Activation of Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

[Donut]

In May of 2008, a LHC will be activated at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC is a particle accelerator and collider, and will be the largest LHC in the world.

I could tell more about it, but I wouldn't know the rest but simply re-write stuff from Wiki, which I won't cause it's lame, so I'll quote. Also don't ***** about it's from Wiki... it has a good coverage on this:

When activated, it is hoped that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson — often dubbed the God Particle — the observation of which could confirm the predictions and 'missing links' in the Standard Model of physics, and explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass. The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory which seeks to unify three of the four fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force. The Higgs boson may also help to explain why the remaining force, gravitation, is so weak compared to the other three forces.


Safety Concerns

As with previous particle accelerators, people both inside and outside the physics community have voiced concern that the LHC might trigger one of several theoretical disasters capable of destroying the Earth or even the entire Universe. This has raised controversy as to whether any such risks outweigh the potential benefits of constructing and operating the LHC.

Though the standard model predicts that LHC energies are far too low to create black holes, some nonstandard theories lower the requirements, and predict that the LHC will create tiny black holes[8][9], with potentially devastating consequences. The primary cause for concern is that Hawking Radiation - a postulated means by which any such black holes would dissipate before becoming dangerous, remains entirely theoretical. In academia, the theory of Hawking Radiation is considered plausible, but there remains considerable question of whether it is correct.[10]

Other disaster scenarios typically involve the following theoretical events:

* Creation of strange matter that is more stable than ordinary matter
* Creation of magnetic monopoles that could catalyze proton decay
* Creation of a strangelet

CERN has pointed out that the probability of such events is extremely small. One argument for the safety of colliders such as the LHC states that if the Earth were in danger of any such fate, the Earth and Moon would have met that fate billions of years ago due to their constant bombardment from space by protons, other particles, and cosmic rays, which are millions of times more energetic than anything that could be produced by the LHC.[11]

Quantum calculations presented in the CERN report predict that:

* Any black holes created by the LHC are not expected to be stable and will not accrete matter.
* Any monopoles that could catalyse the decay of matter will quickly exit the Earth.[12]


More Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider)

LHC website (http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/)

So what do you think about activation of the LHC? I don't think the LHC will create black holes and destroy the world as we know it, etc. But then again, the possibility isn't zero either, even if very small...

So uhm, your thoughts please.

[Shinomori]

If we die, then humanity could have gone no further, and it wasn't worth living anyways.

(Yeah, that's how I actually think.)

Inventors and scientists always take risks when discovering new things.

It's part of the job territory.

Personally, I think it'll be fine. I really hope they create the boson, although preferably without the disastrous side effects.

[Donut]

I agree with you, to be honest. Both the risk part and limit of humanity.

But dying through being sucked into a black hole or while the universe gets destroyed because of strange matter is one hell of a way to go...

[Shinomori]

Hey.

You know, I'd quite enjoy that death.

Dying realizing I'd just broken the universe? Yeah. I'd take it.

[Sandal Hat]

We would die in a far more granduous fashion than those before us.

[Donut]

Same here. That's a way I'd like to die. Plus, you'd die knowing you won't miss anything, since the universe goes down with you and all...

[Habanero]

Heh... The probability for them to create a stable black hole is lower than pretty much any event in the entire universe :p

We're constantly being bombarded by particles from space that have up to billion times the energy the LHC will ever create. There obviously hasn't been any black holes on earth during the past 4.5 billion years, so it would be quite the coincidence for one to appear now :)

Basically, who ever came up with all those possible devastating results, thinks *way* too highly of us humans. Supernovae or other catastrophic events haven't managed to rip the universe apart, there's just no way in hell we'd be able to do it with out current technology.

[SaberBlade]

Well considering there are better things the money could be spent on, I don't think anything bad would happen.

"The LHC is being funded and built in collaboration with over two thousand physicists from thirty-four countries, universities and laboratories." "When in operation, about seven thousand scientists from eighty countries will have access to the LHC". If over 2000 physicists are working on it and 7000 will use it, something tells me that it's only an extrememly small percentage of people that think that something bad would happen.

However considering that humans aren't all that smart, I would be surprised if we doomed ourselves and the rest of the universe. I'd rather see all those hundreds of millions going towards a water powered car or some sort of beneficial science.

