[Hellstryker]

Your thoughts?

[jdjtcagle]

It honestly scares me since I don't know what it will do - maybe nothing and we could discover the "Grand Unified Theory" but it also sounds like a sci-fi gone wrong scene too.

So maybe?

[Jeff Vader]

Black holes, you say? 'xcuse me, brb...

* Lobo heads off for a little trip to Geneva

[achtung]

Activate it, who gives a **** what happens.

[Shade]

Other: Only an idiot would actually believe that the LHC might destroy the earth, as the particles that make up cosmic rays are constantly impacting the atmosphere at far greater energies than the LHC is capable of... and we're still here. So by all means, turn it on

[WMCoolmon]

Other: Only an idiot would actually believe that the LHC might destroy the earth, as the particles that make up cosmic rays are constantly impacting the atmosphere at far greater energies than the LHC is capable of... and we're still here. So by all means, turn it on

It's hardly idiocy to be skeptical of something you don't understand. I daresay that the people who admit that they're concerned because they don't understand the dangers and demand that they be investigated are more praiseworthy than the people who just take the scientists word for it and call the former group idiots. I don't know how much information you, personally, have reviewed, Shade; but I've seen this quite a few times where the overwhelming reason that people seem to be so unconcerned about the LHC is because everybody else in their group is saying that there's nothing to be afraid about and the people who are afraid are just ignorant. Or they're just attaching themselves to the status and prestige of a famous scientist who said so. The proof of the thing is more proof to me than a conclusion with no supporting data. But of course I'd probably need to know just as much about quantum physics as the person working on the supercollider in order to truly understand the explanation, so...

Other than that, I'm pretty indifferent to the LHC (in fact overall it's pretty much been a source of annoyance due to the above). It's a cool science and engineering feat, but it's very hard to say what it's going to accomplish, and it's going to cost quite a bit in order to accomplish.

[Herra Tohtori]

The risk of cataclysmic event is fairly small considering the continuous cosmic ray bombardment. I'd say the risk is a lot smaller than the risk of nuclear experiments starting a self-sustaining nitrogen fire in the atmosphere... which is deemed unlikely enough to be considered impossible.


At any rate, if worst comes to worst, we would hardly even notice before being gone anyway. Runaway black hole would drop to the bubble chamber floor, suck it's way to the center of the Earth feeding itself and growing and in seconds the Earth would be pretty much consumed. But like said, the black holes with energies the LHC is able to produce are very small and short-lived. The other often flaunted threats - strangelet particles changing the whole world into strangelets, and magnetic monoples - are even more far-fetched; the former because there's hardly any theoretical base and no experimental data for it, the latter because there's really strong theoretical evidence suggesting that magnetic monoples just don't happen, on the same level of fundamentality that thermal energy does not converge from colder to hotter by itself.


But who knows, perhaps they are going to bore a hole to the Dark One's prison and end this age of legend... or perhaps unlock the humanity's connection to the One Power once again.

That'd be seriously cool. I wonder if late Mr. Rigney's family would sue CERN or the universe over intellectual property theft.


If you didn't understand the last two paragraphs, think nothing of it. Only a select group can make any sense in it.

[Ace]

There wasn't an option for:
"Will the people who aren't physicists who are fearmongering and have no clue what's going on please shut up?"

[WMCoolmon]

There wasn't an option for:
"Will the people who aren't physicists who are fearmongering and have no clue what's going on please shut up?"

Exactly the attitude that annoys me. If the people building the thing are going to draw these arbitrary lines between people and refuse to address the dangers of what they're doing, why the **** should anyone care about what they think? There's this little thing called 'social responsibility' that enables groups of diverse peoples to work together. But I guess all that goes out the window when you get the excitement of building a great big toy, right?

If a group of farmers decided they were going to put into place some kind of genetic modification that had the incidental effect of possibly putting the food supply of the western world into jeopardy, I'm sure that people would be concerned about it too, and I'm sure that all the farmers and biologists would get headaches over explaining just how unlikely it is to all the people who are too stupid to understand anything about their own food supply.

Really, it's not all that unreasonable or un-understandable. You can either have specialization of skills and knowledge and have to put up with people that don't understand anything about what you're talking about, or your civilization can stagnate and die because everybody's spending their time mastering skills that they'll never need to use.

[Hellstryker]

Edited

[BloodEagle]

If a group of farmers decided they were going to put into place some kind of genetic modification that had the incidental effect of possibly putting the food supply of the western world into jeopardy, I'm sure that people would be concerned about it too, and I'm sure that all the farmers and biologists would get headaches over explaining just how unlikely it is to all the people who are too stupid to understand anything about their own food supply.

I had no idea that all farmers have a complete understanding of genetics.

Link

Link

[TrashMan]

Other: Only an idiot would actually believe that the LHC might destroy the earth, as the particles that make up cosmic rays are constantly impacting the atmosphere at far greater energies than the LHC is capable of... and we're still here. So by all means, turn it on

Only an idiot would believe it, I agree.. But not because of that. Simple law of action and reaction. Energy.

