I do random bits for the eminently groovy bob magazine in Manchester (see www.bobmagazine.co.uk). In the latest issue there's a piece on the LHC - speaking to the very pretty Dr Brian Cox (pictured above... mmm, dreamy. In fact D:REAMy) about the myths, mystery and potential mayhem that fires around its 27km of underground tunnelling.
See http://www.bobmagazine.co.uk/images/issues/bob_issue_three.pdf for the full article. (As I'm new to this lark I have no idea how to put the links in properly - knowledge one hopes to acquire quick fookin smart)
This was written in response to some conCERN's (see what I did there) that were raised in and around the article. It never saw the light of day there, but it's a living and a breathing right here.
Risking it all
The question is; when it comes to the safety of the planet, is it worth taking even the smallest of potential risks?
The scientists at CERN, with their budgets of billions and backing of 20 governments, seem to think this is a moot point. They plan to prize open a cosmic door with their light speed collisions next April or May, no matter what fears there may be that the mother of all booby traps waits behind it.
And to be fair, you can‘t blame them.
Their colossal experiment has taken a decade to prepare, every theory they have about the foundations of the universe is reliant upon it and the staggering budget they’ve received will surely never be repeated unless they make their big money shot and consummate the deal. There is no backing out now.
What’s more, and here’s the key argument in their favour, they are the ones that are qualified to make the decision on its safety.
In fact, to be fair, they are the ONLY ones who are truly qualified – and that’s also a crucial part of the problem.
The doom-monger, or even just the neutral that’s prone to worrying about his ass disappearing down a black hole, will surely be ruminating over the possibility that they’re too close to the woods to see the trees. That their future’s are so intertwined with the LHC’s snaking 27km of tunnelling that they’ve lost their ability to think outside the tube.
Hence we see a bunker mentality emerge when anyone has the temerity to question the validity of taking a chance with an experiment on this scale - of basing activity that could impact on the entire planet on unproven theorising. The questioners become amateurs, lunatics or irrational conspiracy theorists, when in reality they’re only concerned citizens of a global community worrying about the futures of themselves and their families.
They deserve the right to express their opinions – their theories – and they deserve to get a true understanding of what’s going on before someone flicks the big switch.
If they don’t get that CERN will only have themselves to blame if a Simpsons-esque mob ends up marching on Geneva – replete with ‘down with progress’ placards – intent on smashing up the LHC with broken bottles and planks sporting rusty nails in them. And no one wants that.
What both parties should want is a more open, public discussion about the LHC.
Science is an esoteric field and therefore not inclined to popular democracy, but when we’re talking about planet shifting experiments maybe it should be (we all have an opinion on CO2 emissions and global warming after all).
We should be made to understand the processes that will take place there and the potential for calamity. CERN should be taking more time to communicate what it hopes to achieve and the dangers of not taking that step forward into the unknown. We have to discuss whether this is the right thing to do and assess whether any risk, no matter how small, is acceptable.
People tend not to get involved in fields like science because they don’t understand it and don’t want to be made to feel stupid by questioning the experts. With issues like the LHC however, I think it’s time that that pride took a back seat.
After all, I’d rather be a living, breathing idiot than a dead stupid fool. That’s one risk that’s definitely worth taking.
3 comments:
The Large Hadron Collider [LHC] at CERN might create numerous different particles that heretofore have only been theorized. Numerous peer-reviewed science articles have been published on each of these, and if you google on the term "LHC" and then the particular particle, you will find hundreds of such articles, including:
1) Higgs boson
2) Magnetic Monopole
3) Strangelet
4) Miniature Black Hole [aka nano black hole]
In 1987 I first theorized that colliders might create miniature black holes, and expressed those concerns to a few individuals. However, Hawking's formula showed that such a miniature black hole, with a mass of under 10,000,000 a.m.u., would "evaporate" in about 1 E-23 seconds, and thus would not move from its point of creation to the walls of the vacuum chamber [taking about 1 E-11 seconds travelling at 0.9999c] in time to cannibalize matter and grow larger.
In 1999, I was uncertain whether Hawking radiation would work as he proposed. If not, and if a mini black hole were created, it could potentially be disastrous. I wrote a Letter to the Editor to Scientific American [July, 1999] about that issue, and they had Frank Wilczek, who later received a Nobel Prize for his work on quarks, write a response. In the response, Frank wrote that it was not a credible scenario to believe that minature black holes could be created.
Well, since then, numerous theorists have asserted to the contrary. Google on "LHC Black Hole" for a plethora of articles on how the LHC might create miniature black holes, which those theorists believe will be harmless because of their faith in Hawking's theory of evaporation via quantum tunneling.
The idea that rare ultra-high-energy cosmic rays striking the moon [or other astronomical body] create natural miniature black holes -- and therefore it is safe to do so in the laboratory -- ignores one very fundamental difference.
