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Large Hadron Collider Sparks 'Doomsday' Lawsuit
smooth wombat writes "In what can only be considered a bizarre court case, a former nuclear safety officer and others are suing the U.S. Department of Energy, Fermilab, the National Science Foundation and CERN to stop the use of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) until its safety is reassessed. The plaintiffs cite three possible 'doomsday' scenarios which might occur if the LHC becomes operational: the creation of microscopic black holes which would grow and swallow matter, the creation of strangelets which, if they touch other matter, would convert that matter into strangelets or the creation of magnetic monopoles which could start a chain reaction and convert atoms to other forms of matter. CERN will hold a public open house meeting on April 6 with word having been spread to some researchers to be prepared to answer questions on microscopic black holes and strangelets if asked."
OMG! John Titor's story is true!
Captain Zapp Brannigan: We'll just set a new course for that empty region over there, near that blackish, holeish thing.
xkcd
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
portal storms incoming?
What happens if an escaping convict accidentally wanders into the collider, gains super powers, and tries to take over the world?
I guess it's just the kid in me, but now I want it turned on even more just to see what will really happen.
Maybe they should schedual the first start for one of the predicted end dates ala the Mayans and Egyptans. The Hadron collider builders should also play "It's the End of the World as We Know It" by REM the day it starts.
And so it turned out that nuclear explosions were perfectly safe after all. :D
This space available.
Will they be distributing them at the open house meeting? Perhaps that will calm those worried about the doomsday scenarios.
Could this explain why we haven't found the universe teeming with extra terrestrial life? Every civilization becomes more and more advanced, then starts doing more and more powerful experiments, and thinks, "the chance of destroying our planet is really slight... we're perfectly safe going ahead with this." Then, poof!
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
That's natural and this is man made.
Deleted
Maybe they should schedual the first start for one of the predicted end dates ala the Mayans and Egyptans.
I want to see them turn it on too, but that's tempting fate a bit much maybe? So to make sure they can't accidentally cause the Mayan predictions to come true, they'll deliberately activate the machine several days before the end of the Mayan calendar.
Only once they turn it on, as it's powering up, they'll get a phone call from an anthropologist who will tell them that he just discovered that the previous calculations as to the start of the calendar were wrong, and it is in fact THAT VERY DAY that the calendar ends! Oh bitter irony, when your attempt to avoid the prophecy causes it to come true!
The enemies of Democracy are
but the job requirements of being a nuclear safety officer is hardly any prerequisite to being able to in any way accurately understanding the quantum chromodynamics, or even quantized general relativity
No kidding. Have you seen the safety inspector in section 7G?
-Valiss
CARRIER LOST
oh, man, I hate to be the one to tell you, but we're all going to die without seeing DNF regardless.... sorry
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
THIS PLANT IS SAFE!!
gorg will be rubbing two sticks together next wednesday. He hopes to create a sustainable heat source.
Mrog, who new gorg as a child, is trying to stop it claiming this 'fire' may ravage the cave.
Next up, a balanced report on why the wheel should be avoid at all cost due to it's risk.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
THIS is what happens when you turn it on!
P.S. Xkcd may be super-awesome, but this post is in no way meant to endorse the irradiating of little birds or helicopters...
to: s_hawking@cam.ac.uk
re: MBHs
status: urgent
MBHs not dissipating as anticipated. Please advise.
Don't put advice in your sig.
This theory provides a compelling explanation for why, despite the inevitability provided by immense timescales, we have yet to observe alien visitors; the physics of our universe tends to eliminate those species that investigate the sort of physics that lead to interstellar spacecraft. Thus, the only long-lived species one may expect to discover in the universe are those that do not employ high energy physics which, naturally, precludes all efforts at detection.
It is also possible that I've been working on makefiles for too many hours and no longer merit your attention. You are to be forgiven; you didn't know that when you started reading.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
I may be wrong here but wasn't Homer a Safety Officer for a nuclear power plant ? What is he doing working at CERN ?
Try searching Google Scholar for "large hardon collider." You might be surprised.
I found this on Wikipedia (so it must be true). "What came later to be known as "The Black Mesa Incident" was triggered by a seemingly innocuous and routine experiment into teleportation. As part of the Anomalous Materials team in Sector C of the facility, research associate Gordon Freeman introduced a crystalline specimen..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mesa_Research_Facility
If there was any likelyhood of civilisations wiping themselves from existance with the creation of microscopic black holes, then you would expect the universe to be full of black holes where each subsequent civilisation had extinguished itself.
Now take a look into the night sky... How many black holes do you see?
None!
So obviously, this is completely safe...
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
I am going to wait for the porn version of this experiment.
The DVD will be called:
Large Hardon Experiment Goes Interracial!
Creates black holes and fills them with loads of quarks!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
re: MBHs
Well gentlemen, I suggest you all stick you head between your legs and kiss you ass goodbye. I'm going to the Andromeda galaxy. Yes, I invented a way to get there. I did it twenty years ago after a vodka binge, actually. Peace, bitches.
Thank you for correcting GP. I feel so much better now.
You're assuming the collapse of the Earth into the singularity would be symmetrical. I could see it getting kicked into a grossly elliptical orbit, playing ping-pong with the the other planets and eventually intersecting Sol.
I wish they'd just eliminate humanity and get it over with already. It's the waiting I can't stand.
But we won't be here, so why should I care?
It would be very amusing for the folks on the ISS though.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
As I understand it, there is a fellow who is just bad at math and wants to keep his grant money coming.
You can get grant money for being bad at math?? Sign me up!
the black hole takes to gather enough mass to speed up the process.
It will be tiny first, and will grow slowly. Amazing how the Mayans
got it right. I would not know where to start. Yep, you can't count on the safety of exact dates, as we all learned from Back to the Future III when Doc and Marty figured they were safe going to the dance Saturday because the tombstone Marty saw in 1955 said Doc died on Monday. Then along comes Buford who points a gun a Doc's kidney...:
Buford: "It's a Derringer, Smithy. Small but effective. Last time I used it, the fella took two whole days to die..."
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Wow, I didn't know Prof. Pangloss was writing for the ID movement.
I dunno how long you take, but it takes me longer then a few milliseconds to make "piece" with myself.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Scientists are different to normal people
God created all life, ET's included, 6,000 years ago. The light just hasn't had enough time to reach us from the nearest neighbor. Give it another few hundred years.
(for the humor impaired, I am joking)
Score:4, Funny
Who the hell modded that Funny?
Citing a Hollywood Sci-Fi movie to explain temporal causality theory on why you should not tempt fate against ancient Mayan mythology predicting the end of the world because of scaremongering US-litigation junkscience, according to Slashdot rules that is damn well supposed to be modded Informative!
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Um, don't you think the folks at CERN would notice that they're creating black holes every time they fire the LHC up? And then
Dr. Smith: F**k dude, we just created a black hole!
Dr. Heinrich: Cool! But it's not evaporating.
Dr. Smith: Uh oh. Maybe we shouldn't create another one until this one disappears. We wouldn't want them merging and creating a macroscopic black hole!
Dr. Heinrich: Good idea.
Unless of course an alien space ship saves them and sends them back in time 5 years to stop it all from happening.
But those ISS dudes are going to be pissed that, whilst they were once astronauts, the closest they can get to being CERN scientists is being Nuclear Safety Officers ... damn!