Gizmodo
Contrary to the somewhat feverish claims laid out in an recent lawsuit, when our favorite particle-smashing, Force-finding Large Hadron Collider is switched on soon it will not result in the destruction of life as we know it. Such claims are "complete nonsense" say the scientists at CERN (and everywhere else,) in response to the suit. They should know: it's their machine, they designed it and they've been telling everyone for a while that their research shows it's safe.
The lawsuit filed by a group of Hawaii residents is alleging that not enough safety checks have been made by CERN to prevent disaster when the LHC goes live in the coming weeks. It may "create unsafe conditions of physics" which may have disastrous effects. How? Well, you may imagine a micro black hole gobbling up everything unstoppably, while a strangelet (a hypothetical clump of particles including strange quarks) may run amok converting all nearby matter into strange matter, also wrecking the Earth.
James Gillies, a CERN spokesman, suggests this is rubbish in this response to the New Scientist: "The LHC will start up this year, and it will produce all sorts of exciting new physics and knowledge about the universe." It's no threat at all, he says: "A year from now, the world will still be here." The LHC is actually designed to probe the boundaries of physics, and while a 2003 safety study did conceed that micro black holes or magnetic monopoles may be formed, they would be short-lived and offer no threat.
CERN physicists will be talking about safety in an open house discussion on April 6. [New Scientist]
Comments
One thing that I was surprised by in this lawsuit is that the people that filed it weren't some crazy religious fanatics. That aside, it's still super laughable.
So, this will not steall all of my porn then? I Say Let's learn!!!
Where the hell is my horror movie about this thing? Something like Event Horizon meets the The Mist, with a little Space Odyssey built in. Cmone people!
But will it give helicopters cancer?
Even if there were marginal safety risks, I think the possibility of discovering the Higgs boson carries a lot of weight, never mind the myriad of other things we may find.
@DaOtter: and Mike Nelson and his robots friends can watch it first!
"It's no threat at all, he says: "A year from now, the world will still be here."" And if this guy is wrong, he will never have to take back what he said.
Large Hadron....
It's just begging for a typo.
Should I pray for our safety? Oh well, end of the world here we come! (maybe)
I just want them to send in someone with Telsa-looking hair, a long-furred white cat, and a monocle for the deposition.
@TedB.: Just like the weatherman. He doesn't have to be right, but if he is you are glad he made the perdiction.
This is the part of the movie where slimy scientist Stanley Tucci reassures officials that all precautions have been taken.
Meanwhile rebel scientist Dennis Quaid is racing against the clock to try to warn President Morgan Freeman before it's too late, all the while attempting a reconciliation with his estranged son Shia LeBeouf.
You better go for popcorn because a lot of us are going to die in about 20 minutes.
Seeing as naturally-occurring cosmic rays produce more energetic collisions in the Earth's atmosphere all the time, I think we can conclude that the people behind the lawsuit are a bunch of morons!
I think the atom bomb was going to set the world on fire.
I think the LHC is not nearly as dangerous for Hawaii as having ocasionally active volcanos nearby, but it's hard to figure out who to sue in the case of a volcano. The Architect? Your High School Geography teacher?
www.DVDs4theSAT.com
SAT tutoring you can rewind
Hawking radiation makes the tiny black holes disappear pretty much instantaneously.
Besides, if you compress a grapefruit enough for its mass to create a black hole; 3" away from it, it still has the gravitational influence of a grapefruit. So, no worries.
Switch to Don Imus making an offensive remark about black hoes.
If I get sucked into a black hole I'm gonna sue.
I suggest keeping Richard Dean Anderson on standby, just in case.
=\
This whole black hole thing worries me...somewhat. Didn't Chinese scientists make a mini sun via tridium from spiderman 2 last year?
@Darrone: hehehehe
The few milliseconds between when this things starts to spin out of control and the impending destruction of the universe, this guy is going to have some serious egg on his face.
I saw Howard the Duck...
If there is anything that Hollywood has taught me it's that anything can be contained with Plexiglass. Just build a clear box around the thing and we will be fine.
They just need to fix one of their boffins up with an HEV suit and a crowbar. Just don't join Civil Protection when the time comes...
I, for one, am going to stand next to it so it can grant me super powers. Either that or a fifty pound tumor. Either way, I win.
If you look at the specs of the LHC, the ACTUAL amount of energy used in EV (electron volts) is very small. IF a micro black hole or monopole is generated, there is no way the energy imparted to the creation is large enough to make something substantial.
