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The Potential for Danger in Particle Collider Experiments | The News is NowPublic.com — Ok, let me summarize. With no real math or proof or anything much more than sketchy guesses and the application of the ubiquitous “better be safe than sorry” rule, some folks predict the end of times because of the Hadron Collider at CERN.
Here’s what they predict. When this thing cranks up it will accidentally produce one mini-black hole (MBH) per minute. These will quickly gravitate directly to the earth’s core where they will join up to form a bigger black hole that will suck the entire earth into itself. Since a real black hole is a phenomenon stemming from the collapse of massive stars with hard-to-fathom cosmic forces it would be amazing to duplicate the process with a machine in Switzerland. Meanwhile, all of mankind cannot find a cure for the common cold. OK, right.
The CERN study [Ref. 1] is a remake of a similar study for the earlier Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven (RHIC) [Ref. 6] adapted to the LHC.
It is important to notice that: The study for the RHIC had concluded that no black holes will be created. For the LHC the conclusion is very different: “Black holes could be created!” !
The main danger could be now just behind our door with the possible death in blood of 6.500.000.000 (US notation 6,500,000,000) people and complete destruction of our beautiful planet. Such a danger shows the need of a far larger study before any experiment ! The CERN study presents risk as a choice between a 100% risk or a 0% risk. This is not a good evaluation of a risk percentage!
If we add all the risks for the LHC we could estimate an overall risk between 11% and 25%!.
We are far from the Adrian Kent’s admonition that global risks that should not exceed 0.000001% a year to have a chance to be acceptable. [Ref. 3] .Even testing the LHC could be dangerous. Even an increase in the luminosity of the RHIC could be dangerous! It would be wise to consider that the more powerful the accelerator will be, the more unpredicted and dangerous the events that may occur! We cannot build accelerators always more powerful with interactions different from natural interactions, without risk. This is not a scientific problem. This is a wisdom problem!
Our desire of knowledge is important but our desire of wisdom is more important and must take precedence. The precautionary principle indicates not to experiment. The politicians must understand this evidence and stop these experiments before it is too late!
As an aside I have to show this brain-dead video about the collider done by the Times. You could take this footage and overlay just about any commentary you wanted since it looks to be a dopey series of stock footage from this and that. There are guys writing formulas on a blackboard. People are pointing. Buildings are shown. A guy is walking. It’s laughable. The British voice-over makes it even more ludicrous. All that is missing is a train going into a tunnel.
Found by Mad Dog Mike.
Nimby is right on the money. The American supercollider, Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), was being built in Waxahachie, Texas just south of Dallas.
It was years ahead of CERN. Approved in 1987 under Reagan, it was canceled under Clinton and the Democrat controlled congress in 1993. It seems that the Democrats wanted to spend the money on midnight basketball programs or some such nonsense.
The project was pretty far along. Several miles of the tunnel were completed. Congress was so adamant that this thing be killed forever that they authorized hundreds more millions of dollars to fill the tunnel in with dirt. The thinking was that this was the proper way to be sure that it could not be resurrected by a later Congressional vote.
They basically threw several hundred million dollars into a hole in Texas with nothing to show for it. Shortsighted buffoons.
And, Mr. Mustard, do some research before you go off on George W. on this one. Slick Willie can be thanked for this debacle.
http://tinyurl.com/42qajv
Sounds a bit like the avro arrow project
#32 – Marky Mark
Uh, let’s not blame it all on President Clinton. What Bonzo’s monkeys said could be built for $4 billion was going to end up costing $12 billion dollars. Just a slight cost over-run, eh?
And being the fiscally responsible president that Clinton was, it was decided that we as a nation couldn’t afford to underwrite BOTH the SSC and the International Space Station (for which we were also contributing about $12 billion.
That was before the days of “fuck it, let’s piss away all the nation’s wealth on stupid wars”, as implemented by Dumbya.
And Clinton wasn’t even instrumental in cancelling the SSC. In fact, he ““urged Congress to support this important and challenging effort through completion because abandoning the SSC at this point would signal that the United States is compromising its position of leadership in basic science…”
Man, it makes you long for the 90’s, doesn’t it? When we didn’t have a retard in the Oval Office, and an evil cabal in charge of the country??
