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Why the LHC Won't Destroy the World
An anonymous reader writes "Most people are aware of the recent articles contending that the Large Hadron Collider at CERN might destroy the world. While most scientists have no such concerns, a recent preprint released to arxiv systematically dismantles the notion. The gist of the argument is this: Everything that will be created at the LHC is already being created by cosmic rays. If a black hole created by the LHC is interactive enough to destroy the world within the lifetime of the sun, similar black holes are already being created by cosmic rays. Such black holes would be stopped by dense cosmic objects (neutron stars and white dwarfs). A black hole stopped in one of these objects would eventually absorb it. We see sufficiently old neutron stars in the sky, thus any black hole that could be created at the LHC, even if it is stable, would have no effect on the earth on any meaningful timescale."
First particle?
rewriting history since 2109
Don't they see that there used to be MORE neutron stars?
According the the Farnsworth Theorem, which has been accepted by the scientific community, the LHC is almost certain to destroy the world. There are consequences to creating a black hole, you know.
Dr Farnsworth suggests that you collect your most prized possessions and carry them down to the lowest basement you can find. This way you will at lest be among the last survivors on our doomed planet.
Even if they did manage to destroy the world, we'd all die so quickly there wouldn't be time to dish out any blame.
I can imagine the last words in the lab just before we all disappear into a singularity:
"Oops"
Summation 2
This article doesn't take into account accidental resonance cascades that open up portals to bizarre alien.
We will just sent sg1 in to take care of the aliens and then we just blame it on the homer simpson type people working there.
"We have an unintended event horizon."
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
The world will not end when I flip this switch.
I shall prove this, by ...
What in the world could that be?!
*points over there*
*flips switch*
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Now, now, if you follow standard insertion procedure, everything will be fine. ... Although I will admit that the possibility of a resonance cascade scenario is extremely unlikely.
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
So when does it come online? Just in case something happens, I need the day off to do what I always wanted to do: Spend it with a beautiful woman in bed--who am I kidding? I'm posting on slashdot. I'll be playing GTA IV. :P
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The LHC is "mostly harmless." After all, it's only bashing Large Hadrons together. Now, the Ginormous Hadron Collider (GHC) is another matter all together. It's been giving me the stink-eye for weeks now. I wouldn't turn my back on it for a minute.
Yes, but this can be counteracted via the usage of normalets, which are generated by anybody who doesn't read slashdot.
So each being equally small in probability the two ways the LHC will get us is either by
1. Black Holes (like the article says)
or
2. Instantaneous conversion of all stuff on earth into exotic matter.
Personally #2 sounds more fun.
If the black hole has "stopped" it has noticed your presence. At this point, your JuJanta 2000 Peril-Sensitive sunglasses will suddenly go completely black, fully preparing you for the event horizon experience.
JuJanta also recommends its products for the Event Horizon experience, which properly speaking should never be experienced by anyone whatsoever.
I never thought I'd see a resonance cascade, let alone create one.
You mad
"In theory", posting to Slashdot is safe.
"In theory" you can't accidentally summon the elder gods by not limiting your .signature to 120 characters.
"In theory" posting more than twice within a ten minute limit won't create an imbalance of left-handed and right-handed electrons within the local ethernet causing anything up to and including total protonic reversal. (I bet you'd be kicking yourself for not buying cables with signal directional markings which could have prevented this problem.)
So, yes, "in theory" the world is safe from being destroyed by you. Today.
And "in theory" that makes me feel better.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Yeah? Well, as long as there are no bizarrolets, then no parallel universes will be created in which there is Superman with an upside-down S who talks like retarded caveman.
My blog
If you have a specific problem with one of the assumptions, logic, modeling, mathematics, data acquisition, or analysis, then point it out in detail. But saying, "that's just a theory" is not useful. Everything we do is based on theories.
Experiments are conducted based on our lack of confidence in those theories. Either this theory is trustworthy enough to make the whole experiment pointless, or it's not trustworthy and experiments are justified. You can't have it both ways, and anyone who attempts to defend the safety of an experiment with only the theories being tested as evidence is an idiot. There's uncertainty, and thus there's an experiment, and we don't really know what will happen. Period. Get over it already. One way or another, you're still going to die.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Slashdot doesn't need to hear all this, they're highly trained professionals. We've assured the administrator that *nothing will go wrong*.
Means it needs some Drain-o to get it going again.
It's funny to see you get modded informative for repeating the summary.
So, yes, "in theory" the world is safe from being destroyed by you. Today.
Is this a challenge?The Tremendous Hadron Collider is more likely to create a black hole with the munchies.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
so the area around it where the gravity would significantly bend the universe would also be quite small, making our painful (but swift) deaths rather unspectacular
I'm sorry, but you're completely forgetting about at least one mitigating factor. There's simply no way the earth can be destroyed, one side effect of which would be my untimely demise. Why? Because I've still got a balance on my Capital One visa card, and they will do anything, including changing the very fabric of space and time, in order to not miss out on that interest money. So, we're safe for a while yet.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Link should go find more rupees.
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
Why are we finding no extraterrestrial civilizations?
They all get to this step in technological advancement and "Black Hole" themselves?
Maybe a significant portion of existing black holes are not the results of collapsed stars, but rather previous Hadron-like mistakes of monumental proportions?