[Decado]

As said - it's a better way to go.

We're going to die anyway. May as well do it by trying to discover something monumentus
LHC might trigger one of several theoretical disasters capable of destroying the Earth or even the entire Universe.
I find this part lol material. Refer to what Habanero said


@VampyreLord: Plz check your PM :)

[James Cizuz]

The scenarios are not ridiculous because what they suggest, but how they suggest it. The LHC is basically a particles accelerator which slams particles together are great speeds, we have gotten particles to half the speed of like the LHC is supposed to gain speeds of 70%. The part I find weird and ridiculous about the scenarios is that there is natural particle accelerators in the universe, "sort of" by in which I mean through rips, gravity distortions and great magnetic force fluctuations particles have been flying and ripping and tearing themselves apart and colliding since the universe formed.

Also, there have been black holes already created. Though a black hole created from a single atom or two exhausts it's energy before it can absorb anything. For example a black hole with the mass of an atom would exhaust it's energy in a trillionth, of billionth of a billionth of a second, while it would take over 340 million years to absorb another atom in itself. Thus rendering anything impossible for us to "destroy" the planet with a black hole. In fact black holes blink in and out of existence is common place(string theory/brane world).

Though do not think the scenarios themselves are ridicules, remember, a single hydrogen atom has 2.3*10^99 joules of vacuum energy between the nucleus and the electron. That is enough energy to destroy all the stars in all the galaxies for 20 billion light years, in all directions. Though if that never happened yet, it won't happen anytime soon, not with out technology anyway.

[EndlessSky]

You would think that out of the ENTIRE Universe if we had something capable of such things someone or something out there would try and stop us.

I find it ridiculous that we think we could destroy the Universe and that throughout the entire existence of the universe and time itself nobody has tried such things before or do we think we are the only ones capable of coming up with the idea of slamming particles into themselves?

Also I don't think dying by a blackhole would be any fun. Your basically gonna be pulled apart SLOWLY. of course you'll probably be dead soon after it pulls you apart for the first time or so but once your in 2 it keeps pulling those part into 2 and so and so on for basically forever I guess. but if you like to be slowly ripped in half by a huge black vortex of death be my guest.

[Sushi]

It's NOT okay.

I'm all for exploring and learning new things, but if the risk involves the entire earth and the universe, then they should really get the people's opinion of it. And I guarantee you, if they did that project would be packed up and never brought up again.

If the scientists want to risk their own lives to discover this new information, let them. But putting others in jeopardy that have nothing to do with and probably don't want the research is wrong.

And is that how we want the human race to go? Blow ourselves up? Sounds pretty stupid to me.

[Trouse]

Hey, I thought you believed in God? If God wants us all to die through that black hole, then so be it. I believe that's what the bible teaches you: don't question God, because God works in mysterious ways. Or something like that.

I say go for it. I'm eager to see if that Higgs boson can be created.

[Sushi]

@Trouse: I do believe in God, but I also believe that the human race definitely has the capability to blow itself up, and God gave us free will. So essentially if we wanted to blow ourselves up we could do it. That doesn't mean it's God's plan or how God wants it to be, but it could defiently happen. And doing stupid things because we think God will save us is foolish. He may or may not. But God hasn't stopped wars, so he sure as hell won't stop us from doing this.

[James Cizuz]

It's NOT okay.
I'm all for exploring and learning new things, but if the risk involves the entire earth and the universe, then they should really get the people's opinion of it. And I guarantee you, if they did that project would be packed up and never brought up again.
If the scientists want to risk their own lives to discover this new information, let them. But putting others in jeopardy that have nothing to do with and probably don't want the research is wrong.
And is that how we want the human race to go? Blow ourselves up? Sounds pretty stupid to me.
The fact is, it's people like you who do not understand ANYTHING about the atomic theory, physics etc that would have the project closed down. I have explained before how they created black holes in particle colliders before, and how it's impossible for them to do ANY harm.

