"A year from now, the world will still be here."

Inhabited by ZOMBIES.

Itzpapalotl

This is probably the best blog on why the LHC alarmists are totally out of their minds.

[motls.blogspot.com]

Dathmar

They should take a lesson from the climatologists and hire Al Gore. They'll have all the funding and approval they need!

ParJoe

Wait, so who was it that set sail across the ocean and fell off of the edge of the earth?

Subterfuge

whats hilarious about the micro-black hole claim is it assumes we have not already done it before (we have, a few times actually, though we didnt know it when we did it.)

Falconfire

These guys are such paranoiacs.
[www.badastronomy.com]
The BA wrote about this nonsense...

IrisMR

If we survived eight years of Bush, I think we can handle this.

duckballs

@ManjiKengo: To go along with this notion I think it would be a good idea to have the Dr. Otto Octavius on hand to handle this situation if it fact this thing generates a tiny black hole but then starts gobbling everything around it. I think it should be set atop of a rickety abadoned harbor station just in case.

Ftp1423

Sure, they say this now with their four human limbs. If they had robotic tentacles sticking out of their backs, THEN they'd lose credibility.

Kaiser-Machead

isnt it stuff like this that created Spiderman 2?

mricyfire

clearly there is still good pot being grown in hawaii.

firesign

look we're not going to implode, if it was to do so it would have already happened since there's things far more energetic hitting our planet right now.

Technogen

It's true that the world will not be here a year from now. In fact, the world will be 11.4 billion miles from here* a year from now.

*relative to the universe

ripfire4

@Altanader:
yeah but consider what John Titor told us!

nutbastard

Honestly, what were they going to say? "Sure, it could happen, but the risk is worth it for SCIENCE!"

I echo those that say the genius is that if he's wrong we will only have a millisecond to curse him and his (already doomed) heirs.

92BuickLeSabre

I guess no one else sees the irony of the CERN fellow saying everything is safe, yet the whole reason for the LHC is to try to recreate events we have not been able to witness and do not fully understand.

I am not saying I am against the LHC going live, but if this guy had reason to be so confident, the LHC would not need to be around. However, reward always comes at a risk. Do not forget the Drake Equation had a variable for "societies that destroyed themselves"'. We could all become a statistic!

getz76

I am not that worried since the world isn't scheduled to end until 2012.

Altanader

@bigjerm853: I predict that the earth will not be here a year from now. If I'm wrong, everyone will be so happy about it they won't care.

weatherman

I can't remember which YouTube clip it was I was watching on the LHC but one of the scientists was asked about this and he pointed out that pretty much every particle accelerator project has had a similar suit thrown at it. Nothing to worry about here. Move along. Move along.

TheCyberBob

If you don't exist anymore, you really can't get pissed that you don't exist anymore. So I don't know what everyone is getting prematurely pissed about.

scarbrtj

If you look at the specs of the LHC, the ACTUAL amount of energy used in EV (electron volts) is very small. IF a micro black hole or monopole is generated, there is no way the energy imparted to the creation is large enough to make something substantial.

When they say "micro black hole"...they mean MICRO...as in: so small you can't measure it with the human eye. The tiny creation will just vaporize within micro seconds (or even faster, maybe pico or femto seconds).

FrankenPC

I, for one, am going to stand next to it so it can grant me super powers. Either that or a fifty pound tumor. Either way, I win.

BasicBlack

They just need to fix one of their boffins up with an HEV suit and a crowbar. Just don't join Civil Protection when the time comes...

wizardofpants

If there is anything that Hollywood has taught me it's that anything can be contained with Plexiglass. Just build a clear box around the thing and we will be fine.

jaydez

I saw Howard the Duck...

joelja

The few milliseconds between when this things starts to spin out of control and the impending destruction of the universe, this guy is going to have some serious egg on his face.

bobman1235

@Darrone: hehehehe

NaleAne

=\

This whole black hole thing worries me...somewhat. Didn't Chinese scientists make a mini sun via tridium from spiderman 2 last year?

ManjiKengo

I suggest keeping Richard Dean Anderson on standby, just in case.

BMErdin

If I get sucked into a black hole I'm gonna sue.

GiltProto

Hawking radiation makes the tiny black holes disappear pretty much instantaneously.
Besides, if you compress a grapefruit enough for its mass to create a black hole; 3" away from it, it still has the gravitational influence of a grapefruit. So, no worries.

Switch to Don Imus making an offensive remark about black hoes.

