Large Hadron Colider - should we be bloody scared?

[Little Turtle]

Due for ignition around now, the world's largest sciene experiment cost £2 billion and measures 26.6km long. Oh, and it could well destroy the Earth. Based in Switzerland, the 17-mile tunnel smashes sub-atomic particles together at the speed of light. Tiny black holes are possible consequence, but more worrying is 1 in 50,000,000 chance of this stunt producing 'stranglets'. Which, on contact with the Earth's atmosphere, would start a chain reaction that will leave the planet reduced to a "hot, large lump of strange matter."



Part of the LHC

Personally, I think there are some things that man should not know, and that if we take a peek up mother nature's skirt, she may well be pissed.

Also, why should we all suffer and die for the interest of a few nerds and the rest of us not really care about?

[humvee2800]

that was... a quite ignorant post there..... essentially you just called quantum physicists interest in even more minute physics just a bunch of nerds.

Without quantum mechanics nearly no modern day amenities would exist, knowing the most basic workings of matter is what allows those inventions to exist.

[Ahlerich]

as a rough guess i think about 98,7974 % of the forum members do not know enough about the matter to qualify to discuss it. :hmmm:

[Chaigidel]

there is no reason to be scared the black holes the collider can create evaporate within a few seconds

the hadron collider can test some of our most extreme theory and perhaps even find out the true source of mass in the universe( yes we still dont know)

the collider represents the next step in our science and could well usher in a new generation of scientific discovery

but I doubt the strangelet will occur--- but you know there is a theory that some of the super nova we see are civilizations reaching the Higz-boson wall; where they build a large collider and recreate the big bang; and cause themselves to be annihilated.

[christof139]

Interesting. You mean the Higgs-boson wall I think:

http://tinyurl.com/6go866

Certainly hope the little black holes dissappear quickly ifr they are created, and the stranglet possibility is a bit spooky, so, what a way to go if the collider goofs-up. we would be a super nova then, beter than Nova on TV I guess.

Odd that it is not us evil USAers responsible for this scenario and we are objecting to it because of the possible ill consequences for all of humanity. I guess the Great Satan has taken a day off.

Chris

[saglam2000]

that would be a fun way to die!!! but if you worry about that, it is like worrying whenever you go outside that lightning is going to hit you.

[Gauvin]

that would be a fun way to die!!! but if you worry about that, it is like worrying whenever you go outside that lightning is going to hit you.

And generally it's the people who aren't worried that get hit by lightening.

[Markas]

[/I]Personally, I think there are some things that man should not know, and that if we take a peek up mother nature's skirt, she may well be pissed.

I'm not even remotely knowledgeable enough to make an informed statement or opinion on the how's and why's and maybe's of the experiment but I will say one thing- If humanity stops asking questions and loses it's inquisitiveness, we are done for more certainly than if the planet ended up looking like Hell's holiday resort.

Also, why should we all suffer and die for the interest of a few nerds and the rest of us not really care about?

If it makes you feel any better, it would likely be quick.

[Strattios]

Could somebody tell me what, if anything, they hope to gain from this. Right now it seems like a waste of money. If they can prove that it will somehow benefit mankind then I'd be in full support of it. Right now it seems comparable to spending money on a potato gun (a really expensive one at that), just because you want to see what happens when you destroy something.

[PointOfViewGun]

A lot of technology that you use to post here has been found due to experiments like that. It's a bit ignorant to ask if we still need it.

There is a chance of creation of a black hole same as the chance of a guy winning the lottery twice in a row. There is still a chance though. It would be a nice way to go.

[Markas]

From mistress wiki-

Research

A Feynman diagram of one way the Higgs boson may be produced at the LHC. Here, two quarks each emit a W or Z boson which combine to make a neutral Higgs.

A simulated event in the CMS detector, featuring the appearance of the Higgs boson.When in operation, about seven thousand scientists from eighty countries will have access to the LHC, the largest national contingent of seven hundred being from the United States. Physicists hope to use the collider to test various grand unified theories and enhance their ability to answer the following questions:

Is the popular Higgs mechanism for generating elementary particle masses in the Standard Model realised in nature? If so, how many Higgs bosons are there, and what are their masses?

Will the more precise measurements of the masses of the quarks continue to be mutually consistent within the Standard Model?

Do particles have supersymmetric ("SUSY") partners?

Why are there apparent violations of the symmetry between matter and antimatter?.

Are there extra dimensions indicated by theoretical gravitons, as predicted by various models inspired by string theory, and can we "see" them?

What is the nature of dark matter and dark energy?

Why is gravity so many orders of magnitude weaker than the other three fundamental forces?


I have to admit, I've often had sleepless nights wondering if the more precise measurements of the masses of the quarks will continue to be mutually consistent within the Standard Model.

[Chaigidel]

does no one realize how fundamental this is to new technology?

we could expose systems of energy we never dreamed of; or confirm our theories--- either way the collider is the first step to the manipulation of gravity.

[Alatar]

And Without Cern we wouldn't have the Internet. Ad the LHC is giving us the Grid (what you will be using to surf the internet in a few years)

And the reason it can benifit us is because knoweledge of the nature of the Higgs Boson one allows us to know more about the Universe.
Two Supersymetric particles are the nightmare of scientists, they exist (in all likelyhood) and we know nothing about how they work.

Basicly when you change the spin one one of these particles, the same happens to the other. Even if it is in Mars of somewhere.
Now this is interesting, information is moving faster than the speed of light.

Anf the Chance of us all dieing is actually ridiculously small.

[danzig]

And Without Cern we wouldn't have the Internet.

Um no the web != internet

Ad the LHC is giving us the Grid (what you will be using to surf the internet in a few years)

Few years? Not very likely.

Anyway risk with everything, I mean we are already tinkering with genetic makeup of things which in my view is more of a risk the LHC is. So no, no reason to be "bloody scared" about it anymore then we are about anything else. Besides Im pulling for an accident that turns a scientist into the Hulk instead of the destruction of earth.

[Holger Danske]

Um no the web != internet

No CERN, no World Wide Web... Face it, the evil Euro's knows stuff!

@OP

With those odds it's much more likely that there exist LSAs (better known as Clovers) in the deepest parts of our oceans...

[danzig]

No CERN, no World Wide Web... Face it, the evil Euro's knows stuff!

No MIT, no DoD no internet making no web moot. We evil Americans know stuff too I wasnt disputing it anyway or trying to turn it into that type of convo just correcting it that the internet is rail system and the web are just a type of train...as internet becomes more and more the replacement of the tv people forget the difference.

[Shi Huangdi]

This is going to be a tool for great advancements in many fields of science. There's nothing to be scared of--we should be excited.

[Roman Rapper]

This is going to be a tool for great advancements in many fields of science. There's nothing to be scared of--we should be excited.

Agreed. Every member of humanity should be immensely proud of these people who have been working diligently for several years in order to make this fascinating project a reality.

[Georgy Zhukov]

I don't know, the earth itself is an extreme improbability, for all those factors to come together and support life. But its probably nothing to worry about.

[Chaigidel]

It can be argued that what has happened had the highest probability which is why it occured.