You, and others have to remember, an atom has a certain amount of energy. Through fusion you can extract 90% energy from an atom. Through fission(e.g a nuclear bomb) you get 20% of the power from an atom. A particle collider is basically throwing 2 atoms around and colliding them at every high speeds. They have got 2 atoms to collide at half the speed of light. The energy mass formula E=Mc2 is a formula to determine the amount of possible energy that can be released. Lets just say, out of some fluke, that over 90%, lets say 100% is converted to energy. Though the scary part is, a glass of water has enough energy, at 100% conversion to power your city, for the next 3 years. Though 2 atoms, lets say 2 hydrogen atoms, each atom has 0.000,000,000,149,200,041,700,0 J of energy. If I got that right, it's been awhile. Anyway, 1 joule per second of energy is equal to 1 watt. So 1 atom can not create enough energy to power a 1 watt light bulb. If your wondering, a 1 kg of mass has 90,000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy. An atomic bomb, for example the one dropped on Hiroshima produced 52,000,000,000,000 joules of energy. Less then 100% conversion, 1 kg mass to energy.

I'm just ranting now. Anyway, if people have it explained to them THEN PEOPLE WON'T CARE ABOUT IT. It's not dangerous.

[Sushi]

@James: I'm not against the idea of it, I'm against the possibility that it could be dangerous. I'm in physics this year, so I understand where your coming from, But the scientists wouldn't have put up the warning if it was nothing. There is obviously some way that this project could go entirely wrong. And no amount of research is worth the human race sucking itself into oblivion.

[James Cizuz]

@James: I'm not against the idea of it, I'm against the possibility that it could be dangerous. I'm in physics this year, so I understand where your coming from, But the scientists wouldn't have put up the warning if it was nothing. There is obviously some way that this project could go entirely wrong. And no amount of research is worth the human race sucking itself into oblivion.
The problem with the warnings are theoretical events which are POSSIBLE to happen. Though the likely hood is near impossible. The problem is, if you could accelerate matter past light, or even close to light speed then you have a problem. See people don't understand the reason you can't go faster then light, or as fast as light. It's not because it's impossible, it's because of thermal vibrations variant. If you could produce enough energy to propel something light speed, well what would happen would be disastrous. Matter, atoms I should say vibrate, constantly, these vibrations are what is known as "thermal vibrations" or heat. An atom with no movement, is at zero kelvin, or -273 C. The reason you can't go colder is because the atom can not move less, then not moving at all. Regardless, when an atom reaches the heat limit(just as a absolute zero, there is a absolute hot) of 3.0*10^32 kevlin, the thermal vibrations are so fast, and so wide, they have approached the speed of light, when thermal vibration approach the speed of light, it becomes infinite expansion. Meaning 1 atom can not keep itself together no longer, the electromagnet force, as well as other forces become nullified, and the atom rips itself apart basically, and quickly cools. Thats the reason atoms can't go faster then light. If you could make a force which could hold together said matter, it is possible to go faster then light. However, nothing like that is known to exist. 1 atom reaching the speed of light would release it's entire energy. That is best scenario, and still nothing major would happen. The problem arises, in could something other dimensional happen, such as strange matter etc. Though scientists realize also, that there is natural particle colliders in space, and if it never happened yet, we won't cause it. Hopefully.

[Sirius]

We do not know if cosmic rays create mini-black holes, simply that it has not been observed. Keep in mind these rays are colliding with particles that are at near-rest. Any resulting micro black holes created in such collisions would continue traveling at near the speed of light. The size of a micro black hole insures that a mini black hole traveling at near the speed of light would punch right through our planet, perhaps interacting with one or two particles before speeding off into space. It would barely lose any momentum at all.

As I understand the LHC works by accelerating trillions of particles to near the speed of light and colliding them all head on in a confined space. It's like a gigantic 'train wreck' of accelerated particles.

Where as rays from space clash with particles at near-rest, both sets of particles in the LHC will be traveling at near light speed. The 'danger' some people speak of is that a few of the resulting micro black holes created would not have escape velocity. Where natural micro black holes may be harmless, an artificial micro black hole without sufficient escape velocity could be planet-destroying.

Of coarse all of this assumes two things:

1. Micro black holes EXIST and we can produce them
2. Hawking radiation does NOT EXIST

A few sources:
http://www.risk-evaluation-forum.org/anon1.htm
http://www.misunderstooduniverse.com/France_Builds_Doomsday_Machine.htm

Personally I don't think anything bad is going to happen, but who knows? I think it's all rather exciting actually. If a stable black hole is created we'd be going out in style, and if a stable black hole is not created we'll learn a great deal of exciting information about how the universe works. It's win win baby.

