Dr Strangelet...

[Beowulf]

...or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Large Hadron Collider

Ok so who's worried and who's not? I think the press are (as usual) attempting to whip up a frenzy of panic over nothing again. Sensationalist headlines proclaiming the end of the world is nigh.

So are you in the group of people who think life as we know it will end in May 2008. Do you think we'll all get sucked into a micro black hole? Do you think the entire universe will be reduced to a soup of strange particles? Or, like me, do you think it's the press trying to drum up a panic where there is none? I mean.. if some of the greatest minds on this planet think it's safe.. who am I to argue?

[DavidY]

Well it probably went on the Risk Assessment sheet as:

Risk: Entire planet gets sucked into new Black Hole created by collider, trashing life on Earth and the Solar System
Probablity: Low
Impact: High

Or maybe
Probablity: Very Very Low
Impact: Very Very High

I think this is more likely though.

[Dreadful Scathe]

i think it'll be like the opening sequence in "ANOTHER WORLD" - great game

[Barry Shnikov]

Originally Posted by Beowulf

...or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Large Hadron Collider

Ok so who's worried and who's not? I think the press are (as usual) attempting to whip up a frenzy of panic over nothing again. Sensationalist headlines proclaiming the end of the world is nigh.

So are you in the group of people who think life as we know it will end in May 2008. Do you think we'll all get sucked into a micro black hole? Do you think the entire universe will be reduced to a soup of strange particles? Or, like me, do you think it's the press trying to drum up a panic where there is none? I mean.. if some of the greatest minds on this planet think it's safe.. who am I to argue?

It's exactly the same thing as the panic about railways - that people travelling at more than 30 mph would be killed - and about space travel - that astronauts travelling outside the van Allen belt would be disintegrated by cosmic rays.

Ooooh! Aaaaaah! Let's get scared!!

[Stuart M]

Oddly, I always thought that one was attributed to Lord Kelvin, as yet another of his peculiar scientific pronouncements, but I can't find the quote anywhere. Something along the lines of "It is physically impossible for human beings to travel at speeds exceeding 30mph: they would asphyxiate."

As to the subject in hand, I'm hoping that in May, the scientists will miraculously create an Infitinte Impossibility Drive out of thin air.

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by Stuart M

As to the subject in hand, I'm hoping that in May, the scientists will miraculously create an Infitinte Impossibility Drive out of thin air.

Are they doing the experiment at a very high altitude ?

[Stuart M]

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

Are they doing the experiment at a very high altitude ?

Obviously. It gets harder to spell up there too.

[killingtime]

Originally Posted by DavidY

Well it probably went on the Risk Assessment sheet as:

Risk: Entire planet gets sucked into new Black Hole created by collider, trashing life on Earth and the Solar System
Probablity: Low
Impact: High

I'd read a risk assessment document if it had entries like that .

[ducasi]

Originally Posted by Beowulf

I think the press are (as usual) attempting to whip up a frenzy of panic over nothing again. Sensationalist headlines proclaiming the end of the world is nigh.

Links?

Before you get a black hole, don't you need a very large mass to create the gravitational effect?

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by ducasi

Links?

Before you get a black hole, don't you need a very large mass to create the gravitational effect?

Lets hope Cern isn't where Pavarotti was buried then

[Barry Shnikov]

Originally Posted by Stuart M

Oddly, I always thought that one was attributed to Lord Kelvin, as yet another of his peculiar scientific pronouncements, but I can't find the quote anywhere. Something along the lines of "It is physically impossible for human beings to travel at speeds exceeding 30mph: they would asphyxiate."

Doubtful that it was Kelvin as by his time people were already travelling at that speed.

[Barry Shnikov]

Originally Posted by ducasi

Links?

Before you get a black hole, don't you need a very large mass to create the gravitational effect?

A black hole massing equivalent to the entire plasma stream at CERN would probably be smaller than the Planck length in diameter. It could run backwards and forwards through the earth for an enormously long time before it even hit another atom. It would be like firing a marble through the milky way and expecting to hit a planet.

On the other hand, I heard a 'serious scientist' discussing the issue on R4 and it seems some well-informed physicists do have concerns, so...?

(Please excuse imprecision: I haven't specified whether, by black hole, I mean the singularity, or the event horizon. The singularity, of course, has no 'size' at all.)

[Stuart M]

Originally Posted by ducasi

Before you get a black hole, don't you need a very large mass to create the gravitational effect?

Or, indeed, encircling the Vatican. Badoom-tish.

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by Stuart M

Or, indeed, encircling the Vatican. Badoom-tish.

unless they do it on a Tuesday afternoon

[Stuart M]

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

Lets hope Cern isn't where Pavarotti was buried then

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

unless they do it on a Tuesday afternoon

These two posts have finally, after 5 years, helped me diagnose what's up with Dreadful Scathe.

Random Pavarotti Disease

[Dreadful Scathe]

you gotta watch plasticine, you can catch things from it. I refuse to eat anymore.