact with a lump of ordinary matter could convert the ordinary matter to strange matter.[13][14] This "ice-nine"-like disaster scenario is as follows: one strangelet hits a nucleus, catalyzing its immediate conversion to strange matter. This liberates energy, producing a larger, more stable strangelet, which in turn hits another nucleus, catalyzing its conversion to strange matter. In the end, all the nuclei of all the atoms of Earth are converted, and Earth is reduced to a hot, large lump of strange matter.

It doesn't work that way. Matter can't just hop from a low energy state to a incredibly super higher energy level. Down quarks are 4.8 MeV, and strange quarks are almost 20 times more massive. Something has to provide that extra mass in the first place. And a chain reaction is impossible for the simple fact that strange quark actually decay into normal matter (up quarks).

reply to post by Bone75


yes, this is scary stuff. kind of wish I wasn't reminded about this.

The thing is, neither your opinion nor my opinion will matter. As terrible as this may sound, we just don't have a say in whether this goes on or not.

So........

Let's just be ignorant on this.

Next topic please!

reply to post by CleanCare


It's pure physics, pure logic. You can't create a decay chain reaction if the result of the decay is more massive.



On the left, see, there's your strange quark (s). It can only decay one way.

Otherwise, it's like suggesting to that when a mouse dies, it gains mass and becomes an elephant. And that when this elephant touches another mouse, it turns that mouse into yet another elephant. Nature just doesn't work that way.

Whatever they do over there is gonna scare the jam out of many but it's what we do and must continue to do if we are to master our understanding and get Walmart out to the furthest planets.

If they do inadvertently create a black hole your life will be over so quick its not worth worrying about.

reply to post by Bone75


When I read the various articles coming out on the production of nano materials, I am always amazed by the almost alien differences in properties and behavior to what we are used to in the same substances at bulkier sizes.

The activities at CERN with the LHC would probably make our hearts stop if we knew, but we don't, and so, ignorantly, we smash.

Great thread! Essentially, then, we would never know anything. We would just evaporate and that would be it. (Sounds like a depopulation plan?) (Who and what would be left?: nothing.) (Or would we be strange ourselves?) (Will the fight between the principalities of good and evil take place between the mythical Higgs Boson and the equally mythical legion of strangelettes loosed by the LHC?)

swanne
reply to post by CleanCare

 

It's pure physics, pure logic. You can't create a decay chain reaction if the result of the decay is more massive.

On the left, see, there's your strange quark (s). It can only decay one way.

Otherwise, it's like suggesting to that when a mouse dies, it gains mass and becomes an elephant. And that when this elephant touches another mouse, it turns that mouse into yet another elephant. Nature just doesn't work that way.

edit on 27-12-2013 by swanne because: (no reason given)

NOW...this is all great in theory. But that is the problem. It is all theory. Even your diagram is based on a theory, because the actual existance of the strange quark is only a theory. It has never been seen, it has never been wieghed and so therefore it has never been studied. Who's to say what it's actual mass or energy 'yield' is? NO ONE knows.

This is what bothers me. For all the genius involved, it is all still one theory after another. As the OP pointed out...they have already been proven wrong in the original, main objective and theory of the project.

It makes me nervous.

reply to post by westcoast

As the OP pointed out...they have already been proven wrong in the original, main objective and theory of the project.

Can you expand on this statement please? To whit:

Who was "proven wrong"?
What was the "main objective and theory of the project"?
What was "proven wrong"?

reply to post by Bone75


Im pretty sure evolution and the big bang are real. i think every time we evolve we always get to the point where we are smashing atoms then inadvertently we rip a massive hole in the time space continuum and poof big bang and it starts all over. The Greeks had it right remember the guy with the bolder sentenced to push it up a hill for eternity only for it to roll back down. Its too bad really i always wanted us to bring walmart to the pigmy aliens after we forge documents showing that we have a God given right to there land. Alien pigmy's better pray we never get high tech space technology.

swanne
reply to post by CleanCare

 

It's pure physics, pure logic. You can't create a decay chain reaction if the result of the decay is more massive.

On the left, see, there's your strange quark (s). It can only decay one way.

Otherwise, it's like suggesting to that when a mouse dies, it gains mass and becomes an elephant. And that when this elephant touches another mouse, it turns that mouse into yet another elephant. Nature just doesn't work that way.

Does the strangelet hypothesis require a decay chain, or decay at all for that matter? That's not how I understood it according to the wiki.

The way I see it, and some say I'm blind as a bat, this site, and this discussion are a macrocosm of a microcosm, or the other way around, depends on the day on how it's being spun.

So, language, the alphabet, and all scientifc theory and quantum special effecti (huh, new word) seem to add up to the same, retrogade, looping time, crap. So sad I see it that way, and that MAY, in fact, be the way it is, though I like to think I'm wrong, every other day, or inbetween or something special quanta like that.

It's done damage, real damage, to all life in general, whether it be intimate, political, relationships, familial or otherwise. And the most screwed up part about it is, what the damage is never wished to be damage.

