DOOMSDAY FEARS SPARK LAWSUIT

[The Sushi Bandit]

Source: MSNBC

The builders of the world's biggest particle collider are being sued in federal court over fears that the experiment might create globe-gobbling black holes or never-before-seen strains of matter that would destroy the planet.



Read more: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/27/823924.aspx

---

Summary: In what can only be considered a bizarre court case, a former nuclear safety officer and others are suing the U.S. Department of Energy, Fermilab, the National Science Foundation and CERN to stop the use of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) until its safety is reassessed. The plaintiffs cite three possible 'doomsday' scenarios which might occur if the LHC becomes operational: the creation of microscopic black holes which would grow and swallow matter, the creation of strangelets which, if they touch other matter, would convert that matter into strangelets or the creation of magnetic monopoles which could start a chain reaction and convert atoms to other forms of matter. CERN will hold a public open house meeting on April 6 with word having been spread to some researchers to be prepared to answer questions on microscopic black holes and strangelets if asked.

[caraher]

1. I know of one person who suffered debilitating anxiety over this

There are some perhaps surprising historic precedents. Before the first atomic bomb test there was a worry that perhaps setting off a runaway fission reaction might (somehow; I'm not exactly sure how) destroy Earth's atmosphere.

There's a fascinating dilemma here, as scientific research implies at least some uncertainty about the outcome. What level of scientific uncertainty about doomsday scenarios is acceptable? Or to turn the tables, what level of plausibility about outcomes merits reconsideration of a major research project?

[Xipe Totec]

2. Nitrogen fusion

The idea was given the ultimate test in the New Mexico desert on the morning of July 16, 1945. We've heard plenty about the test called Trinity, but few people know that what what was most important about the explosion was not what happened, but what didn't happen.

The chain reaction did not get out of control. The atmosphere and oceans did not ignite. The world did not end in a planet-enveloping blaze of light. A few dozen physicists bet everything -- all life on the planet! -- on their ability to calculate in advance the result of an experiment that had never been tried before.

[Oak2004]

6. The safety of the experiment was never seriously in doubt,

just as the safety of the LHC is not really in doubt.

All the power we can amass with our machinery is a pittance compared with the natural energies ordinarily occurring in the universe. If the speculated chain reactions were possible we'd be observing them, and we're not.

While in principle we can create a doomsday machine (weird kid that I was I even tried to do a seventh grade science project on how to build a doomsday machine: today I guess I'd have been arrested for my effort), we're not even close to controlling the energies necessary, and likely never will never have access to the necessary energy.

[electropop]

34. We won't have access to the energy

as long as the Bush-Laden cartel control the world's energy. :evilgrin:

[sudopod]

10. Interesting fact

The earth's surface is bombarded by uncountable numbers of high energy nuclei from the cosmic depths every day. These nuclei have energies that dwarf anything CERN can produce by orders of magnitude, and were most likely launched our way by cataclysmic events such as colliding neutron stars, gamma ray bursts, and supernovae that happened billions of years ago.

Our itty bitty particle collider really isn't a threat in the grand scheme of things. ;)

The only thing that this article demonstrates is the brain-achingly amazing lack of research that reporters and internet kooks do before shooting their mouths off and scaring innocent people to death about non-events. Meanwhile, 4000 soldiers die in a war we never should have started and nobody cares.

[damntexdem]

23. And if the lawsuit were to succeed, we'd surely be so safe ...

until the experiment were performed in Europe.

[Abacus]

28. Your friend should probably avoid

EXIT MUNDI: A COLLECTION OF END-OF-WORLD SCENARIOS
http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm

[caraher]

30. Very true! :) nt

[darue]

3. perhaps...

gamma-ray bursts are caused by civilizations developing the ability to make something like a LHC.

probably very probably it's safe, but a closer look for a year or so might not be such a bad idea

[The Sushi Bandit]

4. Ironic that the suit was filled in Hawaii

the most geographicly isolated place on earth!

