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[...] Article on the LHC: Will The World End Tomorrow? Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)[...]
It’s amazing how much trouble probably no more than half a dozen people (none with expertise in particle physics) can cause through the use of the internet, press, and the courts. There is no danger from the LHC, but saying there is the danger of destroying the world will get you a lot of attention.
I have gathered a bit of information on the only two scientists to present (mutually exclusive) black hole doomsday scenarios (thoroughly discredited) in my post Large Hadron Collider: What’s the Risk?. One of them (the one doing all the talking these days) is very eccentric, to say the least.
But don’t dismiss the controversy as ignorance either.
Today’s LHC might only create a microscopic black hole with a 1 in 50 million chance, but what about the Super LHC? Or the next giant particle accelerator after that? If current trends provide any indicator, particle accelerators will only grow bigger and more dangerous in time to come. It’s a slippery slope.
This poses a moral dilemma: Should we pursue scientific progress even if we put the whole world at risk?
We won’t die tomorrow – thats for sure. But will we die one day due to a physics experiment gone wrong? Perhaps we just might.
heya hie …. ppl… of dis world..
i just cnt understnd one simple THNG… . as u ppl say dere dis so lot of dangerrr. dat world wil end.. den why r dese scientist taking such a big risk. . wt wil dey get just… some answers to some questions… ????
wts d use.. u cn put every1..ss lyf in danger.. n do ur experimentss…??
does any has d ans to my ques ??? y r we taking such a big riskkkkk?????
REPLYYY…!!
Its not a big risk.
Its a 1 in 50 million chance to create a black hole so small it’ll be harmless. It just that a black hole in the middle of France sounds really frightening to someone without the right information.
But as i mentioned earlier, it’s the trend that’s dangerous – not this ONE experiment.
I’ll be hanging around for the next 2 hours or so. Readers do feel free to post any questions and i’ll try to answer them to the best of my knowledge.
Hii i mean im sceard about the black hole but do you think its really goig to happen to al ov us i saw your video and it was shocking!
LHC particle accellerator indeed a grate invention by man. thank bbc keeping us informed. i wonder the next invention elecromagnetic waves will be made to travel at the speed of thought. bye.
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[...] New to the LHC? Check out the previous articles first to understand what it’s all about: 09:09:08: Will The World End Tomorrow? 01/09/08: The LHC: Of Black Holes and God Particles [...]
All this talk about 1-in-50 million chance of black holes and “is science worth the risk, no matter how small” seems a little out of context. The Earth exists in the midst of a particle accelerator 24×7x365 and has since the sun’s fusion plant ignited and started throwing protons our direction. If such things tended to produce dangerous black holes, I think we’d have suffered the consequences by now.
The argument lies in it’s moral standpoint that it might be a slippery slope into more and more dangerous experiments that eventually could prove problematic. I’ve said on multiple occasions today’s LHC is no real cause for concern.