When they say "micro black hole"...they mean MICRO...as in: so small you can't measure it with the human eye. The tiny creation will just vaporize within micro seconds (or even faster, maybe pico or femto seconds).
If you don't exist anymore, you really can't get pissed that you don't exist anymore. So I don't know what everyone is getting prematurely pissed about.
I can't remember which YouTube clip it was I was watching on the LHC but one of the scientists was asked about this and he pointed out that pretty much every particle accelerator project has had a similar suit thrown at it. Nothing to worry about here. Move along. Move along.
@bigjerm853: I predict that the earth will not be here a year from now. If I'm wrong, everyone will be so happy about it they won't care.
I am not that worried since the world isn't scheduled to end until 2012.
I guess no one else sees the irony of the CERN fellow saying everything is safe, yet the whole reason for the LHC is to try to recreate events we have not been able to witness and do not fully understand.
I am not saying I am against the LHC going live, but if this guy had reason to be so confident, the LHC would not need to be around. However, reward always comes at a risk. Do not forget the Drake Equation had a variable for "societies that destroyed themselves"'. We could all become a statistic!
"A year from now, the world will still be here." What happens after that?!?
Honestly, what were they going to say? "Sure, it could happen, but the risk is worth it for SCIENCE!"
I echo those that say the genius is that if he's wrong we will only have a millisecond to curse him and his (already doomed) heirs.
@Altanader:
yeah but consider what John Titor told us!
It's true that the world will not be here a year from now. In fact, the world will be 11.4 billion miles from here* a year from now.
*relative to the universe
look we're not going to implode, if it was to do so it would have already happened since there's things far more energetic hitting our planet right now.
clearly there is still good pot being grown in hawaii.
isnt it stuff like this that created Spiderman 2?
Sure, they say this now with their four human limbs. If they had robotic tentacles sticking out of their backs, THEN they'd lose credibility.
@ManjiKengo: To go along with this notion I think it would be a good idea to have the Dr. Otto Octavius on hand to handle this situation if it fact this thing generates a tiny black hole but then starts gobbling everything around it. I think it should be set atop of a rickety abadoned harbor station just in case.
If we survived eight years of Bush, I think we can handle this.
These guys are such paranoiacs.
[www.badastronomy.com]
The BA wrote about this nonsense...
whats hilarious about the micro-black hole claim is it assumes we have not already done it before (we have, a few times actually, though we didnt know it when we did it.)
Wait, so who was it that set sail across the ocean and fell off of the edge of the earth?
They should take a lesson from the climatologists and hire Al Gore. They'll have all the funding and approval they need!
This is probably the best blog on why the LHC alarmists are totally out of their minds.
[motls.blogspot.com]
"A year from now, the world will still be here."
Inhabited by ZOMBIES.
If the Earth is destroyed, I'd prefer that it happen before Bush leaves the White House. I'd like another thing to blame on his administration. Thanks.
I always read it to be "Large Hardon collider" - a terrific pr0n title.
"...their research shows it's safe."
One day, a long time ago, research showed the Earth was flat, too. Just sayin'.
@SirDrinksalot: Don't forget the sub "Into the Black Hole".
@karmaghost: It was, then god balled us up and threw us out and started writing a better plot....
@DaOtter: Wow, there goes two hours of my day.
@nutbastard: I mean the guy had schematics! And a picture of a laser being bent!
Could it be the long lost Dharma station?
The Scientist also claim the LHC does NOT play Doom, and Earth will be around long enough for Skynet to go online
The Scientist also claim the LHC does NOT play Doom, and that Earth will be around long enough for Skynet to go online
@ripfire4: Please explain this "universe" reference frame to me and Mr. Einstein. We don't get it.
@karmaghost: I'm pretty sure that the researchers who decided that the earth was flat simply stepped outside, looked at the ground they stood on, and decided that without considering that things disappear over the horizon.
@joelja:
So you're the one...
@Lorne:
Make that two. In self defence I read the comics and found them hilarious. Hell, Howard was the precursor to Duckman. And Duckman was a great show.
You HAD-ron me at "Hello."
LOLomfg eleventy!!!11
-I'll go die now....
Bringing in an outside Physicist to check their numbers and look at the precautions is never a bad idea. If it's their machine and their research I'd rather have the reassurance come from someone else. Sorry but if it's Better to wait a few more months then to have the opening scene from Akira.
It reminds me of the guy in Alaska that build the Cyclotron in his basement... Albeit that was just for Nuclear Medcine Material and not godless scientist opening up Pandora's Box =)