Slartibartfast

I think the LHC is not nearly as dangerous for Hawaii as having ocasionally active volcanos nearby, but it's hard to figure out who to sue in the case of a volcano. The Architect? Your High School Geography teacher?

www.DVDs4theSAT.com
SAT tutoring you can rewind

gimoz

I think the atom bomb was going to set the world on fire.

PDSM

Seeing as naturally-occurring cosmic rays produce more energetic collisions in the Earth's atmosphere all the time, I think we can conclude that the people behind the lawsuit are a bunch of morons!

LittleJon

This is the part of the movie where slimy scientist Stanley Tucci reassures officials that all precautions have been taken.
Meanwhile rebel scientist Dennis Quaid is racing against the clock to try to warn President Morgan Freeman before it's too late, all the while attempting a reconciliation with his estranged son Shia LeBeouf.
You better go for popcorn because a lot of us are going to die in about 20 minutes.

Lorne

@TedB.: Just like the weatherman. He doesn't have to be right, but if he is you are glad he made the perdiction.

bigjerm853

I just want them to send in someone with Telsa-looking hair, a long-furred white cat, and a monocle for the deposition.

gattsuru

Should I pray for our safety? Oh well, end of the world here we come! (maybe)

lastgene

Large Hadron....

It's just begging for a typo.

Darrone

"It's no threat at all, he says: "A year from now, the world will still be here."" And if this guy is wrong, he will never have to take back what he said.

TedB.

@DaOtter: and Mike Nelson and his robots friends can watch it first!

DaOtter

But will it give helicopters cancer?

Even if there were marginal safety risks, I think the possibility of discovering the Higgs boson carries a lot of weight, never mind the myriad of other things we may find.

DaOtter

Where the hell is my horror movie about this thing? Something like Event Horizon meets the The Mist, with a little Space Odyssey built in. Cmone people!

Darrone

So, this will not steall all of my porn then? I Say Let's learn!!!

bigjerm853

One thing that I was surprised by in this lawsuit is that the people that filed it weren't some crazy religious fanatics. That aside, it's still super laughable.

Derrick

@karmaghost:

Sure, in the 4th/5th centuries, but I think science has moved on a little since then, don't you?

A remarkable number of people seem to think people thought the earth was flat in the middle ages/Columbus' day. It's simply not true.

treetrunk

Bringing in an outside Physicist to check their numbers and look at the precautions is never a bad idea. If it's their machine and their research I'd rather have the reassurance come from someone else. Sorry but if it's Better to wait a few more months then to have the opening scene from Akira.

It reminds me of the guy in Alaska that build the Cyclotron in his basement... Albeit that was just for Nuclear Medcine Material and not godless scientist opening up Pandora's Box =)

BlindKarma

You HAD-ron me at "Hello."

LOLomfg eleventy!!!11

-I'll go die now....

axiomatic

@Lorne:

Make that two. In self defence I read the comics and found them hilarious. Hell, Howard was the precursor to Duckman. And Duckman was a great show.

FrankenPC

@joelja:

I saw Howard the Duck...

Lorne

@karmaghost: I'm pretty sure that the researchers who decided that the earth was flat simply stepped outside, looked at the ground they stood on, and decided that without considering that things disappear over the horizon.

Kaiser-Machead

@ripfire4: Please explain this "universe" reference frame to me and Mr. Einstein. We don't get it.

gibson042

@nutbastard: I mean the guy had schematics! And a picture of a laser being bent!

workingonyourinvoice

@DaOtter: Wow, there goes two hours of my day.

workingonyourinvoice

@karmaghost: It was, then god balled us up and threw us out and started writing a better plot....

Falconfire

@SirDrinksalot: Don't forget the sub "Into the Black Hole".

ripfire4

"...their research shows it's safe."

One day, a long time ago, research showed the Earth was flat, too. Just sayin'.

karmaghost

I always read it to be "Large Hardon collider" - a terrific pr0n title.

SirDrinksalot

If the Earth is destroyed, I'd prefer that it happen before Bush leaves the White House. I'd like another thing to blame on his administration. Thanks.

Dirk

@ugar:
I was going to suggest that Fred Thompson would be playing the president, but that would be crazy.

Lorne

@SirNirian: Tin foil hts won'tprotect you from the Governments mind control device. Also know as mass media, a cure is to stop watching shit like Fox News.

duckballs

@gibson042: Too long to explain. Just read about Cosmic Background Radiation.

ripfire4

Just don't drink a lot of chocolate milk before this thing happens. You'll be confused as to which event made you invisible.

