# Are we worried about the Large Hadron Collider being turned on? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 7, 2008, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441 "2008-09-07T02:45:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Interconnected\_Series\_of\_Tubes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/13edae/32.png) [@Interconnected\_Series\_of\_Tubes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interconnected_Series_of_Tubes)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2008, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/81 "2008-09-08T21:21:17Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > … > They make numerous very convincing arguments why none of those pose a genuine risk, but the most important one, which should end all speculation for everybody devoting more than two brain cells to these matters, which has been repeated over and over again without even an attempt at refutation is that _the same collisions taking place at the LHC take place in nature all the time, and even with considerably higher energies, and yet – We. Are. Still. Here._ > … This is pretty much a conclusive refutation of some people’s (horribly misguided and distorted by poor reporting) fears on the matter. I always found is simultaneously amusing and bewildering that humans would consider themselves capable of even rivaling the energies regularly zipping around the cosmos or the countless collisions that take place in the upper atmosphere with energies that are orders of magnitude higher than our dinky little accelerator. To me it seems like at some point the “possible” catastrophes are so much sensationalism. So; no. And anyone who does worries is either a moron a terribly misguided. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/82 "2008-09-08T21:27:58Z")
> [@Interconnected\_Series\_of\_Tubes](#): > > This is pretty much a conclusive refutation of some people’s (horribly misguided and distorted by poor reporting) fears on the matter. Meh, I’ve posted the exact same thing every time a certain shrill Doper gets his panties in a bunch over the LHC and it hasn’t made a dent in his apparent paranoia. I’ve all but given up at this point. ---
**Author:** ![Nicolas\_Bourbaki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecc23a/32.png) [@Nicolas\_Bourbaki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nicolas_Bourbaki)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2008, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/83 "2008-09-08T22:35:14Z")
Okay, let’s try a different tack: **Argent** , you’ve posted this exact same OP at least three or four times in the past year, to more than one subforum, so a pretty wide cross-section of people here have read it. Even now, it doesn’t do you any good that every time someone sees your name in any thread, they think “There’s that one guy who takes supermarket tabloids way too seriously”. But that’s nothing compared to what it’ll be like come November, when **Cervaise** and **Q.E.D.** and three dozen others all open their ‘Whence the Apocalypse?’ threads and you’re reduced to backpedaling when they produce quotes. ‘_Well I read somewhere that their Adamantium neutrino boppers are on backorder and we all know that they’re always the critical element in any successful extradimensional Armageddon and for all we know the science folks lied about turning the thing on because they’re secretly just as scared as I am speaking of which don’t you think it’s a bit fishy that no one’s ever been to Switzerland but we just nod like a bunch of sheeple when the labcoaty types say it exists_’ on and on and _ **on** _ until we get a fifteen page trainwreck that makes the Sarah Palin threads look like a heartwarming episode of _Leave it to Beaver_. I’m not trying to be judgmental or anything; I’m just pointing out that a little bit of reading now can save you a lot of effort in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/84 "2008-09-08T22:52:35Z")
The folks at [_How to Destroy the Earth_](http://qntm.org/?destroy) don’t seem to think that [strangelets are particularly likely to destroy the Earth](http://qntm.org/?destroy#sec5). They favor other methods. Oh, and [a particle accelerator created something that looks like a black hole in 2005 or so.](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4357613.stm) It hasn’t destroyed the Earth last I checked, and AFAIK shows no signs of doing so in the near future. I’m not worried. ---
