I had the golden opportunity to attend a short seminar this morning given by Professor J. Chapman, retired, who worked with the U of M group on the ATLAS detector at CERN. Someone in the audience asked him the black hole question. He treated it seriously, but explained that it was not a concern. Any microscopic black hole created would be too small to endanger anything, too small to survive. It would radiate off energy at a rate faster than it could absorb anything.
This is the biggest scientific endeavor ever embarked upon and completed. The difference between this collider and earlier ones is the LHC can accelerate particles to nearer the speed of light, and have them collide at higher energies than any existing facility, which should make it possible to create particles that haven’t been found before, including the Higgs boson.
The point of the collider as others have said is to provide a consistent supply of collisions to record and study. Think of it like farming. If you want a blackberry pie, you can traipse out into the woods hunting here and there, risk poison ivy and hope you can find enough blackberries to fill the pan, or you can plant blackberry bushes and have them conveniently at hand where you want them, and as many as you need. They’re the same fruit, just more reliable and easier to collect. Being afraid of the LHC’s capabilities is like being afraid that if you plant blackberries, you might accidentally grow a blackberry so large it will drown everyone in the country in indelible purple juice. It’s just not going to happen.
What kind of answer would satisfy you? Simple answers have been given over and over in this thread but you just keep brushing them off. If you really think the only answer is “you’re too ignorant to understand” then maybe you should go and educate yourself so it wouldn’t be way beyond you. You won’t learn the intricacies of the experiment without years of schooling, but like anything, a bit of reading will give you the general idea.
< relevant aside >Is there any truth to the anecdote that scientists at the first atomic bomb testing, were betting on whether it would ignite the atmosphere? I wonder what crazy bets these guys are having? < / relevant aside>
I’d like to point out to people who seem to be handwaving away the benefits of these experiments to “regular folk” that I have two relatives who are alive today partly due to technology that comes directly from particle accelerator research (and in fact directly relies on smaller accelerators to even function).
Medical science often benefits early from advances in physics and chemistry. I guess admitting this makes it harder to paint scientific researchers in such a nefarious light, though, so it doesn’t surprise me that it’s so often ignored.
You’re example here is like saying there is no need to make any engine more powerful than the one in a lawnmower, since you can use one to travel.
The LHC is the biggest and most “up to date” one possible to make today. It will come closer to creating the explosions and energy “beams” that occur in nature than any before it (though still not as powerful as what appears in nature already).
It has the best detecting equipment possible at this time, to glean as much information as possible from the collisions.
To sum up:
1- High Energy Physics revolutionizes science. The first wave brought us things like the Xray, the second wave brought us the CAT scan and it’s bretheren. What’s next? We don’t know yet, but the LHC will be a key part in finding out.
2- Particle collisions happen all the time. That’s what a suntan is… UV radiation colliding with your skin, destroying particles and creating heat. There are multitudes of other examples, if you just look for them for half a second.
3- There is a non-zero chance of some sort of “End of the World” happening due to the LHC. There is also a non-zero chance of my genes spontaneously deciding to mutate me into a chimpanzee. The odds are probably similar to both of those.
4- Knowledge is a good thing. I’m hoping you don’t disagree with this one.
5- What we hope to learn: what are the fundamental building blocks of the Universe? What is the actual nature of Gravity? Why is there the fundamental disconnect between Newtonian Physics and Quantum Physics? Extrapolated data from answers to these could lead to anything from new imaging technology to Gravity manipulation and other world changing tech.
Now then, I have attempted to answer your questions clearly, in laymans terms (being a layman myself) without handwaving and saying “A Wizard will take care of it”.
Do you have any other actual concerns or fears? Or are you just arguing to get a rise out of people, and refusing to actually debate or discuss the issue?
My question about whether or not people dismissing out of hand ** Argent Towers **‘s concerns or making fun of him had a clear idea of what the supposed risks were, and how the risks had been assessed. Until now, you’re the only one who responded (positively).
My point would be that it’s easy to point the finger and laugh, but ** Argent Towers ** points at a very real problem, which is the control of scientists’ endeavours in an age where our capacities are becoming potentially threatening at a very wide scale. And this issue should be taken seriously. It doesn’t seem to be, at least not by most of the posters in this thread.
For instance you (IIRC) points at the fact that whatever organization is questioning the safety of the LHC did the same in the past with others particle accelerators, as if it were a bad thing. I think that it should be questioned. And I also think that a claim of “this might destroy the planet” should have people feel concerned and demanding a very close scrutiny.
Well yes, Edward Teller did come up with that possibility (as a consequence of a hypothetical nitrogen nuclei fusion reaction), but it was quickly shown to be impossible to happen. Nevertheless, Fermi did propose a bet regarding ‘whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so, whether it would merely destroy New Mexico or destroy the world’ in the final hours before the launch, more meant as a way to break the tension than an honest offer, I gather. I guess you acquire kind of a strange sense of humour if you’re building and testing a device capable of destroying whole cities at once.
The problem here, though, is that this assessment can only be done by experts in the field, and in fact is done constantly. If one is truly worried, one is free to acquire a through understanding of the field, to at least base one’s worries not merely on ignorance, as it’s done in this (and similar) thread(s).
But it only ever was a misunderstood pop science claim in the first place, and it has been addressed and shown to be bunkum. Yet time and again, the issue is being dragged up, forcing yet another re-stating of the same old, tired rebuttals.
This isn’t scientists just pushing forward without thought for life or humanity, just for the sake of their own ephemeral pursuits; that’s not how science works, it’s a mere late Saturday night made for TV special movie trope playing on the underlying Luddism of society at large who fear that which they don’t understand to create a more convincing madly cackling villain.
It’s an extremely carefully designed, planned and controlled experiment, carried out with the greatest caution by some of the most brilliant minds of our time to hopefully answer (or at least, shed some light at) some of the remaining fundamental questions in physics.
There won’t be any maniacal laughing when it’s turned on, there won’t be any ‘because I CAN’ justifications, there won’t be any playing god. I know the story loses its pulp appeal if you realise that, but it opens the way to the understanding of something far more profound, and more importantly, real – genuine scientific pursuit.
What’s the big deal with this Large Hadron Collider? I understand we’re not going to get sucked into a black hole, and by the time you read this we’ll know for sure. What I do understand is we’re going to create a particle called the Higgs Bosom or something, and apparently this is the biggest thing ever. I guess that’s somehow fun for all those lonely physicists, but what’s in it for me? Flying cars?
If the other threads started by Argent Towers on the topic haven’t convinced him to do anything other than panic, I’m not sure anything short of Stephen Hawking having a face-to-face Q&A session with him could manage. I suspect that’s one reason why there’s more ‘making fun of’ and less calm, full, yet understandable explanations.
I’ve seen a recording of an army officer back in the 50s trying to assuage peoples fears about nuclear testing. He assured people that it would not blow a hole in the bottom of the ocean, causing all the water to leak out. My favorite though, was his assurance that the bomb “would not destroy gravity”.