LoganSix

Nothing can possiblie go wro.. possiBLY go wrong. That is the first thing to go wrong.

odnet

@Darrone: Comment of the day, imho!

ninjagin

Oh great. Once we are sure the Graviton exists, can we concentrate on Space Travel and the Colonisation of Mars again?

I mean, all this will do is back up calculations, but what the hell do we gain from knowing the specs of one Atom!? Flying Cars? FTL Jump Drives!?

Or Nothing. Again.

Klappstuhl

@DaOtter: love the comic.and is it just me or have people become more paranoid lately and not paranoid like your baked out of your mind and you think the cops are at your door but like i have to wear my tin foil hat cuz the government is gonna use there mind control device to turn everyone into there minions kinda paranoid.

SirNirian

@Lorne: Morgan Freeman wasn't the president, that was "Deep Impact".

ugar

My only question is this: Can we use the L.H.C. to become the ultimate power in the universe?

Assuming we do find signs of life on neighboring planets/moons, we want to be sure we have the resources to KICK THEIR ASSES. Fear will keep them in line.

SuppleMonkey

No one really know what caused the Big Bang. What if this was it?

Invent hadron collider, flip the switch, cause big bang, create space, galaxies, planets, humans, invent large hadron Collider, flip the switch, cause big bang, create space, galaxies, planets, humans, invent large hadron collider, and repeat until done.

frigg

Besides, why not file a law suit to stop production, propagation, and use of things that we know can destroy the Earth- like nuclear weapons, biological weapons, real life shows about Rosanne Bar etc...

DeadWriter

I am still wondering if gravity moves(reacts) at the speed of light, and CERN can help answer this and many other esoteric questions.

Besides- if the Earth is swallowed nearly instantaneously by a black hole, who will know or be left to complain?

DeadWriter

If anything, this has the potential to spin-off an infinite number of hilarious Farside cartoons.

aelver

Well. I think my friend said it best. "Don't they realize those are the holes that demons crawl out of?"

Besides. I imagine it'd be quick. We'd never feel a thing.

antidayjob

@frigg: Unless some Hobo stops you at the Bus Station and babbles "All this has happend, and will happen again.", you're safe.

Klappstuhl

Then again ...

Out of this world/another world [en.wikipedia.org]

lordargent

Slartibartfast: Hawking radiation makes the tiny black holes disappear pretty much instantaneously.
Besides, if you compress a grapefruit enough for its mass to create a black hole; 3" away from it, it still has the gravitational influence of a grapefruit.

I came in here to say this. You'd basically have a tiny point with the gravitational pull of a grapefruit. Which probably wouldn't affect much since it would pale in comparison to the gravitational power of the earth.

IE, you don't feel the gravitational pull of grapefruits now, so a black hole formed from a collapsing grapefruit wouldn't be noticed either.

Plus "Black hole grapefruit" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

/I would be more worried about them forming wormholes.

lordargent

If this thing gets delayed or something...until 2012 then i WILL get very nervous. :P

Mike918

@DeadWriter:
I think it's already happened and we're now suspended at the event horizon of a black hole, because it feels like it's been 4:30 pm on a Monday for about three weeks already.

Lorne

"Contrary to the somewhat feverish claims laid out in an recent lawsuit, when our favorite particle-smashing, Force-finding Large Hadron Collider is switched on soon it will not result in the destruction of life as we know it."

Famous last words. As for the day before they turn it on.. I've emptied my bank account, got a 5 star hotel booked, a ferrari booked and 6 call hawt girls. I plan to go out in style.

JordyT

They could use these tiny black holes, to absorb the planet busting death ray, if the Death Star ever comes around here!

bugstomper2

When they first tested the atomic bomb (not 100% about the validity of this) But they thought that the way the atomic bomb would work would be through a chain reactions through the atmosphere. That's why it gets so large. But they didn't know whether it would be just big or if it react through the entire earth's atmosphere and basically destroy the earth.

Jitty

If the world disappears, nobody will care anyway, so I don't see a problem.

cyborgtroy

so what about two years from now?

burningsensation

On another note:

@DeadWriter:

Gravity doesn't have a set speed. Things on Earth fall at a rate of 9.8 m/s, but the gravity of a black hole is so strong it pulls in light. It all depends on how massive the thing the gravity is pushing on.

Tomahawk214

Because CERN is absouletly right. You can do all the research you want but you can't be sure until you do it. I'm not saying that the collider is going to destroy everything but I think CERN needs to pull their heads out of their asses and realize they didn't make the laws of the universe.

