A 6 billion dollar experiment that may destroy the world?

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Winston
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A 6 billion dollar experiment that may destroy the world?

Post by Winston »

This website explains why the 6 billion dollar LHC experiments may create mini black holes that could destroy the Earth, and calls for legal action to stop the LHC project. For details and videos, see their site at:

http://www.lhcdefense.org/index.php
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Winston
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Post by Winston »

Here is what one of my science advisors had to say about the risks associated with the LHC experiments:

On Tue, 5 Aug 2008, WuMaster effortlessly expostulated:

}But isn't he right that if there is even a small chance that the LHC could
}destroy the earth, that it's not worth it?

That's at least a valid ethical question, but I'm not sure it has an easy answer.

When the first fusion-bomb was tested (hydrogen bomb), there was
at least some specualtion about what would happen if a fusion reaction
were ignited that didn't damp itself out eventually. Based on available
information at the time, there was a small, but finite chance that the
reaction would continue out of control, using the mass of surrounding
water for fuel, and set the ocean on fire.

They tested the bomb anyway.

And in the process acquired sufficient data to better understand that the
reaction -would- damp out.

Put into perspective:

There's a finite chance every time you start your car that a certain combination
of events will cause the gas-tank to explode, instead of the engine turning over.

There's a finite chance that you will be sitting in your living room reading
the paper one day, and a cantaloupe-sized meteor will crash through your roof
and punch your brain out the back of your skull.

There's a finite chance that some mentally unstable employee of one of the
many political entities which currently posses nuclear weapons will lose it
tomorrow, push a button, and start WWIII.

There's a finite chance that when I make chilli for the company picnic I might
accidentally bring together a critical mass of cheyenne pepper, destroying
everything within a 2-mile radius.


But if we spent much time worrying about these things we'd either never
get out of bed, or kill ourselves.


So I don't think anyone is going to stop the LHC experiments, given the
huge investment made, and the great potential for new knowledge resulting
from various proposed experiments.



}So what happens if the hawking radiation doesn't stop the black holes? Do
}they get larger and larger until they destroy everything?

There is huge speculation going on here on all fronts. We don't know that
such things as micro black holes exist, or that they can exist. We don't
know that they can be created in the LHC (or by any other human contrivance,
for that matter). If they do exist, and can be created in the LHC, we don't
know how they will behave.

What we can do is look at the math and the predictions it allows us to make,
and the -big- picture of what those predictions tell us. And what those
predictions tell us right now is that -if- MBHs can exist, then they
probably already do exist (created either in the Big Bang, or through
the quantum interactions of cosmic rays).

If they don't exist, we have nothing to worry about. If they do exist,
they haven't harmed us in 4.5 billion years, and probably won't harm us
next year, even if the LHC does happen to make a few.


Dr H
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

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