leveret;230723 wrote:
Sorry but the scare stories you have read are a load of cobblers. There are far, far more energetic collisions going on in the Earth’s upper atmosphere hundreds of times every day, as cosmic rays dive in and hit the atmosphere. Not to mention in the centre of the Sun which has entirely failed to turn itself into a Black Hole so far.
Nothing’s happened in the last 4 billion years so nothing is going to happen just cos people start doing the same thing in a 26 km wide laboratory.
2. At 4:27pm on 06 Sep 2008, RoddyStickleback wrote:
Physicists do not understand the limitations of empirical science. They should not be entrusted with a risk assessment of this importance.
The main plank of the legal argument that this is safe is completely flawed. The conditions in this experiment are not the same as for cosmic ray/particle events which they say have been happening safely and with which they have been compared in the official risk assessment. For one thing, the cosmic particles are in free fall under a weak gravitational force and are effectively not in a force field. The particles in LHC are under a variety of intense magnetic fields, bombarded by photons of electromagnetic character absent from similar collisions in space. Secondly the large cosmic partcle collisions take place in a low density enviroment far away from other matter, whereas these take place surrounded by metal and within the earth’s crust. Both of these parameters could introduce unknown particles and forces ( eg 1000% more gloun influnce for example). Thus to say that this experiment will be safe is completely reckless. The cosmic particle comparison is disastrously flawed.
How dangerous could this be?
If conditions are similar to a mini big bang but with an unexpected twist, unexpected events could occur.
Examples:
1) a singularity in space time is formed. Our region of the universe collapses.
2) time reverses and a big crunch is initiated.
3) a supernova like event is triggered.
4) a local event is triggered such as a meltdown of France/Switzerland/the Alps
5) An intense electromagnetic catastrophe is triggered leading to an event similar to a neutron bomb explosion.
6) The production of a new type of radiation could occur, poisoning the planet and our atmosphere far more than acid rain.
The probability of these events cannot be scientifically predicted. The naive glee of Physicists with a new toy is being allowed to risk the destruction of life on this planet.
Mark Jones (Science teacher and Philosophy graduate)
BBC NEWS | TODAY | Tom Feilden’s blog | The end of the world is not nigh
:crazy_diz
Well who knows what’s going to happen? The more and more I think about the possible risks, like the universe collapsing, how ever much scientificaly backed up confidence these scientists have, I cant help but think ‘wo man, easy!’
guess we’ll find out on wednesday