Tomahawk214

right now the writers at 24 are starting to think of yet again another plotline.

"jack they have the hadron collider!"
"Dammit!"
"where is the bomb"
"there is no bomb"
"ok then were ok right?"
"uhh they can create black holes with the thing"
"whaaaa?"
"uhhh whatever, jack there is a bomb at the hadron collider"
"BOMB!, I'm on it!"

next season it will be a pregnant puppy that ate a bomb and jack had to throw out of a window into an orphanage/ hospital

takemetoyourtoaster

@lordargent: "Black hole grapefruit"

Yep, that's a great band name.

SuppleMonkey

@ripfire4: You realize that the Big Bang "happened" everywhere, right? For that reason, the Cosmic Microwave Background comes at us from every direction. And for that reason, it is a worthless frame of reference.

gibson042

is it 13.0.0.0.0 already?

Paradise

@Jitty: Only a few cranks thought the atom bomb would create a chain reaction that would destroy the Earth. No serious physicist thought that.

LittleJon

@gibson042: you have to pick a frame of reference to measure movement. if you're in a car and see the car next to you keeping pace, it hasn't moved relative to your car. stand on the side of the road and view the same car and it obviously has moved. the vague "universe" frame of reference that ripfire4 is referring to would be like standing on the side of the road. if you magically found the "unmoving" center of the universe and used it as your frame of reference, the earth (and the sun, and all the other planets) would have moved away from you in a year's time, even if the earth is in the same position it was 365.26 days ago when using the sun as a reference.

if you want a real mind blow, do some research on how frame of reference affects observations when things are moving really really really fast. (think speed of light fast). things that seem to be constant (like the "steady" passage of time, for example) don't seem to be constant anymore. example: in a way, we've already time-travelled. the russian cosmonaut that (still?) holds the record for the most time in space is 1/60th of a second in the future (kinda). because he was moving quite fast, relative to the surface of the earth, he experience time differently and is basically 1/60th of a second younger than he would have been if he'd stayed on the ground. this is why physics rocks and the LHC needs to fire up on schedule. Higgs Boson FTW. (i mean come one, they don't call it the "god particle" for nothing)

back on topic: these hawaiians are idiots and i hope i didn't join their ranks by spelling "hawaiians" incorrectly.

stre

2012 is coming sooner than we thought!

guyin916

Energies exceeding... even

LittleJon

@Tomahawk214: Just listen (or read at least)! Collisions of naturally occurring cosmic rays with the Earth at energies exceed what the LHC will generate happen all the time! The Earth (and the Moon, Mars, etc) are all still here.

LittleJon

apple needs to patent black holes and sue these biatches

Arelar

@stre: Every point in the universe is the "center", and on large distance scales all points are moving away from each other. So with respect to what, exactly, would one be unmoving?

We're not talking about special relativity, but its general extension (and specifically the incorporation of curvature to spacetime).

gibson042

@lordargent:

So if you take a grapefruit and smash it down to a point; you've created a black hole with the mass of a grapefruit (which doesn't have much affect at all on anything within a few inches gravitationally speaking). Got it. A black hole without much mass is mostly harmless.

But since this mini-black hole is still very, very dense, won't it drop through all the matter below it due to the pull of Earth's gravity, and fall right through to the center of the earth? Maybe it would bounce around a bit before settling, but the center of the Earth seems like a nice place for it to end up.

How big is the event horizon of a black hole with the mass of a grapefruit? Because if it is bigger than the atoms that make of the stuff at the core of the Earth, it'd consume them, and add that mass it its own. The added mass would expand the size of its event horizon, allowing it to chow down on more of the stuff at the core of the Earth. Eventually, all the Earth could be sucked into the black hole. Wheee!

I guess the question is; how massive must a black hole at the center of the Earth be, to be large enough to consume the Earth?

I'm a bit fuzzy on the math, but I think it has to be a lot bigger than a grapefruit. Don't tiny black holes actually radiate mass away from their event horizons and shrink, eventually winking out of existence in one last blast of radiation?

Damn, I need to go back to school.

FLskydiver

@FLskydiver: Wait a minute.

From Wiki: "All black holes are believed by many theorists to emit Hawking radiation at a rate inversely proportional to their mass. Since this emission further decreases their mass, black holes with very small mass would experience runaway evaporation, creating a massive burst of radiation at the final phase, equivalent to a nuclear weapon exploding."

Sorry, Hawaiianites.

FLskydiver

.