:Domo

[II Xion II]

The problem with the warnings are theoretical events which are POSSIBLE to happen. Though the likely hood is near impossible. The problem is, if you could accelerate matter past light, or even close to light speed then you have a problem. See people don't understand the reason you can't go faster then light, or as fast as light. It's not because it's impossible, it's because of thermal vibrations variant. If you could produce enough energy to propel something light speed, well what would happen would be disastrous. Matter, atoms I should say vibrate, constantly, these vibrations are what is known as "thermal vibrations" or heat. An atom with no movement, is at zero kelvin, or -273 C. The reason you can't go colder is because the atom can not move less, then not moving at all. Regardless, when an atom reaches the heat limit(just as a absolute zero, there is a absolute hot) of 3.0*10^32 kevlin, the thermal vibrations are so fast, and so wide, they have approached the speed of light, when thermal vibration approach the speed of light, it becomes infinite expansion. Meaning 1 atom can not keep itself together no longer, the electromagnet force, as well as other forces become nullified, and the atom rips itself apart basically, and quickly cools. Thats the reason atoms can't go faster then light. If you could make a force which could hold together said matter, it is possible to go faster then light. However, nothing like that is known to exist. 1 atom reaching the speed of light would release it's entire energy. That is best scenario, and still nothing major would happen. The problem arises, in could something other dimensional happen, such as strange matter etc. Though scientists realize also, that there is natural particle colliders in space, and if it never happened yet, we won't cause it. Hopefully.

I just want to point out one part of your post that I disagree with.

You mention that there is DEFINITELY an absolute hot and the fact that it is that number.

But there is no KNOWN absolute hot as the answer to that question would definitely start a whole new direction for physics. It could be an infinite loop like temperature or it could be Planck's temperature or any variation thereof.

And interesting read about the subject is: HERE (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/zero/hot.html).

[James Cizuz]

I just want to point out one part of your post that I disagree with.
You mention that there is DEFINITELY an absolute hot and the fact that it is that number.
But there is no KNOWN absolute hot as the answer to that question would definitely start a whole new direction for physics. It could be an infinite loop like temperature or it could be Planck's temperature or any variation thereof.
And interesting read about the subject is: HERE (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/zero/hot.html).
I gave the number most physicists agree on. Though I know it's off myself, has to be, since we can't exactly test it, relies on general relativity by Einstein to supply the only mathematical equations we can use to even say which number it could possibly be. Regardless, what I said was right in respect to why you can only reach a certain "heat" before the atom rips apart causing infinite expansion, until it cools.

[Graffik]

I just want to point out one part of your post that I disagree with.
You mention that there is DEFINITELY an absolute hot and the fact that it is that number.
But there is no KNOWN absolute hot as the answer to that question would definitely start a whole new direction for physics. It could be an infinite loop like temperature or it could be Planck's temperature or any variation thereof.
And interesting read about the subject is: Physics: Absolute Hot (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/zero/hot.html).


That really was interesting, but now, Physics has lost me in yet another one of my 'comfort zones ';D


I honestly doubt that we can blast enough particles with enough energy to cause any real damage... So about the higgs boson, let em do it. I'd like to see something shake the Physics world sometime during my lifetime.. ;D

[Nicole]

I'm not even in physics, and I doubt that there will be enough energy to do any serious harm.

Any field in science involving research has potential to do harm to the human race, whether it's creating a vaccination or trying to make a new element. If we keep heeding warning labels, we simply won't get anywhere in the field.

I'm all for it and I'm anticipating to see what happens.

[James Cizuz]

Actually now that I think about it, I want something bad to happen in the LHC. So when people actually see the damage(minimal not enough to destroy the thing itself, maybe need repairs) they won't go crazy over the thing anymore.

[Graffik]

You know James, you go against almost everything the majority agrees on :D, Even though there's is a possibility of something going wrong with the LHC, I have to say it is a very low possibility, not even a probability. While it vice-versa for the creation of the Hoggs Boson. And we all know, in science probability outways possibilities, especially when it's in favor of our hopes