**Author:** ![Interconnected\_Series\_of\_Tubes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/13edae/32.png) [@Interconnected\_Series\_of\_Tubes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interconnected_Series_of_Tubes)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2008, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/85 "2008-09-08T23:01:36Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > Meh, I’ve posted the exact same thing every time a certain shrill Doper gets his panties in a bunch over the LHC and it hasn’t made a dent in his apparent paranoia. I’ve all but given up at this point. No kidding - I’ve had multiple conversations with friends that generally end up with them scratching their head and going “yeah, well… I dunno. I still don’t like it.” Is there something fundamentally difficult about understanding that the LHC is a miniature GI Joe spring loaded popgun compared to the universe at large? The audacity that mankind could physically destroy the entire earth is laughable. But, hey! Maybe we’re all living in some kind of metastable quantum vacuum state…uh…thingy that’s on the sheer brink of utter, universal destruction! At least if the galaxy blows to smithereens they’ll all shut up about it. Edited: Sorry, cataclysms give me typos. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2008, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/86 "2008-09-08T23:23:55Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > It seems like it. The scientists don’t have a direct, focused, specific goal or expectation of what they’re going to find, do they? It’s basically just, “let’s see what happens here.” Galileo didn’t have a direct, focused, specific goal or expection when he looked up at the sky with an early model of the telescope. It was just, “let’s see what happens here.” And what he did was just as dangerous to himself and mankind as the LHC. More dangerous, actually, since his silly ass looked at the sun with it. What he did changed the world, though. It has had a huge and positive impact on your everyday life. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/87 "2008-09-09T01:49:27Z")
> [@Unintentionally\_Blank](#): > > I picture the events leading up the the Hadron Event occur thusly: Personally, I picture it more like powering up the Death Star Superlaser. “Commence primary ignition !” \*\* Weeeohhhh \*\* - Big green beam flashes down a tunnel \* ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/88 "2008-09-09T02:04:09Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Personally, I picture it more like powering up the Death Star Superlaser. > > “Commence primary ignition !” > > \*\* Weeeohhhh \*\* > > - Big green beam flashes down a tunnel \* There’ll be a live video stream for the ‘first beam’ on Wednesday; somebody should hack that and splice the appropriate footage in. If they have a similar event planned for the first collision, one could use the ‘Alderaan exploding’ scene…😛 ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/89 "2008-09-09T02:11:00Z")
“That blast came from the LHC! That thing’s operational!” ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/90 "2008-09-09T03:18:28Z")
> [@Interconnected\_Series\_of\_Tubes](#): > > I always found is simultaneously amusing and bewildering that humans would consider themselves capable of even rivaling the energies regularly zipping around the cosmos or the countless collisions that take place in the upper atmosphere with energies that are orders of magnitude higher than our dinky little accelerator. Nuclear energy exists in nature (the Sun) but we don’t have nuclear explosions occurring all the time all over the planet, do we? It takes human effort to create nuclear explosions, even though the energies required to create them can occur naturally. That’s a bad argument. All I’m hearing in this thread is more smug superiority, like always, and no good answer to **clairobscur** ’s perfectly reasonable question, just “sorry, no can do, bub.” ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/91 "2008-09-09T03:19:08Z")
That’s just it! The LHC isn’t a mere science tool, it’s a weapon! All those stuffy old guys in white lab coats mumbling about Higgs whatsawhosits and positron whatevers, dude you know all that’s just made up. What’s really going to happen is that a super laser will be powered up and blow up the moon. All this hype about destroying the Earth is just a ploy. Everyone will be so focused on the Earth that they won’t even notice the moon being exploded. Save the moon! Stop the LHC! ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/92 "2008-09-09T03:29:46Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Nuclear energy exists in nature (the Sun) but we don’t have nuclear explosions occurring all the time all over the planet, do we? It takes human effort to create nuclear explosions, even though the energies required to create them can occur naturally. That’s a bad argument. > > All I’m hearing in this thread is more smug superiority, like always, and no good answer to **clairobscur** ’s perfectly reasonable question, just “sorry, no can do, bub.” Have you read about what the LHC does? The LHC launches particles at each other. That’s it. Particles hit each other all the time in nature, that’s just what they do. The only thing we’re doing differently is doing it surrounded by detectors so we can look closely at what’s happening. There’s nothing crazy or exotic going on there. In fact, we have built machines like the LHC many times already, and last I checked the Earth wasn’t destroyed. The only thing the LHC is doing differently is pumping up the juice. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/93 "2008-09-09T03:36:12Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Nuclear energy exists in nature (the Sun) but we don’t have nuclear explosions occurring all the time all over the planet, do we? We sure do. Every day, trillions of high-energy protons and atomic nuclei slam into us, creating little nuclear explosions up to billions and billions of times more powerful than any capable of happening in the LHC. We’ve explained this to you time and time again, but you evidently can’t hear us with your fingers jammed in your ears and all the furious chanting. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/94 "2008-09-09T03:46:11Z")
