JK Ferret (22-03-2008)
I'll go out on a limb here and say nothing much will happen other than a few exotic particles popping into existence for a few billionths of a second.
Certainly not the end of the universe, or the Earth being swallowed by a black hole or any other sort of nonsense.
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He was indeed funny, but I wish I'd had a spade handy for when he first said "LHC" and several studenty types nodded far too dramatically and very loudly said "oh yeah, yeah, the Large Hadron Collider" whilst smugly looking about to see if they had impressed anyone.
No, you haven't impressed anyone. Some folk in the real world actually know about it also, and they know many other wondrous things too. Such as when to shower.
"Micro Black Holes
Although the Standard Model of particle physics predicts that LHC energies are far too low to create black holes, some extensions of the Standard Model posit the existence of extra spatial dimensions, in which it would be possible to create micro black holes at the LHC [23][24][25] at a rate on the order of one per second. According to the standard calculations these are harmless because they would quickly decay by Hawking radiation. The concern is[citation needed] that Hawking radiation (which is still debated[26]) is not yet an experimentally-tested, or naturally observed phenomenon, and so micro black holes might not decay as rapidly as calculated, thereby accumulating inside the earth and 'devouring' it."
Large Hadron Collider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The BBC did a poll on this asking the general public whether it should be turned on just incase it created a black hole or something. As usual the GBP thought that if there are only two outcomes, i.e it does create a black hole verses it doesn't, then the public think there is a 50/50 chance of either out come. Infact the vote was split 50/50 ish iirc which just goes to show you how stupid the general populace is, even when the they are told the probability of it creating a black hole is 1/50,000,000 chance during 10 year operation.
Some people were even interviewed with National Lottery tickets in their hands. Muppets!
Found it - BBC - Horizon - The Six Billion Dollar Experiment
"Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be." Frank Zappa. ----------- "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." Huang Po.----------- "A drowsy line of wasted time bathes my open mind", - Ride.
It's certainly a very impressive feat of engineering (as was it's predessor the LEP to a slightly lesser extent), but I'm not sure I understand the "end of the world" scenarios bandies about.
The individual collisions are expected to be at 14 TeV (an eV (or electron volt) being the energy of an electron that has been accelerated through 1 Volt for the unitiatiated).
Now I am very rusty on physics (it's nearly 10 years since I did my degree and haven't used it since), but while 14 TeV is a massive amount of energy when dealing with particles, in the macro-scale world it's really not that much (about 2 mJ - thats milli joules). Maybe I'm just being blinkered - but I find it hard to believe that something that is composed of that little energy can really spell the end of the world.
They created this using Laptops running Windows XP!! (from a pic, showing a girl with a laptop, and another running Xp screen saver) Yay Microsoft!
Check out my Tech Blogs: Budget Gaming Rigs and The Droid ReviewHomer Simpson: "It takes two to lie Marge. One to lie, and one to listen"
Doomsday fears spark lawsuit - Cosmic Log - msnbc.com
The builders of the world's biggest particle collider are being sued in federal court over fears that the experiment might create globe-gobbling black holes or never-before-seen strains of matter that would destroy the planet.
Has anyone considered that all the black holes in the universe are from past civilisations building a LHC of their own, before being gobbeled up?
Ok, I jest....but in all seriousness if the planet was to go bye-bye, I'd much rather it happen in the pursuit of science / understanding the universe than someone pressing a big red button somewhere because we need a bit more oil from someone.
Oh, and where is the lawsuit filed, considering its on the French-Swiss border?
Guess this is what happens when the press get hold of something.
Black holes are nothing to be worried about, infact a black hole is where the universe comes from and, in the end, where it will all end up.
To create a black hole on the scale in which can be seriously destructive would take a HUGE amount of energy. Don't forget a black hole is a negative and will constantly suck in positive ions until it is full. It will then explode. I expect if they do create a black hole it will be tiny and last only a fraction of a second before exploding.
I do expect that it could damage the actual equipment but I am guessing they have planned for that.
Am I worried about that actual experiments? No but I am worried about what information we wil gain and how we will use it.
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I hope they counter sue. It's a shame you can't sue people for stupidity and wasting time and money.
"Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be." Frank Zappa. ----------- "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." Huang Po.----------- "A drowsy line of wasted time bathes my open mind", - Ride.
Hey, dont they turn this thing on this month?
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