Elysian Shadows

I'm surprised this topic hasn't been opened yet.

For hose of you who don't know about this: Shame on you for missing biggest science experiment up to date.

Short (Wiki) description: wrote:The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, intended to collide opposing beams of protons or lead ions, each moving at about 99.9999991% of the speed of light.[1]

The LHC was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) with the intention of testing various predictions of high-energy physics, including the existence of the hypothesized Higgs boson and of the large family of new particles predicted by supersymmetry. It lies underneath the Franco-Swiss border between the Jura Mountains and the Alps near Geneva, Switzerland. It is funded by and built in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories.

This video is a pretty good introduction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9XotvwgnaY

Although there are tons of stuff all over the net.
If you're interested, just do a little search, and lots of results will show up.

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

I read about that on /. when it opened. I remember there was a little bit of concern about generating black holes that were too large to collapse on themselves and would destroy the earth. http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/23/134251 and then if it was going to generate a supernova http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl? ... 29/2352241 and here's a bunch more articles on LHC in general it http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=LHC

Black holes that would destroy the Earth.. what's the big deal?

Exactly.. By looking at the direction we're heading, black hole would at least make it quick and painless.. :P

I'm just kidding, of course. Remember that not long a go people believed that Earth is flat, because some smartass told them if they didn't, God would force natural disasters, and before that could even happen they'd have to burn the poor guy.. or crucify.. or both.. you get the picture.. so my question is. How is that different from this..?

If you're a dumbass (like me) then either edjukate yourself about it (nuclear physics in this case) or stay the foug out of it..

Fear of the unknown.

EDIT: I am stupid and not afraid to admit it.

I believe that if there is a chance it is very slight and needs to be ignored, worse comes to worse we all die... which is inevitable anyway

Death is not inevitable, I will live forever or die trying!!!

Seriously though haven't they turned that thing on yet?

Yes, then it broke. It won't be back on for a few months, I believe.

lol biggest science experiment in history and it breaks when they turn it on that's awesome.

Hey, we're all still living so it couldn't of broke that bad? Oh wait.. it's when it starts doing what they want it to that we should be worried. I forgot the part about them purposely destroying Earth.

Remember in Matrix (the movie), when Neo comes to visit the Oracle. When she says "Don't worry about the vase". Neo says: "What vase?" Turns around and brakes it. "Blah, blah". Later she says: "The real question is, would you brake the vase if I haven't warned you about it..?". (something in that sense. I don't remember the quotes exactly)

So when they say that It could generate a black hole that will bring the end of the universe, they might just be asking for it. Why? Well.. Imagine you being "smarter" than thousands scientists, and decide to put an end to the experiment. You go there deliberately cut some wires in hope that the experiment will fail. As they start the experiment something strange starts happening. Everything starts shaking, in a matter seconds the Earth is gone. Billion years later a race of aliens, light years away form Milky way, recreate the accident thanks to technology unimaginable to us.. They see A FUCKING IDIOT, GOING INTO THE MAIN TUBE, CUTTING THE WIRES OF A SECURITY SYSTEM THAT WOULD PREVENT SUCH DISASTER, LIKE BLACK HOLE GENERATION!!

The energy required to generate a stable black hole would be enormous, many times greater than anything we've witnessed on Earth. The LHC doesn't have anything close to that. This is taken from the CERN site: "We say concentrations, because we are not talking about huge amounts but an enormous concentration of energy. Each particle accelerated in the LHC carries an amount of energy equivalent to that of a flying mosquito." The particle is traveling at relativistic speeds, but it is so small that it does not carry much of a punch.

In fact, cosmic rays strike the atmosphere at higher energies than the LHC will generate. So, we actually have more to fear, in terms of black holes, from cosmic rays than from the LHC.

The LHC may not even generate black holes at all. Some theories allow for the possibility, but these black holes would be tiny and collapse in on themselves within a fraction of a nanosecond. They would not be able to be witnessed, and definitely not able destroy the world.

Before it was dropped, some people feared that that the atomic bomb would burn up the atmosphere, but that was proved to be nonsense, just as well as the LHC doomsday scenario will be very soon.