In nature, if they are created, they are travelling at about 0.9999c relative to the planet that was struck, and would for example zip through the moon in about 0.1 seconds, very neutrino-like because of their ultra-tiny Schwartzschild radius, and high speed. They would likely not interact at all, or if they did, glom on to perhaps a quark or two, barely decreasing their transit momentum.
At the LHC, however, any such novel particle created would be relatively 'at rest', and be captured by Earth's gravitational field, and would repeatedly orbit through Earth, if stable and not prone to decay. If such miniature black holes don't rapidly evaporate and are produced in copious abundance [1/second by some theories], there is a much greater probability that they will interact and grow larger, compared to what occurs in nature.
There are a host of other problems with the "cosmic ray argument" posited by those who believe it is safe to create miniature black holes. This continuous oversight of obvious flaws in reasoning certaily should give one pause to consider what other oversights might be present in the theories they seek to test.
I am not without some experience in science.
In 1975 I discovered the tracks of a novel particle on a balloon-borne cosmic ray detector. "Evidence for Detection of a Moving Magnetic Monopole", Price et al., Physical Review Letters, August 25, 1975, Volume 35, Number 8. A magnetic monopole was first theorized in 1931 by Paul A.M. Dirac, Proceedings of the Royal Society (London), Series A 133, 60 (1931), and again in Physics Review 74, 817 (1948). While some pundits claimed that the tracks represented a doubly-fragmenting normal nucleus, the data was so far removed from that possibility that it would have been only a one-in-one-billion chance, compared to a novel particle of unknown type. The data fit perfectly with a Dirac monopole.
While I would very much love to see whether we can create a magnetic monopole in a collider, ethically I cannot currently support such because of the risks involved.
For more information, go to: www.LHCdefense.org
Regards,
Walter L. Wagner (Dr.)
A clearly indepth, educated response but one that is still hard to get through for anyone without a degree in physics. What, for example, is E-23 seconds?
The whole thing is deeply worrying though, but can it be stopped?
Vic
Some of the smartest people in the world, are forgetting one small detail...... this wonderfully elaborate "test" to see how the universe was created still leaves the blank void of an answer to HOW the matter that caused the so-called "big-bang THEORY" came to be. However interesting as it may seem that somehow scientists involved in this study will know as fact that whatever occurs during this project is the instant re-play of creation, is nothing more than overactive imaginations and childhood wonders. The TRUTH of the matter is that NO ONE knows, nor will ever know, how the universe was created. Why are we stretching our minds for billion dollar tests based on theories, which will "do" nothing for the crisis our earth and the people who are living in it today? Instead of focusing our funds, intelligence, and lives toward a cause to prove to someone (?) that we have no meaning, why should we not be putting out efforts toward obvious attentions? Just accept God for who HE is and thank him that he is allowing you to be here this moment.
1 Corinthians 3:18-23
18 Don't fool yourselves! If any of you think you are wise in the things of this world, you will have to become foolish before you can be truly wise. 19 This is because God considers the wisdom of this world to be foolish. It is just as the Scriptures say, "God catches the wise when they try to outsmart him." 20 The Scriptures also say, "The Lord knows that the plans made by wise people are useless." 21-22 So stop bragging about what anyone has done. Paul and Apollos and Peter [a] all belong to you. In fact, everything is yours, including the world, life, death, the present, and the future. Everything belongs to you, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
And I'm sorry, but the "big-bang-theory", is only just that..... a theory. As entertaining as it may seem that someone has the knowledge of the equations of time itself, it just isn't plausible. You cannot realistically say that a few worldly educated persons(or anyone else for that matter) know with fact how the universe came to be. There is no composite understanding of black holes or much of anything else outside our solar system. There are plenty of assumptions and ideas, but no one can say with honesty that they fully understand what a black hole is and how they are formed, etc... I could go on for days with this subject, but I'll save you the annoyance. If you want the truth of life itself, including a better understanding of the universe, please read the Holy Bible. As saturated and disperse as Christianity has become over the past 50 years, there are undeniable truths that cannot be dismissed. However upsetting to me it is, the truth is that our morals and standards of living, will continue to diminish as worldy clutter continues to obstruct our eyes away from the truth. More theories will appear based off false and misleading textbooks that will be replaced by more false information. And the result will be individuals who base life itself on sci-fi movies. This is a good place to remind you now, that NO check is valid, no document legal, no receipt accepted WITHOUT the admission (the date) of the greatest historical event in human history, the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ. So with that truth comes another. If we accept Jesus, then we accept the Bible. And THAT is the ONLY book here on this earth you will find any morsel of truth. Please stop with the obsurdness of trying to locate the so-called "God Particle". If you haven't seen HIM yet (LOOK AROUND!) then your attempts are futile. God Bless you all.
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