Hadron Super Collider Research--Good or Bad?

Ran across this little article at MSNBC this morning--talking about the Hadron Super Collider at CERN and found the conflict over this project to probe the far reaches of physics interesting to say the least. The actual science of all this is far above my head, and it brings up an interesting question:

Who should judge projects like this, scientists or lay populations who will be the ones eventually affected, and whose money is paying for it?

Here's a snip:

But if the feedback so far is any guide, the real headline-grabber is the claim that the world's most powerful particle-smasher could create microscopic black holes that some fear would gobble up the planet.

The black-hole scenario is even getting its day in court: Critics of the project have called for the suspension of work on the European collider until the scenario receives a more thorough safety review, filing separate legal challenges in U.S. federal court and the European Court of Human Rights.

The strange case of the planet-eating black hole serves as just one example showing how grand scientific projects can lead to a collision between science fiction and science fact. The hubbub also has led some to question why billions of dollars are being spent on a physics experiment so removed from everyday life.

Click to expand...

I think there are some interesting moral, ethical and practical issues here.

Thoughts?

"Enriching humanity" sounds like a supervillianism to me.
If the balls touch, we all die, that´s for sure.
Hopefully there´s some candy on the other side of the black hole.

Well didn't Oppenheimer think the A-bomb might ignite the atmosphere and kill us all?

I think this is great. The original Superconducting Super Collider was being built in Texas (Waxahachie) in the early 90's until Congress cut funding. Lots of cool things we might learn from these experiments. And if they do create minuscule black holes, maybe we'll have just stumbled onto a new power source!


And of course if it kills us all, well no one will be around to say I told you so.

blatantninja said:

And of course if it kills us all, well no one will be around to say I told you so.

Click to expand...

And it will solve all our problems.

blatantninja said:

And of course if it kills us all, well no one will be around to say I told you so.

Click to expand...

I will, since I´ll be hiding under the table when the fireworks are supposed to happen.

The really bad thing is when I focus my intuition on it, it just seems to cry out.

This is a really bad sign, since my intuition does this in only very, very rare cases.

From this point of view, I'm really, really worried.

And yes, I think I know enough bits to understand the problem. Atom research and particles are a small (and a little bit neglected) hobby of mine. As far as I can do without maths with it.


One of my worst fears in it is that - if something *really* happens, then the great scientists will be absolutely clueless what to do in case of a Black Hole, because they never made plans how to handle this event - out of the thought that this "cannot be".
In short: Will we all die because of the Hybris [hubris] of a few scientists who think they know it all ? Who try to step over things that they don't know in fact at all ? Just because they believe they can master it all ?

To put it mre theatralically, this could be kind of a turning point of Humanity.
Because wise are those who know what they do not do !

We already developed nuclear energy - which led to both atom reactors and the atom bomb.

If this hadn't be developed, we wouldn't have "the Bomb", and would've needed other means of dealing the electricity consumption. It's really a double-edged sword. But both sides are equally dangerous (Tchernobyl).

Now, this is the point where I personally believve the step should not be taken that far in the collider - because after Murphy's Law things most likely *will* go wrong ...

i dont like it, buncha mad scientists!

I'm not particularly worried. It seems to me that the alleged dangers are rather speculative. There are several significantly more well-founded dangers to the survival of humanity on this planet.

FWIW, In the book Earth by David Brin (hereby recommended), a human created black hole enters earth. It's been some time since I read the book, but as far as I remember, that was not the main issue in the book. The environmental exploits of the twentieth century was more important.

As to whether we should spend money on things like this, I would say yes. It's human nature, it's how we ARE. You could argue against spending in all the basic sciences, but as I see it all appliead science, all technology ultimately derive from knowledge achieved in basic science.

*Humming "We will all go together when we go" (Tom Lehrer)

I saw one of the guys bringing the lawsuit against the project on the tube tonight--he looked and sounded undeniably flaky. I'm of two minds about it--part of me sides with the scientists and the 'unbounding curiosity of mankind' factor, which is curiosity for the sake of curiosity, and turns up all sorts of things in its wake which turn out to be useful or even groundbreaking.

The other part is going "Yeesh! How many billion dollars?" ($6-$10B US)

One of the reasons I put this up is because most of the funding is coming from the EU countries who are members of CERN. I salute you for making this huge investment in the future of science,and I think it's justified, but wondered if some thought the cost was worth it since no one seems to be sure exactly what tangible benefits are going to turn up.