FLskydiver

@FLskydiver: Whoops. The surface at the Schwarzschild radius acts as an event horizon in a non-rotating body. So the size of the event horizon of a black hole formed from a grapefruit (the distance from the singularity at which matter or energy falling inside will be consumed by the black hole) has to be somewhat proportional to the ratio between of the size of the Earth (which of course is all-in-all denser than a grapefruit) to 18mm. In other words, small enough to be of no consequence. I think.

Go ahead CERN guys, let it rip!

FLskydiver

@FLskydiver:

Ok, did some math (not really). The Schwarzschild radius of the Earth is about 9mm. That means, if you wanted to compress the all the matter in and on the Earth to a point where it would inevitably form a black hole, you'd need to squeeze it down to a sphere with a diameter of about 18mm.

So a grapefruit would need to be squeezed quite a bit smaller than that, I guess. Still trying to figure out the size of the event horizon.

FLskydiver

Somehow I have to think of the Doomsday Machine.

hanswurst0815

We can't be absolutely certain that the LHC poses no risk of creating a black hole. To suggest otherwise would not only be naive but irresponsible. This experiment is the first of its kind; it is new and untested. Therefore, we can't say that the doomsayers are 'morons', because those same minds warned about the splitting of the atom. On the positive side, nothing may happen - but we cannot say that it never will, or can't. Because it can.

tauremini26

There is always a risk, even if it is small. This is a revolutionary and new, untried project. True, it is CERN's machine, and yes they did build it, but it would be both assumptous and naive for them to just dismiss the possibility of risk. That would be tantamount to saying that the splitting of the atom was something that posed zero risk, when Oppenheimer & co knew quite well what the dangers were. So do CERN when it comes to the LHC. Don't be dismissive of real possibilities. After all, it's humanity's most embarrassing flaw.

tauremini26

CERN's web site states that we have not been destroyed by effects of cosmic rays and micro black holes will evaporate.

However, cosmic rays travel too fast to be captured by Earths gravity, and Hawking Radiation is disputed ([arxiv.org]) and contradicts Einstein's highly successful relativity theory. Collider particles smash head on like a car collision and can be captured by Earth's gravity, and relativity predicts micro black holes will not decay (Hawking called Einstein doubly wrong, yet it is Einstein who is repeatedly found to have been correct in his theories). There is currently no reasonable proof of LHC safety, LSAG (LHC Safety Assessment Group) has been trying for months to prove safety without success. I hold the minority opinion that it may not be possible because it may in fact not be safe.

Cosmic Rays from the legal complaint.

…any such novel particle created in nature by cosmic ray impacts would be left with a velocity at nearly the speed of light, relative to earth. At such speeds, …, is believed by most theorists to simply pass harmlessly through our planet with nary an impact, safely exiting on the other side. … Conversely, any such novel particle that might be created at the LHC would be at slow speed relative to earth, a goodly percentage would then be captured by earth's gravity, and could possibly grow larger [accrete matter] with disastrous consequences of the earth turning into a large black hole.

If this thing is so safe, why aren't CERN scientists allowed to express any personal fears they might have about this Collider?

Alleged in the legal action: Chief Scientific Officer, Mr. Engelen passed an internal memorandum to workers at CERN, asking them, regardless of personal opinion, to affirm in all interviews that there were no risks involved in the experiments, changing the previous assertion of 'minimal risk'.

(Statisticians generally consider minimal risk as 1-10%).

jtankers

OK OK OK how bout this...

1) Scientists aren't always right
2) Scientists sometimes lessen the risk of a project or experiment to obtain proper funding (NO, ABSOLUTELY NO FLIPPER BABIES.....well....ok, maybe ONE flipper baby)
3) Humans have always been plagued with that little thing called hubris...it generally leads us into messes that could have been avoided

And yes, before anyone states the obvious that the next reference is science fiction and not fact...I am acknowledging that the following reference is science fiction and not fact...however...

Did anyone read that old short story by Larry Niven about the team of scientists that find this alien machine and they can't figure out how it works so they start messing with it and turn it off and it turns out it was getting its power from a micro black hole that was held in place by a whopping humongous onlyanaliencouldmakeit gravitational field and when they turned it off the micro black hole was sucked up by the planet's gravitational field and before killing the scientist it passed through it fell to the center of the planet where it started bouncing around in the core and eating up all of the core's yummy goodness basically dooming the planet?????

Anyone...anyone....

Astralwrx

Simple: CERN's web site states that we have not been destroyed by effects of cosmic rays and micro black holes will evaporate.