#32 – Mark T. – Slick Willie can be thanked for this debacle.
Is that right? Sounds like Clinton tried to prevent it at the end:
More here.
Alright, I will be a bigger man than Mr. Mustard and say that Bill Clinton is not to blame for the cancellation of the SSC. Will he retract his implication that George W. is to blame? Maybe, but not without going into a rant on Iraq.
I will, however, say that if Bill Clinton truly supported the SSC as much as stated in the his letter to Congress that he could and should have done something about it. It was a Democrat controlled Congress, both houses. If he really wanted the SSC, he would have gotten it.
I think he had bigger fish to fry. He, and Congress, needed that money for their pet projects. Enough said. The SSC had to die.
#36 – Mark T. – If he really wanted the SSC, he would have gotten it.
Fully agreed. It was a big boo boo canceling the SSC. Ignorance at its finest.
Not unless it changes it’s name slightly and rams us all !
http://largehardoncollider.com/
Black holes? This would seek them out !
#36 – Marky Mark
>>I think he had bigger fish to fry. He, and
>>Congress, needed that money for their pet
>>projects.
Yeah, and if he hadn’t seen that we spent the $12,000,000,000.00 on the international space station, you’d be on the rag about that.
The difference between a fiscally responsible administration and this absurd “fuck it, let’s lower taxes, piss out money like a drunken sailor, and let somebody else clean up the mess” administration is that the former knows how to balance a check book. I guess Dumbya and his buffoons had a nanny to do that for them, and never figured out the skill.
#36 – Marky Mark
>>Will he retract his implication that
>>George W. is to blame?
I don’t think I ever implied that Dumbya was to blame for cancelling the SSC. There are plenty of other abortions that occurred on his watch.
And I don’t think he has the mental acumen to even have an opinion on a superconducting supercollider.
Christ, he can’t even pronounce the word “nuclear”. I know three-year-olds who can say that.
Clinton is ‘to blame’. You can say budget cuts all you want, but the real reason was because Texas voted in a Republican Senator to replace the new Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, with nearly 80% of the vote. I’m glad they shut it down, and wish the Inter. Space Station has gone down too. It survived by a narrow vote, and then NASA spread the jobs around the country.
Everyone taking mass transit – everyone dead. No difference. It would be good to be wiped out by a science experiment rather than AGW stupidity. Less embarassing at least.
John, I don’t know where to put this comment but I want to tell you I love you on TWIT but you absolutely have to stop eating on the radio it’s disgusting. I don’t know if you can’t hear it or think listeners don’t but man it’s gross. If the collidor won’t kill us your chewing will.
Apparently the chances of it producing a small black hole that swallows the earth is on the order of probability that it will cause a grilled cheese sandwich to materialize in the particle beam.
How many colliders can we build from a single month’s expenditures on the iraqi and afghan wars?
Can anybody do the math?
YOU ALL FUCKING SMELL I HOPE YOU ALL GET SUCKED UP !
well i thought that comment above was very true and that the rest of the people who posted here should all go and get a life. Especially if they are americans coz all they can do is shoot their own troops !
YOU ALL FUCK YOUR MUMS AND YOUR DADS AT THE SAME TIME YOU PROSTITUTES!
OH AND THE ADMINS OF THIS FORUM ARE GAY
so, you reckon the people that are having an honest debate about something revoultionary should get get a life? perhaps you should move yourself and do something in life rather than insult everyone for talking about things YOU THREE clearly dont understand. As the for the ‘ i hate america’ thing, they are the most powerful country in the world, they can afford to be insulted, and i dont think they will mind from three little idiots trying to look big. i dislike George Bush, but no one can place a blame to anyone, it is human nature to want to find things out, its who we are, now if we all explode tomorrow, or get sucked up, then thats what will happen and at least we tried, and if not, then well done to the scientists, and may it produce great results, but arguing on here for someone to blame is hardly going to save us all. Perhaps we should tell the people who we love that we indeed do love them, for this really could be the end, as well as all the other days predicted to be so, spend the time wisely.
Isn’t this what got us in trouble in the first place, trying to be like God in the Garden of Eden. There is only one.