(LHC) Cosmic rays from deep space strike the earth every day (LHC)

with energies energies hundreds of millions of times greater than anything the LHC could ever dream of.

For example, protons can be accelerated up to 7x10^12 eV in the LHC.

Cosmic rays can have energies on the order of 10^20 eV.

*Sigh*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Rays
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LHC

and who really knows what could happen with this experiment?

Really?

You come off as arrogant re this issue, and need to remember that we all have our areas of interest and advanced study. Physics is not my forte. This experiment is disconcerting to me, and to many others. Even the NAtional Geographic states "It sounds scary, and it is", and that "One minor calamity has already happened: A magnet all but jumped out of its skin during a test in March 2007. Since then 24 magnets have been retrofitted to fix a design flaw. The people running the LHC aren't in a rush to talk about all the things that can go wrong, perhaps because the public has a way of worrying..."

Yeah, call me silly, but this experiment scares me, as the atomic and nuclear experiments scared people in the 1950s. Whether those were a smart idea or necessary is highly debatable. I feel the same way about this one.

don't feed into the climate of ignorance.

this is same type of argument that was used before the first test of the hydrogen bomb. Will it burn up all of the atmosphere? Will we all die in a flash?

guess what, we are still here. Have some faith for crying out loud.

:banghead:

Oh, and Pardon me for not having unwavering faith in the experiments and games of men -er, mankind. Go slap your own face, genius.

I don't associate with willfully ignorant people.

oh and your no doubt witty retort will go unread by me so your level of satisfaction will be blunted.

good day, you are now blocked.

boob.

you start the flaming and insulting, and give inappropriate and irrelevant responses to reasonable comments. Glad to know you will not be bothering me anymore

Before we get into a discussion about general relativity and quantum mechanics, how much do you know about the "threat?" I don't want to tell you things you already know.

Specifically, do you understand the basis behind the creation of black holes and strange matter?

I wrote before, this realm is not my forte. As far as getting into a discussion with you about this, I am afraid it would be one-sided. I know it is true that one fears that which they do not understand. Spending some time educating myself about this would undoubtedly help assuage those fears, and make me a better conversationalist on the topic, but I am not inclined to spend time on that in the next few days. What I do know from personal experience and observation is that experiments are by nature fraught with unknowns, not all problems can be fully or accurately anticipated, men can make mistakes, and bad things can happen. My instinct (or ignorance) tells me that there is potential for catastrophe with an experiment like this one. If that isnt the case then why, as the Nat'l Geographic article stated, are those involved with this project reluctant to talk about the things that could go wrong?

NG's fact checkers let everyone down on this one. It aggravates me that a publication as prestegious as National Geographic didn't do a simple google search to make sure the people they were interviewing were the least bit credible. The original article is here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080909-black-hole_2.html . I mean, "dark matter factory?" Srsly? They betray a fundamental lack of understanding of the terms they are throwing around. My guess is that this is at some sort of desperate cry for attention that the media picked up on account of its sensation value.

The two people mentioned in the article are:

Walter L. Wagner - http://www.coasttocoastam.com/guests/1515.html

A lawyer who claims to be a physicst, but whose only professional training is a physics minor to go along with his biology BS.

Luis Sancho is apparently a random internet kook. His website is here: http://www.unificationtheory.com/astrophysics/starandgalaxy.htm

The Bad Astronomer (Dr. Phil Plait) has a great synopsis of what went wrong here:

http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:3frbsSFdHBEJ:blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/29/no-the-lhc-wont-destroy-the-earth/+http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/29/no-the-lhc-wont-destroy-the-earth/&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Sorry for the long link, the blog entry seems to be returning a 500 error, but the article is still in the google cache.

I hope this has been helpful!

It is surprising & disappointing that NG would mislead the public with this article. i am bookmarking your post and will check out the links. Thanks again for your thoughtful and informative response.

Your underlying argument here is "I don't understand it so I'm afraid of it."

High school physical science class is about all the understanding of physics you need to know why this is not an issue.

so those same cosmic rays don't disrupt any experiments :)

I don't like it. It's a risk, and no one knows what will happen, despite their confidence that it is safe. I know it's been done before, but on a much smaller scale. I am watching this closely.

It may have not exploded yet due to the fact that your lack of recent observation has prevented its waveform from collapsing.

If you value the your life and that of the whole world, please don't open it and see.

It's better to be safe than sorry.

who can't take things at face value. It is what it is. I am not in any way religious, so don't even try to suggest that's my motivation either. It's just this fascination with why things are, and are not, that I don't have. I don't care. I don't need to know how mass, or matter got here. It just IS.

Regareless of what they find, or not find, it will never have ANY effect on me, in my lifetime, and possible never have any effect on anyone else, unless they are wrong about the safe factor, and they have spent 9 BILLION dollars to apease scientist looking for the higgs boson....


There are a LOT of scientist who object to this, so don't even pretend that everyone is OK with this.

That some people still believe the earth is 6,000 years old.

And the science produced by paricle colliders has already had practical applications in many areas, including nuclear medicine. I think science that teaches us better ways to heal people is pretty important, don't you?

but I also don't believe that spending 9 BILLION dollars for this experiment is right. Hell, we can't even spend a DIME to find a way to stop the perils that face people on this planet, such as hurricanes, and tornados. Seems to me, if they can do this, they could surely put the heads of those 7000 scientist together and come up with something to extinguish both hurricanes, and tornados before they strike. But they don't want to do that....god forbid they actually do something that changes lives for the better, right here, right now. The US spent 535 MILLION dollars on this, as an observer. WTF? Do we really have that much cash to just throw around? I think not.

But you seem to have all of the answers, so apparently, no one elses opinion matters.

:eyes:

on tornadoes and hurricanes but because you fail to understand the practical application of things like the LHC you don't want money spent on that?

Ehhhh, ok....

I don't have all the answers but I have a 9th grade understanding of physics and have done a moderate amount of reading on the LHC and understand why it's an important bit of research.

Typing up a forum post on a computer whose CPU is made up of transistors -- a fundamental electrical component governed by quantum mechanical phenomena that were unknown a century ago, but were discovered via physics -- using the world wide web, which is an invention of scientists at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research. LOL

TL;DR -- "I'm incurious and I get angry when people don't like it." -- You

Sound like anyone we know?

Also, I'm sure you can find self-proclaimed "scientists" who will say anything. There are plenty that deny global climate change, but guess what, that doesn't make them any less wrong. :p

I am hoping for the black hole ... no need to pay my Visa bill.

Like a cosmic ray lens allowing the astronauts to BBQ in space!

;)

I can be super annoying, but that's it.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

I keep thinking that all of the trepidation is just sarcasm, but then I realize that some are actually frightened by all this. I just don't get it.

The thing is that nature's own bounty of super-fast nucleons don't collide with other things in places chock full of epic XBOX HUEG detectors, whereas the ones in the LHC will. We can only learn from them if we see what happens with ridiculious levels of detail.

^_^

If anyone is worried, they should endeavor to go out an learn a little bit of physics.

The fact that people are taking this thing as a serious threat shows how little science is being taught in our school systems.

Also, informative link: http://www.badastronomy.com