However, cosmic rays travel too fast to be captured by Earths gravity, and Hawking Radiation is disputed ([arxiv.org]) and contradicts Einstein's highly successful relativity theory. Collider particles smash head on like a car collision and can be captured by Earth's gravity, and relativity predicts micro black holes will not decay (Hawking called Einstein doubly wrong, yet it is Einstein who is repeatedly found to have been correct in his theories). There is currently no reasonable proof of LHC safety, LSAG (LHC Safety Assessment Group) has been trying for months to prove safety without success. I hold the minority opinion that it may not be possible because it may in fact not be safe.

Cosmic Rays from the legal complaint.

…any such novel particle created in nature by cosmic ray impacts would be left with a velocity at nearly the speed of light, relative to earth. At such speeds, …, is believed by most theorists to simply pass harmlessly through our planet with nary an impact, safely exiting on the other side. … Conversely, any such novel particle that might be created at the LHC would be at slow speed relative to earth, a goodly percentage would then be captured by earth's gravity, and could possibly grow larger [accrete matter] with disastrous consequences of the earth turning into a large black hole.

If this thing is so safe, why aren't CERN scientists allowed to express any personal fears they might have about this Collider?

Alleged in the legal action: Chief Scientific Officer, Mr. Engelen passed an internal memorandum to workers at CERN, asking them, regardless of personal opinion, to affirm in all interviews that there were no risks involved in the experiments, changing the previous assertion of 'minimal risk'.

Sincerely, JTankers LHCConcerns.com

jtankers

Hmm perhaps you all remember a little movie called superman? Jurel told everyone that Krypton would blow up within 30 days. No one believed him and look where that got them.

cachanova

The Scientist also claim the LHC does NOT play Doom, and that Earth will be around long enough for Skynet to go online

ElYoNer

The Scientist also claim the LHC does NOT play Doom, and Earth will be around long enough for Skynet to go online

ElYoNer

Could it be the long lost Dharma station?

heindaddio

"A year from now, the world will still be here." What happens after that?!?

bigsoda

There is strong evidence that the LHC *will* destroy the world. It's called the Fermi Paradox: where are all the extraterrestrial civilizations? One logical explanataion is that they destroy themselves with ill advised experimentation.

Civilizations that reach this level of technological capability without real understanding of the underlying physics involved inevitably destroy themselves.

Those cosmic ray events are just the signature epitaph of yet another baby civilization poking its fingers into the electrical socket of spacetime and getting severely fried.

Lets understand a bit more of the physics involved. The physics community can't even make up its mind whether a recent paper by some surfer guy is a major breakthrough or nonsense. Claiming that the LHC is zero risk is hubris to the extreme. Even if the probability is once chance in a quintillion, the expected loss is infinite.

And they said the space shuttle had a one in a million chance of failure.

ramblin101010

Silly! It's not going to blow up the world, it's going to create a time dilation portal which will then proceed to resurrect Jesus and once he's back you better be scared. He's bringing his thwomping stick and you're all invited to the party.

Glamdering

Now that I think about it, the Hadron is the big bang as we know it, its the very answer to the 'infinite time' question. It closes the time loop.

Predestination Paradox ftw.

Altanader

I'm surprised no one made a comment with this: [xkcd.com]

macmankev

What is Gizmodo basing their ridicule on? It is amazing how many commenters also pitch in with a har har. There is a SMALL change of the production of detructive particles/mini-black holes, and the LHC people recognize this. A large part of the issue is to do with probabilities. If the consequence is, say, the destruction of life on Earth, then the probability of that event ought to be darned small. There is an academic paper on the probability isse by Adrian Kent. ([arxiv.org]). It's not all silly talk. Actually Kent is a very conservative scientist in many respects. Get a clue Gizmodo - look up some facts and you know THINK. You techie types should be able to handle that.

reasoner

@jtankers: Hey, champ. Just thought I'd inform you that no one cared the first time and no one cared the 2nd time.

Jest

edit↓
Dilbert Oops

Have you see the Dilbert Oops article?

And who exactly ran the numbers to decide it wasn't that risky? After all, the whole point of the Large Hadron Collider is to create conditions that are not predictable. If someone already predicted what would happen using nothing but his laptop and Excel, and determined it was safe, I don't think we're getting our $8 billion worth.

I can't see the management of this project spending $8 billion, realizing it was a huge boner, and then holding a press conference suggesting it be turned into a parking garage. I'll bet a lot of people in that position would take at least a 5% risk of incinerating the galaxy versus incinerating their own careers. I know I would.

jtankers