The fact of the matter is that scientists will pretty much do whatever they want to do. It doesn’t matter how any of their projects will spawn countless good and bad unintended consequnces because scientists have tunnel vision when it comes to any goal they set. All they got to do is rub their bald heads together and come up with some super-scientific gobbly-gook technospeak explanation that some average joe doesn’t have the time nor the inclination to decipher because even if he does get a good idea he still isn’t “smart” enough. So the best we can all hope for is that whatever these scientists are trying to achieve isn’t some huge BANG that will wipe out humankind…oh wait the Atom bomb.
Are there any news articles about this project that DON’T focus on the blowing-up-the-world theory? It seems like the potential discoveries about the nature of the universe would be a pretty interesting story hook by themselves.
At this point, the “omg teh scaree!” idea has penetrated enough that even the most gushing mainstream news stories feel they have to include at least a passing reference to it, if only to dismiss it. Top Google News hit right this second is this one here, and it’s all about the awesomeness of the project . . . but with a graf mentioning the black holes that are going to kill us all followed by a couple grafs of [del]comforting lies[/del] debunking.
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I know that back in my academic days I participated in any number of bald-head-rubbing conferences on the best ways to world destruction. “Okay, Ed, you just whip up some exotic anti-anions; Wilber, hack the S/390 and set up some hydrocodes for hypergravitational implosion; and Alex break into Prof. Feldman’s optics lab and get the really powerful argon-iodide excimer laser. We’ll meet up at the quad and put together a gravitational singularity event that no one will ever expect.”
Fortunately, our villains got tied up filling out grant proposals and making document search requests, and academic bureaucracy prevented another global catastrophe.
Seriously, is this how you think? Because, based on the above post, you seem to be living in a 'Fifties B-grade sci-fi film. All you need is the gorgeous but oblivious female lab technician and a large irradiated reptile that subsequently rampages through a major metropolitan area, and you’re all set.
Just because it hasn’t happened in the last ~1.680 trillion days doesn’t mean it won’t happen tomorrow, ya know. In fact, the fact that it hasn’t happened just means that oblivion is all that much closer. The end is nigh!
Well, not the screaming masses who get zapped by aliens or eaten by a mutant giant hamster, nor the expendable privates and ancillary eggheads who get killed off to demonstrate just how dangerous the situation is. You’d definitely want to be one of the main characters, but even then you have to be careful; at least one will have to either be killed or betray the group in order to create plot complications, so read carefully Joseph Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces and as the man said, “Choose wisely.”
Let’s see. Take seven billion humans at 10 millions dollars each, add in 100 billion birds at $10 a pop, 400 million dogs each worth $100 and 600 million cats valued at 50 cents per catica. Ignore gerbils and fish. That comes to $7 x 10^19, my valuation of the world (mark I). YMMV.
Multiply that 1 x 10^-39 (-41?) and we get 7.000000104e-20 or $0.00000000000000000007, the required benefits for this experiment to take place.
I was simply commenting on the reality that scientists can pretty much do whatever they want to do. The imagery I used was just a little bit of humor thrown in there for shits and giggles…and not a direct reflection on how I think things really are going on in the dungeons of the world where evil scientists work their dark magiks.
what I think is that a lot of money was spent on a devise that uses a tremendous amount of energy for experiments designed to prove something that is theoretical. While I’m sure great care has been taken in regards to known events I have no idea if this thing is going to ignite one of God’s quantum boogers. I’m guessing the whole point of the colider is to learn about the unknown. I just hope the last spoken words aren’t: “huh, didn’t see that coming”.
I’m holding out for: “goodbye, and thanks for all the fish”.
No, actually they can’t. Your image of powerful scientists wielding massive budgets to autonomously construct world-threatening gadgets without oversight or accountability is about as detached from the mundane reality of genuine science research as the abovementioned 'Fifites B-pictures. The reality is that most PIs (Principal Investigators) working on large, equipment-intensive research programs, especially in the academic or non-profit research world, spend much of their time filling out and jumping hoops for government or research foundation grants, filling out accounting and budget audit reports, revising schedules, procuring equipment, administrating existing research programs, and counseling/mentoring/venting their aggressions at graduate students and postgraduate researchers. Even in the case of programs like the Manhattan Project and development of the Super (thermonuclear fusion) where the end goal is to build a catastrophically destructive weapon, the amount of oversight and shear mass of details to be managed means that no one person has the kind of plenipotentiary authority you imagine.
In the case of the LHC (and other, similar government-run research facilities like the National Ignition Facility at LLNL) I guarantee that there is no cabal of nefarious eggheads contemplating potentially-world destroying experiments without oversight; indeed, there is such a bureaucracy is place that oversees and dominates everything that it is amazing that they ever get anything done at all. Just running a system validation test takes a series of readiness reviews and safety checks.