Having said all that, from a purely scientific basis, I don't really think you can convert matter from a state of non-strangeness, whatever is meant by that, to strangeness. But I'm trying to go with real science here, if anything like that is even possible now.

But we can sure take reality, holograph some strangeness, blame it on x+y=z, smash them together, pretend it's real, and make everyone happy......right?
Tetra50

reply to post by tetra50

Having said all that, from a purely scientific basis, I don't really think you can convert matter from a state of non-strangeness, whatever is meant by that, to strangeness.

Strangeness, in the sense used, is a quantum property. A mathematical concept.
It goes along with other similar terms; spin, charm, topness, bottomness. Any attempt to relate the terms directly to English usage is an exercise in futility.

In talking about quantum mechanics, it's all strange. All the time.

Bone75
Does the strangelet hypothesis require a decay chain, or decay at all for that matter? That's not how I understood it according to the wiki.

strange particles, such as the Lambda particle, which contains an up, down, and strange quark, always lose their strangeness, by decaying via the weak interaction to lighter particles containing only up and down quarks.

source: en.wikipedia.org...

It says also that strangelets can maybe stay stable if they are mixed with normal matter. But it doesn't say it'll convert that matter and start a chain reaction. That's because the decay reaction goes only one way, and laws of nature would have to reverse for normal matter to convert to strangelets.

The chain reaction is indeed mentioned in this article from wikipedia, but it refers to a piece of docudrama by BBC:

The BBC docudrama End Day features a scenario where a particle accelerator in New York City explodes, creating a strangelet and starting a catastrophic chain reaction which destroys Earth.

Bone75 reply to Swanne
Does the strangelet hypothesis require a decay chain, or decay at all for that matter? That's not how I understood it according to the wiki.

your response...

strange particles, such as the Lambda particle, which contains an up, down, and strange quark, always lose their strangeness, by decaying via the weak interaction to lighter particles containing only up and down quarks.

source: en.wikipedia.org...

I'm always amazed at how 2 people of equal intelligence can read the exact same thing and come to such drastically different conclusions. Apparently one or both of us is suffering from a lack of comprehension as far as the sourced information is concerned. The snippet you chose is taken out of context from the hypothesis itself and doesn't even address my question. The question I asked was a rhetorical one in an attempt to get you to take a closer look at the information.
Does the Strange Matter Hypothesis require decay? According to what we're reading, no it doesn't.

Strange matter hypothesis
The known particles with strange quarks are unstable because the strange quark is heavier than the up and down quarks, so strange particles, such as the Lambda particle, which contains an up, down, and strange quark, always lose their strangeness, by decaying via the weak interaction to lighter particles containing only up and down quarks. But states with a larger number of quarks might not suffer from this instability. This is the "strange matter hypothesis" of Bodmer [3] and Witten.[2] According to this hypothesis, when a large enough number of quarks are collected together, the lowest energy state is one which has roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks, namely a strangelet. This stability would occur because of the Pauli exclusion principle; having three types of quarks, rather than two as in normal nuclear matter, allows more quarks to be placed in lower energy levels.

reply to post by Bone75


From the text:

According to this hypothesis, when a large enough number of quarks are collected together, the lowest energy state is one which has roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks, namely a strangelet. This stability would occur because of the Pauli exclusion principle; having three types of quarks, rather than two as in normal nuclear matter

Get this: Two scenario can occur:

1): The strangelets are stable; stability means it won't cause a chain reaction.

2): The scentists are wrong, and strangelets are in fact unstable. Thus, all strangelets decay into normal matter.

No doomsday.

swanne
reply to post by Bone75

 

From the text:

According to this hypothesis, when a large enough number of quarks are collected together, the lowest energy state is one which has roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks, namely a strangelet. This stability would occur because of the Pauli exclusion principle; having three types of quarks, rather than two as in normal nuclear matter

Get this: Two scenario can occur:

1): The strangelets are stable; stability means it won't cause a chain reaction.

2): The scentists are wrong, and strangelets are in fact unstable. Thus, all strangelets decay into normal matter.

No doomsday.

See now you've got me all confused. From what I gather, creating a stable strangelet is exactly what has some scientists so concerned. If a strangelet doesn't decay, then when it comes into contact with normal matter, the hypothesis suggests that the normal matter will be instantly converted into strange matter.Unstable strangelets are of little concern, because like you said, they decay into normal matter.

So i guess what I'm looking for here is reassurance on 2 things:

1. When we turn up the power at the LHC and start producing a substantially greater amount of quarks, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that a stable strangelet will emerge.

2. If a stable strangelet does emerge, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that it can convert normal matter into strange matter.

Bone75
If a strangelet doesn't decay, then when it comes into contact with normal matter, the hypothesis suggests that the normal matter will be instantly converted into strange matter.

But.. how can that even happen if normal matter itself never decays into strange quarks? Strange quarks are too heavy. The rule of particle decay is, roughly, A particle can only decay into lighter particles.

As far as I understand it, the LHC isn't doing anything that hasn't been going on for billions of years at the upper limits of our atmosphere and they're doing it at much lower energy levels. These 'black hole doom' theories are just that - unsubstantiated wild theories.

I have more important real things to worry about.