It's an old story - some people react to every step into the unknown with nothing but fear. We do not know what will happen - so obviously the worst is going to pass. This arises from a mindset where stepping beyond boundaries supposedly assigned to us by divine or human rulers is automatically considered hubris.

Yes, we do not know for sure what might happen; that is the very reason why we do research, why we do attempt to find out more about the world we live in. Can "not knowing" ever be a valid reason for "not wanting to find out"?

And, speaking personally, the chance to figure out what "makes" mass is incredibly exciting to me. We feel it every day - we feel its effect in the form of gravity, and we feel its inertia whenever we push something - but have you ever thought about what this mysterious property "mass" really is, such a fundamental constituent of the world, without which no structure would exist, least of all us? Well, maybe we will get the answer from the LHC.

And it is not like the LHC is just making shot into the blue. All reasonable extrapolations from theories that we have and that have held up well for the regimes that we have probed so far say that, even in the case that mini black holes should be produced, they will be harmless and evaporate due to Hawking radiation. What theories do the opponents have but idle speculation? And if they don't believe that Hawking radiation exists, why do they believe theory up to the point that they accept the existence of black holes at all? And if we don't know and anything might happen, why stop at black holes? Why not be worried about the possibility about the LHC opening a rift to another universe, allowing the Dark Overlords from another dimension to pass through and wreak havoc on Earth?

Shall we forever remain paralyzed in the face of the unknown? Or shall we step forward and turn the unknown into a known?

And, yes, the price tag is steep. But what would be the alternative? Can you imagine - would you want to imagine - a humanity that, one day, settles down and decides nevermore to strive to understand the world around it a little bit better?

I live in Switzerland so I will be the first to go down the hole, yeehah! Sorry, its doomsday bullshit. Just like when some people predicted people would die traveling in steam trains because of the enormous speed. None of the serious physicists I heard of has any worries.

Here's a hilarious photo.
http://s411.photobucket.com/albums/pp200/Ndr3ww/?action=view&current=GORDON.jpg

danutz_plusplus said:

Here's a hilarious photo.
http://s411.photobucket.com/albums/pp200/Ndr3ww/?action=view&current=GORDON.jpg

Click to expand...

That's awesome

How real is the risk?, maybe we should worry more about earth get hit by asteroids or picture of excited bin laden with multiple nuclear warheads.

Well, considering that nature does about a million Hadron Super Collider experiments a day on, inside, or near our planet, I think the risk is, to put it mildly, theoretical.

Some of my work is actually in this experiment, if you google for LHC VELO you'll probably find pictures of the actual chips on the web.

If a baby black hole formed wouldn't it get to a point of mass where earth's gravity was no longer strong enough to tug it along with us long before it got to the point where it started devouring the world en masse?

EverythingXen said:

If a baby black hole formed wouldn't it get to a point of mass where earth's gravity was no longer strong enough to tug it along with us long before it got to the point where it started devouring the world en masse?

Click to expand...

The mass of the black hole would have little to do with whether we are able to "tug it along with us". After all, the Earth is tugging along all kinds of things both more (people, mountains, ocelots, and airplanes) and less (electrons) massive just fine. Whether it would escape or not depends on the particulars of the collision that hypothetically creates the black hole, which dictates its initial velocity. And all it needs to escape forever are a measly 11 km/s, which is easy to achieve in collisions involving velocities near the speed of light, even if the two beams are brought to a head-on collision.

Mind you, odds are that no black holes are ever generated at the LHC, because that is only predicted by certain theories. And even if they are generated, the much more widely accepted theory of Hawking predicts that they will evaporate before they have any chance to do any damage or even just escape the earth.

What infuriates me about the LHC opponents is their selective perception. They are all over the exotic theory that mini black holes may be created, but dismiss all the much less speculative reasons why those objects would cause no harm even if they were created. Do some Bayesian analysis, people!

I wonder if they will make a movie. The song allready exists: http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM

Looking forward to some interesting discoveries from this, or at least some confirmations of existing theory from which we can march on to some new things.

At the very least I'm looking forward to black holes in globes, to destabilise snow's unfair monopoly on that souvenir item.