To destroy Earth you need a f***loads more energy than you put into the HLC.
So, if something goes wrong with the HLC at worst you're get something analogous to a nuke.

Despite what many a sci-fi tells you, you can't pull infinite energy out of thin air, and you can go over 100% matter-energy conversion..so no deathstars, white-hole missiles, planet-ships or black hole generators....

[Kosh]

Exactly the attitude that annoys me. If the people building the thing are going to draw these arbitrary lines between people and refuse to address the dangers of what they're doing,

Never mind that CERN did many reviews of such scenarios to address the alledged "danger", but in the hysteria no one paid attention to them.

I guess the message "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111ONEONEONEONE" has a much stronger effect than "it's safe". 

[WMCoolmon]

How many joules of energy do you need to destroy the earth, Trashman?

EDIT:

Exactly the attitude that annoys me. If the people building the thing are going to draw these arbitrary lines between people and refuse to address the dangers of what they're doing,

Never mind that CERN did many reviews of such scenarios to address the alledged "danger", but in the hysteria no one paid attention to them.

I guess the message "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111ONEONEONEONE" has a much stronger effect than "it's safe". 

Never really heard of 'em, to be honest. If that's the case, then why are people getting so fussy about it? Just link to the old reports.

[Retsof]

Here's something slightly related to this topic.  Did you know that they already have antimatter in storage?  (Not very much, there are some very big numbers sealing with the probability of getting antimatter out of collisions.)  Ah what you learn from the Discovery Channel.

[Kosh]

Never really heard of 'em, to be honest. If that's the case, then why are people getting so fussy about it? Just link to the old reports.

http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/en/LHC/Safety-en.html


That's the summary, at the bottom you can download the specialist reports. People are getting fussy about it because "D00M!!!!!!" is more sensationalist (and has more emotional shock value) than "it's ok". The fuss (IMO) is caused partly by people looking for attention (like the Wagner fellow filing the suit), partly because people in general don't understand the science involved, and also because some people don't see any value in project like this and are looking for any excuse to shut it down. I admit I'm tempted to blame it partly on America's bias against science, but maybe that's just me.

[BloodEagle]

Here's something slightly related to this topic.  Did you know that they already have antimatter in storage?  (Not very much, there are some very big numbers sealing with the probability of getting antimatter out of collisions.)  Ah what you learn from the Discovery Channel.

I saw that program. Did you know that right after they said that, they talked about how it would be easier to get more from aliens, rather than make their own?

I despise the Discovery Channel.
---------

http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/en/LHC/Safety-en.html

That's a very informative page, and what they're saying makes perfect sense. But while I was reading that, my mind couldn't help but think about how small children were sprayed with DDT because it was thought to be safe.

I'm not saying that life as we know it will end if they push that button. In fact, I'm sure it won't.

But it's the principle of the matter.

[General Battuta]

Only an idiot would believe it, I agree.. But not because of that. Simple law of action and reaction. Energy.

To destroy Earth you need a f***loads more energy than you put into the HLC.
So, if something goes wrong with the HLC at worst you're get something analogous to a nuke.

Despite what many a sci-fi tells you, you can't pull infinite energy out of thin air, and you can go over 100% matter-energy conversion..so no deathstars, white-hole missiles, planet-ships or black hole generators....

Not true, I'm afraid -- most of the theoretically dangerous things that might come out of the LHC aren't explosions, they're chain reactions of one type or another that could easily destroy the Earth even with a fairly small seed energy.

In this case, you might --  might -- be able to destroy the Earth with just the energy levels present in the LHC. It's all about what you make with that energy.

[Goober5000]

It's hardly idiocy to be skeptical of something you don't understand.

There wasn't an option for:
"Will the people who aren't physicists who are fearmongering and have no clue what's going on please shut up?"

Exactly the attitude that annoys me. If the people building the thing are going to draw these arbitrary lines between people and refuse to address the dangers of what they're doing, why the **** should anyone care about what they think? There's this little thing called 'social responsibility' that enables groups of diverse peoples to work together. But I guess all that goes out the window when you get the excitement of building a great big toy, right?

If a group of farmers decided they were going to put into place some kind of genetic modification that had the incidental effect of possibly putting the food supply of the western world into jeopardy, I'm sure that people would be concerned about it too, and I'm sure that all the farmers and biologists would get headaches over explaining just how unlikely it is to all the people who are too stupid to understand anything about their own food supply.

Really, it's not all that unreasonable or un-understandable. You can either have specialization of skills and knowledge and have to put up with people that don't understand anything about what you're talking about, or your civilization can stagnate and die because everybody's spending their time mastering skills that they'll never need to use.

Quoted for truth.  I think WMC's right on the money here.

As Kazan would say, this position is the "argument from authority" logical fallacy.  Personally I don't have a problem with the LHC, but I can sympathize with those who do, even if I think their concerns are groundless.

[Aardwolf]

I don't understand people who are afraid of this thing. I am skeptical of them and am afraid they may halt the advance of science.

(An attempt at a quasi-humorous rebuttal to "People have a right to be skeptical of things they don't understand" mentality presented earlier)