There seem to be a large quantity of fear-mongers out there who do nothing for us but hold us back. These people come in all shapes, forms, and promote all types of irrational, illogical fears. From Edward Dames (the Killshot) to Nancy Lieder (Planet X, or now IX) and to hell and back. No, seriously.
Many people have covered this, so I doubt it’s going to help all that much for me to, but it couldn’t hurt.
The LHC collides particles at near light speed to simulate conditions found in the early Universe — here on Earth. Some people with unclear intentions have raised the alarm that this might create Earth-destroying miniature black holes, or even destroy the universe.
Yeah, no.
Collisions of much higher energy are found in space. Not only that, but such high energy events happen in our own atmosphere! If technology continues to increase at its current rate, we’ll be able to match the cosmic events by about 2150, or so suggests futurist Ray Kurzweil. If we were to somehow go beyond them, that’s when things get a bit tricky, because you’re really venturing into unknowns.
The difference is, it’s known what happens with cosmic collisions. Well, sorta. We can predict them based on what is seen. If high energy cosmic collisions billions of times anything we can do happen in space and do nothing, why would being on Earth be any different? That’s right, it’s not.
Word to the wise: don’t fear-monger. Your 15 minutes will be outshined by the program’s ever-lasting glory and success.
[...] In two months, the Large Hadron Collider kills us all no one. [...]
I want to be convinced, but seriously I am not.
I will say two things about myself:
1/ I do not seriously understand the theories behind the alarmist nor the ‘there is no risk’ paper in the LHC web site
2/ I have no interest in the debate other than an ordinary family person with a preference for the continuation of earth and life on earth…
The problem is not with what we know, but with what we do not know. The conditions to be effected by this collider and the next to come are not identical to earthly event, they are only SIMILAR (velocity of residual material after collision for one and maybe other issues).
It is clear that we do not know everything in advance, had we knew this venture was not interesting at all. Is it impossible that there exist a destructive phenomena we do not know about or envisage and that could be triggered by the collider? I think that such a possibility can not be dismissed and given the magnitude of the damages that may be resulted (should an ‘inflationary’ phenomena is triggered), I can not see how this experiment is taking place….Actually, I do see how… Physicist , like many other scientist and researchers, place more weight on what they know than on what they dont know (see for example, risk managers and the mortgage scenario in the US, and many more examples). A good simple ( a bit verbos though) on the suject is THE BLACK SWAN by TALEB
Now, this argument may be raised against all experiments whatsoever. But I feel that since these type of experiments are very special in that they create physical condition not occuring on earth at all, there is a special problem.
I would appreciate a response.
[...] (Today, 11:08 AM) #9 (permalink) Repeat after me: LHC is not dangerous! « The Seeker Thought I’d add this here. Marcosious: Wasn’t that kind of you? Margery: You think? [...]