Comments on: Doomsday, in the Court

By: paul

paul — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 06:14:50 +0000

Mankind has made tremendous progress in the past by acquiring the unknown truths.In our quest for knowledge ,inherent risks have to be boldly faced to achieve results. Let us hopoe the powerful proton collisions in the LHC will produce a new type of matter or ray which will be of utmost benefit to mankind. If in the process the earth come to an end we will not be there to regret it. In any case everything including the universe has to come to an end. We should consider ourself lucky if the end comes in our life time .

By: Kwai

Kwai — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:10:56 +0000

In response to mat I would like to say that I am also terrified of calamity’s of this scale occurring on earth.
Even silly things like ‘The sun will expand’ drive me insane,and after hearing about this at my schooling I would like to say ‘Why?’ Why are we doing this if it even has a small chance that it could have damage?It doesnt matter about small chances to them,but if you took a chance on everything,even if it is a 1/10000% chance we would all probably be dead already.
There are even bad and good sides to this machine.
1.If it does work,we may start playing the old style ‘chicken game’ for measures of science.Every time we succeed at a higher risk rate we will keep going on,and on until the end.
2.If it doesn’t succeed we wasted all this money just for pieces of knowledge,which for some reason some people value over there lives themselves.Which is ok,in some points of mind.
3.If it goes completely wrong,which has a very low chance, we would have wrecked the entire human race,probably not so the universe,for something as little as information.
Ask yourself right now, If you have read this.
“Do I r e a l l y need to know this information the machine may,or not provide,can I not just leave it as that?”.
Either way this is my last piece of information one,like the rest of this post is completely my own.
“The human race will keep searching to find its answers,but nothing in existence that seeks for something, will ever find everything it wishes to.”.

By: Mat

Mat — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:55:59 +0000

Shawn, you scare me, you really do. Risking everything we love and know on some thing that could potentially wipe clean all civilization is stupid, risky and above all certainly carries the stench of arrogance and ignorance. Now, I like science as much as the next guy (especially the proposition of faster than light speed!), but this is goimg overboard. If there is a risk that such a catastrophe could happen, why are we taking the chance?

P.S. I’m not a troll, it’s just that this stuff scares the daylights out of me.

P.S.S. Shawn, have you ever played the videogame Halo, if not, look up 343 Guilty Spark on Wikipedia, you two have something in common.

By: prespecifics

prespecifics — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:31:32 +0000

Not quite surprisingly the arguments in the US are the same as in Europe.
The logical circularity of the LHC experiments as well as the safety reports by CERN is correctly mentioned by the taxi-driver metaphor. All their safety arguments start from or uses the theory of standard model, thus the same scientific arguments they used to build the machine. Even the best and latest one (Giddins & Mangano) fail to examine all possible parameter constellations, as Dr.Plaga (http://arXiv.org/abs/0808.1415v1) has demonstrated.
Those scientists at CERN are orthodox fundamentalist incapable of reflecting the assumptions of own work, the just “belief” and do propaganda, all the times repeating the same wrong arguments, incapable to recognize the totality of the threat. What would Einstein have said to those cranky folks?

By: hh

hh — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:44:29 +0000

Ponder this,

What if we have done this before, and we are stuck in a infinite loop. Forever to repeat our mistake.

By: Kash

Kash — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 02:36:41 +0000

Does “absolute motion” mean anything to anyone? Any fissure in space-time would be a solid frame of reference in determining the absolute motion of the earth because it would be absolutely still in reference to the structure of the universe. If a mini black hole(fissure) were created, it would shoot off in whatever direction that is opposite to the motion of the earth, which could be through the air or through the earth, in either case, most likely being able to stabilize itself and grow. It is a sick fact that this type of problem is even remotely worthy of consideration.