What on earth do you mean when you say that there are nuclear explosions happening all around us equal to the LHC? That’s not what I said. I said that there are nuclear explosions occurring all the time naturally in the Sun, but in order for us to create a nuclear explosion, we need to do it deliberately. And even the most powerful nuclear bomb that we can create isn’t anywhere near as powerful as the Sun, obviously. > [@](#): > > Particles hit each other all the time in nature, that’s just what they do. The only thing we’re doing differently is doing it surrounded by detectors so we can look closely at what’s happening. There’s nothing crazy or exotic going on there. Then why don’t we just set up detectors in nature? Why do we need to build a gigantic contraption that uses up a colossal amount of energy? See what I’m getting at here? I have yet to hear a good, detailed answer to **clairobscur** ’s question. The closest we got is, “I’m not a high level physicist so I don’t know the answer.” ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/95 "2008-09-09T04:01:05Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers] Then why don’t we just set up detectors in nature? Why do we need to build a gigantic contraption that uses up a colossal amount of energy? [/quote] I thought the previous comment answered that, but I’ll elaborate – we can’t use nature to study particle collisions for the same reason that we have trouble studying lighting bolts and tornadoes in nature – we don’t know when or where these things (particle collisions, lightning bolts, tornadoes) will happen. The LHC permits us to generate particle events at will, surround them with detectors, and examine the result. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/96 "2008-09-09T04:02:40Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Then why don’t we just set up detectors in nature? Why do we need to build a gigantic contraption that uses up a colossal amount of energy? Because there’s not much point in building a detector if what you want to detect is astronomically unlikely to just happen to appear inside your apparatus. And, most collisions tend to occur high in the atmosphere since the cosmic rays hit that rather before they hit the ground. So, we’d need to build a massive fleet of high altitude aircraft, fill them with expensive detection equipment, and keep them constantly in flight just to have a small chance for one event to be caught. And even then the data would be inferior since we wouldn’t have the same amount of knowledge of the incoming particle, not having fired it ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/97 "2008-09-09T04:05:40Z")
Seriously, this is pretty much the biggest, most important thing going on in science at the moment, imho at least. Do you realize how big the concepts we’re dealing with here are? ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/98 "2008-09-09T04:10:57Z")
No, I don’t realize. As I understand it there are already several gigantic colliders like this one, and those haven’t found whatever the hell they’re hoping to find. The LHC won’t find it either, and then they’ll have to build a Giant Hadron Collider, and a Gigantic Hadron Collider, and an Enormous Hadron Collider. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/99 "2008-09-09T04:13:58Z")
> [@5-HT](#): > > Seriously, this is pretty much the biggest, most important thing going on in science at the moment, imho at least. Do you realize how big the concepts we’re dealing with here are? Apparently not. He’s more interested in a close game of basketball or the idea of having sex with two women at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441/100 "2008-09-09T04:18:31Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > No, I don’t realize. > > As I understand it there are already several gigantic colliders like this one, and those haven’t found whatever the hell they’re hoping to find. The LHC won’t find it either, and then they’ll have to build a Giant Hadron Collider, and a Gigantic Hadron Collider, and an Enormous Hadron Collider. yeah, cause scientific knowledge doesn’t increase step by step or anything. Really any research that doesn’t produce a dramatic Eureka moment is probably not worth pursuing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-worried-about-the-large-hadron-collider-being-turned-on/462441.md?page=6)