Perhaps this topic’s a bit out of vogue, but it’s a burning question I’ve been meaning to ask about for some time – in short, my question’s about the Large Hadron Collider and its hypothetical doomsday scenarios. IIRC, the key “dangers” are twofold:
(1) Creation of a microscopic black hole. This scenario’s gotten the most press, despite being thoroughly debunked – sure, the LHC could create a miniature singularity, but it would pose zero danger to the Earth itself. (The Earth is constantly bombarded by particles with far greater energy than is reproducible by mankind’s technology, and after 4.5 billion years we’re still here…nuff said!)
(2) Converting the entire planet to strange matter. This one’s actually quite interesting, since it is hypothetically possible for the LHC to create a stable strangelet, which would trigger a runaway chain reaction resulting in the entire planet becoming a giant glob of strange matter. AFAIK, this scenario’s so remote that no rational scientist believes it will become a problem, at least not from current technology.
So, regarding #2, here’s my question: What’s the problem? What would happen IF our planet became a “strange” planet? Would anything really change, from our perspective? Wouldn’t our civilization continue forward as it always has, with the only difference being that we’re now a little bit…umm, strange?
For one thing, strange matter has much, much higher density than normal matter. The conversion of the planet to strange matter would be associated with a massive implosion. The conversion of normal matter into strange matter is also expected to give off a lot of energy. Conversion of the Earth into strange matter would result in a small, hot mass of strange matter, possibly surrounded by a dissipating cloud of vapor of whatever mass didn’t get absorbed. We wouldn’t survive in any form, the conversion would kill every living thing on the planet.