I feel so much safer now!
Here's our munny quote...
But the report, issued the European Organization for Nuclear Research, says there is "no conceivable danger".
Whew! I had been worried for a little bit about that...but now, oh, wait...
Critics have previously raised concerns that the production of weird hypothetical particles called strangelets in the LHC could trigger the mass conversion of nuclei in ordinary atoms into more strange matter - transforming the Earth into a hot, dead lump.
All right...who are these critics, all worried and paranoid about this stuff? Clearly a buncha whackos! Oop...well, there's this guy...
But in 2003, Dr Adrian Kent, a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge, wrote a paper in which he argued that scientists had not adequately calculated the risks of a "killer strangelet" catastrophe scenario.
Just a theoretical physicist at Cambridge. Nothing to see here...move along. Oh, and to further reassure you crackpots...
theoretical physicist John Ellis, confirmed that black holes could be made by the collider. But they said: "If microscopic black holes were to be singly produced by colliding the quarks and gluons inside protons, they would also be able to decay into the same types of particles that produced them."
The report added: "The expected lifetime [of a mini-black hole] would be very short."
So yeah - everything's awesome, and we're not about to imperil our little planet with anything craaaaazy...like a black hole that would only last "a very short lifetime." Besides, this stuff will be perfectly contained in a capture matrix that will controll all the forces which we will have created.
Ooop...
The LHC was due to switch on in 26 November 2007. The start-up has been postponed several times, however, and is currently scheduled for later this summer. The first delay was precipitated by an accident in March 2007 during stress testing of one of the LHC's "quadrupole" magnets. A statement carried on the Cern website from the US laboratory that provided the magnet stated that the equipment had experienced a "failure" when supporting structures "broke".
It later emerged that the magnet had exploded in the tunnel, close to one of the LHC's most important detectors.
But apart from that, everything's amazing!
Older post here.
Another old post here.
A hokey beginning, but here's a sweet vid of the thing.
2 comments:
Yes amazing...
But good news, the new 2008 LSAG report appears to confirm "no conceivable danger".
However, buried in the SPC Committee validation document is a disclaimer of the only empirical "proof" of safety from micro black holes, which appears to imply... "conceivable danger":
Quote "this argument relies on properties of cosmic rays and neutrinos that, while highly plausible, do require confirmation" - CERN's SPC Committee
(Needs to be read in context with the 2008 LSAG Safety Report that it is validating to decode the full meaning...)
Unfortunately there is not a single irrefutable argument for the safety of creating micro black holes with velocities too slow to escape Earth. Not one.
Three strongly disputed assumptions… Micro Black holes are created or not, decay or not, grow slowly or not. (disputed by PHD's in Math, Physics and other Theoretical Sciences)
I hope I'm miscalculating, but I fear this might be a bit like playing Russian Roulette and not knowing how many cylinders are loaded, none, all?
Have you seen this funny music video: "You Prefer Your Collider"
LHCFacts.org
Haha! Thanks jtankers! Nice to see another citizen slightly concerned about this.
I've done a small bit of thinking about death by black-hole, and decided it propbably wouldn't be as bad as death by giant-squid or jellyfish swarm...but I can prevent those by simple avoidance of water! (don't even drink the stuff anymore...just to be safe)
Anyways - thanks for the nice comment and the links. That you-tube vid was AWESOME!
Thanks for swingin by.
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