By: CCR

CCR — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:11:13 +0000

I don’t think the risk is small.
The risk cannot be estimated properly because of lack of experimental data and knowledge in this area.
The argument “it happens in the nature” is not conclusive. It never happened before.
1. Such a concentration of colliding high-energy ions in small point of space-time does not occure in nature (Earth and moon). Who can predict issues of interference of mass collisions. For example mini-black-holes can interflow and become more stable.
2. Most of those particles are deflected by magnetic field of the Earch and stopped in the atmosphere. But LHC is under the surface of the planet. Destruction of protons releases much more energy than nuclear fission.
Such mass collisions may produce much more high-energy particles.
Who can predict what may happen when all those particles attack the surrounding matter. Chain reaction is possible.

By: Kash

Kash — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 03:12:24 +0000

Hopefully, the energy point would then evaporate(within microseconds). Thank you.

By: Kash

Kash — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 03:04:59 +0000

A new prediction: The collision will create a single point of enormous energy, creating mirogravity that will violently suck towards it the x number of protons within the immediate vicinity.

By: Kash

Kash — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:13:51 +0000

Also, how do we know that the particles won’t fuse at such energies, instead of annihilating, creating a new particle that could be dangerous to the particles inherent to our universe. There are simply too many theoretical and potentially unseen outcomes and consequences from this project to even think for a second that it’s perfectly “safe”. The world must make a united decision to whether on not this project should be allowed, not a handful of scientists.

By: Kash

Kash — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:50:09 +0000

The true fact is that this experiment could cause a rip in the fabric of space-time. This is due to the fact that the smallest known particles are being collided at the highest energies human beings can create. The defenders of this project make comparisons to “stars having energies far greater than enything we can produce”, but fail to think of the big picture. Stars do not isolate particles. Stars have so much gravity and weight that small particles are meaningless to their being. By concentrating and colliding the smallest know particles, the very structure of space-time is at risk. These particles may be small enough and have such great energy that they could “pierce” the structure of space-time, creating the big bang all over again. How do we know that this is not how our universe was created? – intelligent beings that were foolish enough to tamper with the unknown in the most awesome fashion. – If you get to the foundation(of the structure), it’s over. Think about this and make right decision before you take a chance on playing God – literally.

By: Derek

Derek — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 23:46:22 +0000

@Walt: “This stunning admission is because they truly don’t know what’s going to happen.” Er….if they knew what was going to happen, they wouldn’t be experimenting, would they? That’s the whole point.

By: Ian

Ian — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:08:42 +0000

Hey!! You guys need to give a little more respect to the fears of the less-gifted masses who, quite frankly, pay for all your fun and games.

If you’re expecting to make mini black holes you’d better have a damn good fall-back plan. These things aren’t famous for evapourating they’re famous for eating everything in sight.

You can’t keep building bigger and more powerful machines without sooner or later making something dangerous so why don’t you humour us and make a press statement about what exactly you plan to do if one of your little black holes refuses to go quietly?

No I’m not clever and, yes, I am frightened.

By: Robert I. Marsh II

Robert I. Marsh II — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:16:03 +0000

I predict at CERN LHC ALICE Heavy Ion collisions, scheduled for 2009, the formation of an Einstein-Rosen Bridge Wormhole: QUANTUM WORMHOLE! Initiated by: quantum inverse radiation (plasmatic field energy), that affects gravitational waves, and creates a curvature within the fabric of Space/Time, and allows a compression singularity vortex to stabilize, an event-horizon expansion. The boundary magnitude event, would then come in direct induction with the Cryonic Superconductor Dipoles, and Detector Array!

By: Robert I. Marsh II

Robert I. Marsh II — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:06:20 +0000

With half of the ‘Standard Model’ missing, shrouded within the mathematical haze of pure speculation (guessing); and with the LHC built upon this unstable foundation, there is no telling what surprises lie ahead! There shall be at least one sector, of the ‘Standard Model’, changed in a sweeping tsunami, causing the mathematicians and physicists to scramble wildly to make corrections. A BRAVE NEW WORLD! It will take the LHC experiments, to lift the physics community out from their stagnated, depressing quagmired current positions! There is no doubt, that the future world desperate energy needs, can be solved by LHC; however, this production course should be traveled with extreme caution!!!