[DBoon]

5. They forgot one dire but unlikely outcome

It might waken a sleeping monster



It will be our fault when Tokyo is destroyed!

[SpiralHawk]

11. "Have no fear. The Super Decider is here." - Caped Commander AWOL

[damntexdem]

24. But even if he were to awaken, why would McCain destroy Tokyo?

;-)

[DBoon]

37. He tried to hit Tehran and missed?

nt

[SlowDownFast]

7. Stephen King's The Mist

is about a Doomsday Machine (particle collider) that opened a portal with which various alien creatures entered through.

So is the video game series Half-Life.

Both are pretty spooky.

:scared:

[Shakespeare]

32. Not to mention the basis for Dan Simmons' entire Hyperion series.

Creeeeeeepy.

[truthisfreedom]

8. Certainly puts the invasion of Iraq and the collapse of the US economy in stark perspective.

[sudopod]

9. This is dumb as hell

A black hole with the mass of a handful of protons is no threat to anything.

Even tiny numbers like W's IQ are enormous in comparison to this thing's lifetime. It will have the mighty gravitational pull of...gasp...a handful of protons.

This asshattery is right up there with the moon landing deniers and the guys who think the world is run by lizardmen who live on the moon. I hope no one EVER makes science policy decisions based on nutty stuff like this.

Recommended Wiki-searches: black hole, general relativity, Hawking radiation.

[Javaman]

14. I, for one, welcome our new Lizardmen over lords. nt

[electropop]

35. The Bush regime makes science decisions based on nutty stuff

every day of the week! It's their bread and butter.

[NutmegYankee]

12. This is dumb. Particle collisions occur in the cosmos.

If it could form some exotic thing, we'd already see evidence in our telescopes.

[The Sushi Bandit]

26. Agreed!

[caraher]

13. I'm not at all worried myself

The question I struggle with as I teach physics to college students who are not science majors and unlikely ever to take another science class in their lives, is how to equip them to process stories like this. Obviously it's impossible to give more than a superficial overview of physics in 1 semester, but does that leave me at telling them "just trust the experts?" That may be true in this case, but given that the difference between science and dogma is that science can be revised in the light of new evidence there's always a window of uncertainty. And I do know the answer to my question is NOT to misrepresent scientific knowledge as a collection of unassailable facts!

[Oak2004]

17. To me on this one the obvious weapon against ignorance are the laws of thermodynamics

and in particular the commonsense principle that you can't get something for nothing.

The math may be a bit daunting to a non science major, but the thought experiment isn't: Think about how much energy it would take to destroy the universe, or even only to physically destroy the earth. It's a lot of energy, right? More than humans are currently generating or collecting on this earth, more than all the nuclear weapons we've created going off at once (which quite likely would destroy human civilization and much of eathly life, but would scarcely blemish the physical planet).

To physically destroy the earth (lets forget the universe for the moment) you've got to get the enormous energies from somewhere in order to do it -- either you need to have that much already in energy form, or you have to convert matter to get that much energy. Humans simply can't command that much energy at the moment.

Another way to look at it: we don't expect to open the refrigerator and find a turkey roasting itself next to the cold milk. We know the energy isn't there in a refrigerator to cook a turkey. Even though the filament of the bulb that lights the fridge is more than hot enough to roast a turkey, it's not "big" enough to roast one. While things like the LHC can generate fairly high energies (still nothing like you can find in nature), they do so over a miniscule area. It's as likely to destroy the earth as that filament in the lightbulb is to roast the turkey in the refrigerator.

It's possible that the "laws" of physics (which are just very well established theories) will be revised by future research (the laws of gravity being an illustration). But the way that such well established theories change are never by turning them on their heads and throwing them out. Like other "laws" of science, thermodynamics has been tested and tested by everyone from the best minds of science to high school students in school laboratories, and if there are exceptions to what we know about thermodynamics, they occur at the very extremes -- the extremely small, the enormously large, or in the very young or very old universe, or, speculatively, where one universe impinges upon another. While the LHC is certainly intended to operate at the "extremes" of human experimentation, the universe is constantly generating observable phenomena that exceed the LHC's potential, and none of them have been observed to violate thermodynamics in ways we can observe from earth.

