"Physics for Dummies", or "The Day the LHC Ate The Earth"
You may have heard about CERN. It's the Centre Européen pour la Récherche Nucleaire, the European center for nuclear research. It's located on both sides of the Swiss/French border near Geneva, and it's where the intarwebs was invented.
You also may have heard that CERN is building - respectively has built - the LHC, the Large Hadron Collider, which is a huge bad-ass particle accelerator. Quoting a google group: This mechanical behemoth located along the French and Swiss border with a total estimated circumference of 17 miles will be the most powerful particle accelerator in existence. [...] The Large Hadron Collide is hoped to discover what is referred to as the "Higgs Boson". Although a theoretical scalar particle theorized by Peter Higgs in 1974, it is actually a member of the standard model, and it is believed that the Higgs Boson is what gives matter "mass". To achieve the observation of the Higgs Boson, the LHC will be smashing these Hadrons (specifically Protons) together at speeds almost unimaginable to the average person, at near [light speed].
This fills me with glee, because I have a thing for big bad-ass particle accelerators. What fills me with amusement, however, is the reaction CERN is getting for building this accelerator.
Still quoting the same google group. (General note: random capitalization, missing punctuation, typos and general faily sentence structure that may appear in the quotes are not mine.)
The Large Hadron Collider operates at a total combined energy of 14TeV, [...], as such the possibility of Black Hole creation is a reality, in fact on CERN's own web site they admit it could create Black Holes [...].
So they do. They also stated that those Black Holes would disappear in a matter of femtoseconds, losing matter through the emission of energy via a process discovered by Stephen Hawking.
But we're talking theoretical astrophysics here, right? So Hawking never based the theory of this process they mentioned on actual observation. How could he? Up until now, nobody had a particle accelerator that could actually create Black Holes. Therefore, concerned scientists are concerned.
The problem is that although most people in the physics community believe in Hawkings Radiation, it has no basis in observation. In 2003 Adam D. Helfer Published a paper concerning Hawking's Radiation coming to the conclusion that Hawking's Radiation may in fact be incorrect, and that a Black Hole would not lose mass in such a way. [...] The main problem lies in believing in theory as fact, every argument for safety made concerning Black Holes and thier creation immediately references Hawking Radiation, however, if Hawking Radiation turns out to be incorrect then the Black Hole would continue to accrete mass at an exponential rate.
To make a long story short, the concerned scientists (ignoring the fact that processes like the Hadron collisions that would be happening in the LHC occur in space all the time) don't believe that miniature Black Holes lose mass almost immediately after their creation, but that they grow bigger. And how does a Black Hole grow bigger? By accumulating mass. What mass would a miniature Black Hole created in the LHC accumulate? Well, Earth mass.
It's a homemade apocalypse theory. Ignorant Scientists spend tons of money on Particle Accelerator of Doom, Ignorant Scientists start to collide particles, Ignorant Scientists ignore tell-tale signs and the Voices of Reason uttered by the Concerned but Powerless Scientists, Ignorant Scientists eventually create Miniature Black Hole, which, instead of collapsing immediately, starts to grow bigger and bigger, eating up first the Ignorant Scientists, then the Particle Accelerator of Doom, then the Concerned but Powerless Scientists, then Switzerland and France, then the Rest of the World, and finally, it will probably swallow the universe whole. Om nom nom nom.
Science wank. It's a thing of beauty, isn't it?
[source]
You also may have heard that CERN is building - respectively has built - the LHC, the Large Hadron Collider, which is a huge bad-ass particle accelerator. Quoting a google group: This mechanical behemoth located along the French and Swiss border with a total estimated circumference of 17 miles will be the most powerful particle accelerator in existence. [...] The Large Hadron Collide is hoped to discover what is referred to as the "Higgs Boson". Although a theoretical scalar particle theorized by Peter Higgs in 1974, it is actually a member of the standard model, and it is believed that the Higgs Boson is what gives matter "mass". To achieve the observation of the Higgs Boson, the LHC will be smashing these Hadrons (specifically Protons) together at speeds almost unimaginable to the average person, at near [light speed].
This fills me with glee, because I have a thing for big bad-ass particle accelerators. What fills me with amusement, however, is the reaction CERN is getting for building this accelerator.
Still quoting the same google group. (General note: random capitalization, missing punctuation, typos and general faily sentence structure that may appear in the quotes are not mine.)
The Large Hadron Collider operates at a total combined energy of 14TeV, [...], as such the possibility of Black Hole creation is a reality, in fact on CERN's own web site they admit it could create Black Holes [...].
So they do. They also stated that those Black Holes would disappear in a matter of femtoseconds, losing matter through the emission of energy via a process discovered by Stephen Hawking.
But we're talking theoretical astrophysics here, right? So Hawking never based the theory of this process they mentioned on actual observation. How could he? Up until now, nobody had a particle accelerator that could actually create Black Holes. Therefore, concerned scientists are concerned.
The problem is that although most people in the physics community believe in Hawkings Radiation, it has no basis in observation. In 2003 Adam D. Helfer Published a paper concerning Hawking's Radiation coming to the conclusion that Hawking's Radiation may in fact be incorrect, and that a Black Hole would not lose mass in such a way. [...] The main problem lies in believing in theory as fact, every argument for safety made concerning Black Holes and thier creation immediately references Hawking Radiation, however, if Hawking Radiation turns out to be incorrect then the Black Hole would continue to accrete mass at an exponential rate.
To make a long story short, the concerned scientists (ignoring the fact that processes like the Hadron collisions that would be happening in the LHC occur in space all the time) don't believe that miniature Black Holes lose mass almost immediately after their creation, but that they grow bigger. And how does a Black Hole grow bigger? By accumulating mass. What mass would a miniature Black Hole created in the LHC accumulate? Well, Earth mass.
It's a homemade apocalypse theory. Ignorant Scientists spend tons of money on Particle Accelerator of Doom, Ignorant Scientists start to collide particles, Ignorant Scientists ignore tell-tale signs and the Voices of Reason uttered by the Concerned but Powerless Scientists, Ignorant Scientists eventually create Miniature Black Hole, which, instead of collapsing immediately, starts to grow bigger and bigger, eating up first the Ignorant Scientists, then the Particle Accelerator of Doom, then the Concerned but Powerless Scientists, then Switzerland and France, then the Rest of the World, and finally, it will probably swallow the universe whole. Om nom nom nom.
Science wank. It's a thing of beauty, isn't it?
[source]