Did you catch the discussion on NPR’s Science Friday just past? I was particularly pleased to hear some calm, thoughtful responses from someone who definitely knows his way around the issue, on a major broadcast. What issue? Whether or not we high energy physicists are carefully endangering planet earth (or even the whole universe) by switching on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) later this year (or whenever it is due to start collisions). You’ll recall the lawsuit, since I posted on it here (with links to other thoughts), and perhaps you even recall my April Fool post on the matter.
Well, Ira Flatow was talking to Frank Wilczek! It was a good, informed chat around the issues that also gave Frank a chance to explain a little about what the machine was really constructed for (since this seems to so easily fall out of these public discussions of black holes and extra dimensions and strangelets (interesting as they are), and to plug his book that is due to come out. Since it’ll almost certainly be a really interesting and informative read, I’ll happily mention it here as well… if you’ve read it already and want to tell others about it.. holler in the comments! The book is called “Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces” and is apparently due out in the Fall. Anyway, Frank addressed the issue with three points:
- There are collisions of that sort and even much higher energy happening in the universe all the time.. and right here at earth via Cosmic Rays.*
- Physicists are real people with love of life and families and so forth. The idea that we’re planning to do something that we even vaguely thought would endanger the earth and are covering it up in a vast conspiracy is ridiculous.
- Smart people who do this sort of thing for a living (including Frank himself) were given this very issue to study some years back (when the accelerator called RHIC was about to come on line). They were to play devil’s advocate and try their best to think of some plausible way that the machine could be dangerous. They enjoy such challenges. They failed to think of anything.
This has all been said before (although I’ve not heard enough of the second point being said which although, as Frank said, it is more of a sociological argument, it is an argument nonetheless), but it was good to hear it on a well-listened-to program such as NPR’s Science Friday. I strongly recommend listening to the whole audio file. It is here.
Also, I learned today* of the article on this topic that appeared today in the LA Times, and the rather good shaving analogy. The quote, from Michelangelo Mangano:
“Look,” Mangano said, leaning forward in his chair at CERN’s sprawling complex, “what if I told you tomorrow when you shave you will blow up the world? You laugh. You say that can’t happen. But how do you know?
“The only thing we know is that there have been about a million billion shaves since people started shaving and the world is still here,” he said. “So all we can say is the probability of you blowing up the world when you shave tomorrow is less than one in 1015.”
-cvj
*Via Philip Tanedo’s blog.
CERNs web site states that we have not been destroyed by effects of cosmic rays and micro black holes will evaporate.
However, cosmic rays strike relatively stationary objects and results travel too fast to be captured by Earths gravity, while colliders smash particles head on, may focus all energy to a single point and can be captured by Earths gravity. Einsteins relativity theory predicts that micro black holes will not decay but instead only grow, and Hawking Radiation contradicts relativity, is unproven and is disputed by at least 3 peer reviewed studies that find no basis in science to support it.
The LHC Safety Assessment Group has been trying for months to prove safety without success. However science may still be a few years away from being able to provide reasonable assurance of safety or not at least with respect to creation of micro black holes on Earth.
Professor Dr. Otto E. Rössler (winner University of Liège Chaos Award and René Descartes Award), Dr. Raj Baldev (Director of the Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research) and others are warning of a very real, very possible, very present danger to the planet from the Large Hadron Collider. Dr. Rössler predicts that a single microblackhole could destroy the planet in as little and 50 months. His calculations have been released for peer review.
If this experiment is so safe, why arent 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%).
Previous safety studies ruled out any possibility of creating microblackholes in a collider. But predictions have changed and CERN has estimated the possibility of creating 1 microblackhole per second in the Large Hadron Collider. No peer reviewed safety study has ever been produced that I am aware of that speaks to the safety of creating microblackholes on Earth.
If we delay for a safety study, some scientists at CERN may not be the first to discover some new science, and some Nobel prizes may be at stake.
But which would more wise, conduct a full and independent adversarial peer reviewed safety study first, or just turn it on now and discover science as quickly as humanly possible?
JTankers
LHCConcerns.com
That is a clever response. But it is not a truthful response. The truth in my opinion is the following:
What is most worry some to me is how few people are aware of the danger, and how quickly most people are to put their trust in those scientists who run the experiments, a trust which is not fully justified in my opinion based on actions that appear to be more focused on public relations and preventing delay of collider operation startup rather than open and honest risk assessment, debate and an objective search for truth with respect to probability of danger as best that science can predict particularly with respect to micro black hole creation and capture by Earth’s gravity. (Previous RHIC safety studies limited the safety discussion related to micro black hole creation to the fact that it was not believed possible to create micro black holes at collider energy levels, however these predictions have changed as we know, and even CERN has predicted the possibility of creating up to 1 microblackhole per second at Large Hadron Collider energy levels, under conditions dis-similar in numerous ways to cosmic ray collisions with Earth, which may tend to make the Large Hadron Collider soon to be possibly the micro black hole factory in our galaxy.).
I tend to believe Professor Rossler’s prediction that the time frame between creation of a slow moving stable micro black hole and the total accretion or destruction of our planet may be closer to 50 months, primarily because this is what Professor Rossler of Germany has predicted and published calculations to support, and because I have faith in his proven genius in many fields of science including being the foremost scientist in the field of chaos theory. Professor Rossler’s micro black hole growth rate equations have been released for peer review. http://www.wissensnavigator.com/documents/OTTOROESSLERMINIBLACKHOLE.pdf
JTankers
LHCConcerns.com
Wilczek is awesome. I was lucky enough to meet have lunch with him and introduce him for a talk a few years ago. 🙂
Will have to listen to the mp3 once I get the chance.
Taking one for the team? Thanks!
-cvj
which is exactly why I have a beard….
e.