Teaching the art of thought experiments will give a powerful scientific tool to nonmathematical students, and a tool that can be fun, at that.

[redqueen]

20. Great post... thanks.

:)

[caraher]

33. Hmmm...

It can be tricky to get thermodynamic arguments like this right, especially when gravity is involved. Certainly the light bulb in the fridge is a vivid example of the differences among temperature, total energy and thermal energies, and works perfectly to put in perspective what the lay reader might think when reading accounts of colliders creating conditions of extreme temperatures. It's less clear to me how to explain the thermodynamics of miniature black holes...

So as I understand it, the doomsday scenario is that you create one of these little beasties and scientists are wrong about several things. First, maybe they don't evaporate due to Hawking radiation. Second (and this is an argument LHC foes do make), the natural production of black holes due to extremely high energy cosmic radiation in the atmosphere is not the same kind of threat because those black holes are not created at rest with respect to Earth and therefore quickly slip away, whereas artificial black holes will be created essentially at rest in the lab frame and therefore will stick around long enough to begin having interactions with terrestrial matter. A "large enough" black hole certainly would swallow Earth; the problem is explaining where the threshold is and why.

I haven't thought this all the way through yet... it still seems like the "real reason" Earth won't disappear upon creation of artificial black holes is that they simply won't live long enough cause mischief.

Oh, and I do agree about the utility of these thought experiments, and I find that I can get even the non-mathematical students to cope reasonably well with order-of-magnitude arguments given practice. (For instance, the last homework problem I gave in the class asked students to calculate the de Broglie wavelength of "the smallest thing you can see." This required a chain of estimates in addition to coping with extremely small numbers, and of course the point was to explain why we don't see quantum interference in everyday objects...)

[Codedonkey]

39. but how much energy does it take to create godzilla?

[NoodleyAppendage]

15. The black hole chance is improbable...but not impossible.

I'm all for giving a high degree of caution to this work. Any chance of a disasterous result, no matter how small, has profound implications for all of humanity.

J

[BadgerLaw2010]

18. The article explains why this is inappropriate use of words in science.

Science doesn't rule out anything, especially with quantum mechanics. You spontaniously evolving to a PBJ sandwich is not "impossible."

[NoodleyAppendage]

19. You don't need to explain scientific probability to me.

I also understand that when billions of dollars and research careers are at stake, there can be a tendency for those with self-interest to shape the methodologies used to derive those small p-values of risk.

The point is this: While the p-values are very small for a disasterous outcome, the outcome itself dictates that standard thresholds for statistical significance must be smaller than usual.

Spontaneously evolving into a PBJ sandwich, while not impossible, also does not have the potential to wipe us out of extistence...at least I think there's only a p < .0000001 chance of that happening. :)

J

[Blue_Tires]

16. man i wish we had one of them doomsday machines!

[Poll_Blind]

21. I hear the Chinese already have one- we must not have a doomsday gap!

PB

[mahatmakanejeeves]

22. Sorry, not in DC.

Stash it under the car seat when you cross the Potomac.

[Barrett808]

25. Didn't we already go through this with Brookhaven's RHIC?

I even wrote an LTE, the gist of which said we have more to worry about from climate change biodiversity loss than strangelets.

[caraher]

29. Indeed we did

And the people who raise the issue just say "Well, *this* time conditions are different; we were just lucky I was wrong before."

[bananas]

36. Yes - one of the particles escaped and killed John-John

It crashed his plane: http://www.google.com/search?q=jfk+RHIC

[FlyingSquirrel]

27. Curiosity killed the cat. n/t

[Beam Me Up]

31. Experiment date 12/21/2012?

/just kidding/

[Codedonkey]

38. lol

[Duppers]

40. the courts are actually going to hear this piece of SHIT???!!!

OMG, are people stupid!!!