The European Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a billion-dollar supercollider designed to smash protons together in an attempt to uncover the origins of the universe, is nearing completion and should go online by the end of the summer. But the appearance of the $6 billion supercollider has fueled fears among doomsday theorists that the powerful subatomic explosions created by the installation could create a black hole that will swallow up the earth.
It may sound like science fiction or the ramblings of a group of misguided zealots with too much time on their hands, but in fact there is some scientific evidence supporting these outrageous claims. When it finally goes online this year, the LHC will be the most powerful atomic supercollider in human history, and at least in theory, the extreme reactions produced have the potential to create small black holes, capable of engulfing the matter around them.
But despite the relatively limited amount of evidence suggesting the LHC’s potential to create small black holes, the overwhelming consensus among working physicists is that the collider poses no threat whatsoever to humanity or the Earth. A study released in June considered each of the arguments against bringing the massive supercollider online. The resulting report found “no basis for concerns” that the LHC could result in black holes capable of “swallowing up” matter.
Writing in the report, the panel of physicists admitted the potential of the LHC to create small and instantly vanishing black holes, but the panel noted that similar phenomena are already in existence: cosmic rays from the sun produce millions of miniscule black hole type events all the time which pose no threat whatsoever to the Earth.
In other words, yes, the new supercollider is capable of producing small and instantly evaporating black holes (at least in theory), but the chance that these events could have any negative effect on humanity or the planet is virtually zero. The conclusions of the report were endorsed by scores of independent scientists, as well as the United States Department of Energy, the US National Science Foundation, and renowned theoretical physicist Steven J. Hawking.
Still, many critics remain skeptical of the commission’s report. In fact, there are dozens of HLC web sites and forums online, buzzing with doomsday talk, and ridiculing the hubris of the scientists involved for attempting what they perceive to be “such a risky experiment.” Of course, many of these naysayers are the same people who predicted the millennium bug would destroy civilization as we know it, and we all know how that turned out. Take it with a grain of salt.
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Your article fails to mention that “instantly evaporating” assumes that disputed Hawking Radiation is real.
I am the founder and co-administrator of LHCFacts.org and a software developer; I was not concerned about the millennium bug. I agree with Professor Dr. Otto Rossler, micro black holes may have the potential to destroy the planet in 50 months to 50 years.
Safety has not been proven and only a handful of physicists have studied the flawed safety arguments in detail enough to repeat more than flawed public relations propaganda.
The internally divided approval panel (hand picked members of CERN’s Safety Policy Committee) called neutron star and cosmic ray safety arguments “unverified” and only approved CERN’s 2008 LHC Safety Report by a 4/5 majority.
Unfortunately, the danger is “very conceivable“.
Comment by JTankers — July 27, 2008 @ 4:54 am