I didn’t know that - cool thing, that has to be quite the collision then. 
It seems everyone is focusing on the argument that particle collisions of LHC energy levels cannot create an Earth ending black hole.
This makes sense, because if similar collisions are frequently occuring in the upper atmosphere, and we have not had an Earth ending black hole, then we would not expect LHC to create one even though the LHC is not exactly the same environment.
However, I think there is still a risk (albeit a small risk) because collisions away from humans is different than collisions in close proximity to humans. If undiscovered Particle X causes a prion-like change near biological organisms that has an ice-9 expansion effect, it could end all life on Earth in a different manner than all of the risks currently being discussed.
I expect people will respond that this is a ridiculous and silly scenario and I might as well postulate flying spaghetti monsters. This is an expected first reaction. I wonder what the second reaction would be if people give this more thought.
If the risk is explained away that no scientist in their right mind would put living organisms near the beam, consider how prevalent bacteria is. And unpredictable human motivations could produce a scenario where a rogue human somehow puts human cells in the path of the beam despite no rational reasons why someone would purposely do that.
The particles would have to migrate through steel and couple hundred of feet of rock. Meanwhile atmospheric collisions produce a shower particles that rain down through the air. Heck they’re linked to producing carbon-14.
And as an aside I did a bit of a back of the envelope number crunching. For a miniblack hole with a radius twice that of an atom (3x10[sup]-15[/sup]) the mass would be 2x10[sup]12[/sup]kgs. Now the LHC is flinging protons (10[sup]-23[/sup]kgs at each other. The difference in the masses involved is remarkable.
Suppose the biological entity must be near enough to the collision to be affected before particle decay. That would make atmospheric collisions (and resultant particle showers) safe, but LHC dangerous.
Further suppose that rogue humans for inscrutable reasons have put biological entities directly beside the point of collision.
Even if the biological entity is not human, a small change that converts a bacteria or virus into a grey goo nanobot is just as dangerous.
Imagine what you will.
I expected a more convincing response why I am wrong. Perhaps I am on to something?
Maybe it will. The thing is, you can say this about practically any conceivable new experimentation. Anything that is truly new, that does something we’ve never seen before poses the risk of the unknown.
Beyond Here, There be Dragons.
I wouldn’t want to make any comments on what you may or may not be on.
But basically your grasp of biology is apparently in line with your grasp of physics.
Well, I agree it probably won’t happen. But I think I do understand the fears expressed by other people in this thread and where it might be coming from.
The fear is that a team of scientists confidently claim the risks are justified and not to worry, they’ve already thought of everything and crunched all the numbers and there’s no risk whatsoever.
Then, out of left field, a new phenomenon they hadn’t even considered (or worse yet, one they dismissed out of hand) turns out to be the one that whacks the human race.
Cue man in white lab coat shrugging shoulders and saying “Sowwy”.
Ok, to expand on that.
First off your positing that somehow a person injects enough bacteria/thingies into a vacuum chamber that mimics the environment at 1000km about sea level without any detection.
Then you posit that the collision produces an unknown particle that has sufficient ability to impact the DNA of the biological thingy.
This follows that the damage manages to induce sufficient change to the thingy that it becomes a grey-goo organism that devours everything.
You do know we’re not actually in a Michael Crichton book right?
In other words, a dragon gets us.
You have not said anything to deny this possibility. But this is just one possibility that *could *happen when dealing with unknowns. So, therefore there is a modified version Pascal’s wager at work.
You need to prove to me that the course you describe is possible. I’m not the one proposing the end of the world.
I don’t need to prove it’s possible. People who claim the LHC is perfectly safe need to prove such risks are impossible.
As for dragons, that’s a great fallback. Seriously. Haha, dragons! I get it. Silly fears of the unknown! I think the Pascal’s wager idea is still valid, though.
You claim it’s dangerous via a specific mechanism (though it reads like magic). Lay out how it would work. Unless you seriously believe that someone can refute the imaginary actions of an imaginary entity on reality.
And no claiming a religious text as a cite.
I thought I did.
Basically, a new particle produced by the LHC strikes a biological entity and produces a new prion that is hazardous to human life. Or, it creates grey goo.
But my point is that unknown particles cause unknown effects which are potentially very dangerous even if scientists claim to be certain the particles must be harmless.
No it’s not, Pascal’s wager postulates no reward for the supposed negative side, in this case, doing it.
Pascals wager:
God |||||| No God
Infinite|||||No
Rewards||Reward
No|||||||||Infinite
Negatives||||Negatives
Here:
Not on|||On
No||||||||Much deeper
reward|||Physics Knowledge
Not|||||||||Slim* chance of
destroyed||Destruction
In this case it’s risk vs reward, not Pascal’s wager which presupposes no risk for one choice and no reward for the other.
*Negligent, really
It’s not just that it’s silly, it’s that dragons are a code word for an unknown danger. Every revolutionary experiment has the risk of the unknown. From Columbus crossing the Atlantic, to visiting the bottom of the sea, tracking the source of the Nile, to landing on the Moon, there is a risk that something nobody ever thought of, or believed possible would come back and bite us in the ass. If you don’t take that risk, you may as well give up on the idea of advancing the human race. We got where we are by slaying those dragons, not giving in to the fear of them.
I’d argue against the prion or grey goo hypothesis, but there’s no point because an imaginative mind could come up with a hundred more hypothesis with just as much scientific basis as those (not very much at all) that we’d have to tackle one by one.
What particle and how?
How does this particle interact with matter? Is this how prions are currently created?
How does a biological entity become a grey-goo entity
You have a number of impossibilities that must simultaneously occur. Good luck with that.
I think if you stop to think about it, you can probably come up with a few upsides to not being destroyed or ceasing to exist.