Large Hadron Collider - read at own risk

[EHM-1883 Matt]

The Large Hadron Collider is a massive tunnel being built on the Swiss-French border. It is the biggest scientific project ever, and has cost approx. $4 billion! What it is, is a tunnel with thousands of electromagnets down it. The experiment is to send protons down the tube, and then electrons. Eventually, they will change the course of the electrons, and they will smash into the protons. This recreates moments before the big bang.

What the scientists are trying to do is make a type of reaction, and if the reaction is successful, they can learn a lot about our universe, and possibly, learn how the universe is created. The problem is this, When the protons and electrons crash, it may create a black hole, which can be microscopic, but starts growing as it sucks in small objects. The Black hole could then grow, and eventually suck in the Earth, thus destroying the planet, and eventually, the entire solar system.

Scientists have a theory called the Hawking theory, made by Stephen Hawking, saying that if microscopic black holes are created, they will simply evaporate. However, this theory has not been tested, and cannot be proved until we actually have a black hole. So if the theory does not work, and a black hole is created, the Earth is in trouble.
However, there have been cosmic rays hitting our solar system for a very long time, much more powerful then what this machine is going to make, and Earth has coped with those rays. You could also say the same about the Atomic Bomb chain series or Y2K. They never happened, and a lot of this worrying is led mainly by the media, but scientists have said that they can't say that the machine is safe.

The scientists plan to switch on the machine November 26-27th 2007. Construction of the Large Hadron Collider has begun, and there are not many petitions out there to get rid of it. I am personally against this machine, but the main argument is if it works, our technology will become very advanced.

The only petition I could find to stop the assembling of the LHC is here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/stopLHC/petition.html

I have signed the petition. If you are against this project, please do what you can to help stop it being built, as there is not much being done.

[EHM-1671 Ben]

I think we need to think about the monetary loss associated with the complete halt and deconstruction of the project since, of course, we live in a world of money giants and corporations. If you say it's cost $4 billion so far to build (heck, it's not even finished yet), why would the CERN throw that all away on the count of 18 anonymous signatures in an online petition?

The Large Hadron Collider, despite whatever arguments there may or may not be as to the safety of the machine, is going to be built. And it's going to be tested. A lot of money has been put into this and they're not going to throw it all away.

I don't pretend to be a great scientist (couldn't even pass chemistry last year ) but if Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant scientific minds of history, says that a microscopic black hole, if one is even created at all, will evaporate...

...maybe we should trust him?

Edit: I just read the petition itself - sounds like it was written by a 13 year old!

[EHM-1883 Matt]

I know, but I signed it anyway, because you never know. Weird things happen!

As for Stephen Hawking, Newton had theories about time, and how it was all fixed, and nobody questioned him for an odd 200 years, until Einstein made the theory of relativity and discovered that Time and Light can be distorted, and is not fixed lines.

However, I think Stephen Hawking is right on his theory. I looked up on it, and it makes perfect sense.

[EHM-1001 Robert]

It is interesting to hear that somebody who fears about this project tries to torpedo it.

I think we do not need to worry about microscopic black holes. The Earth does not fit into a microscopic black hole, so we just will not disappear if scientist want to play with that machine.

It is said that "classic physics" is discovered already. F=m*a simply works. But there are much much more in our world that we need to discover at abnormal circumstances to discover something new. Like the ITER project. If they succeed, mankind will have a brand new energy source, that is absolutely safe. I think if we do not let scientists to discover these things we are going to use all the available amount of resources, and maybe find ourselves back in the stoneage...of course not in our life, but sooner or later.

[EHM-1821 Javier]

i feel this experiment although should be carried out, it should not be carried out in this time period, its best to know more about everything first before we take this step that would either answer one of the biggest questions or suck us u into a black hole.

one question i have is, if a blackhole was created but it vapourized, since it sucks even light in, how can the scientists see it? :s

[EHM-1883 Matt]

I sometimes question that aswell Javier. Since the Light is sucked back in due to the Gravitational pull, it must give off Black light, but black light doesn't exist.

I agree entirely with Javier. I have a feeling that it is too early to carry out this experiment, and I would like it put together, but not used this year. I think they should try their best to find all the possibilities of what could happen, as the scientists are very vague about what could happen.

@ Robert: I am not great at my knowledge of Black holes, but I thought it wasn't the size that mattered, it was the gravitational pull? I'm not sure though.

[EHM-1001 Robert]

Maybe I can answer that

What you see with your eyes is always the light that is reflected from the objects around you. As the black hole sucks everything in, you will not see any light from where it is located: there will be dark. I guess that is where the name came from

I am not a scientist myself, but logically the size of the black hole should be compared by its gravitational strength.

Another thing:

As I know, many many such testing plant (so called synchrotron) was built since decades, and still running and scientist continously working in them. They are simply speeding up particles to "unthinkable speeds" and collide them to analize and understand the materials, the energies and the world in a smaller dimension. Maybe that is why I am not aware of this new facility at all.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

I'm not going to get into a slanging match with any member, but the (frankly) tool that wrote the petition could use a basic understanding of physics. The LHC will take a pair of proton packets (we're talking mere nanograms of hydrogen electrons, glued together by the weak atomic force) and fire them at each other at a fraction of the speed of light.

Now, Einstein gave us the important bit - E = mc^2 (and yes, that should be a superscript '2' - squared). To give these electrons enough mass for them to spontaneously collapse into more than a microscopic black hole (which evaporate due to the theoretical energy output of blackholes), they'd need to be travelling a lot closer to C (the speed of light) than LHC will be able to achieve.

I'll not be signing this petition, and if I can't find one in support of LHC, I'll write me own...

For some believable science on this subject, work through http://christophergovanstreet.blogspot.com/search/label/Large%20Hadron%20Collider

[EHM-1671 Ben]

I think the most important thing to realize here, is that if a small black hole IS created (which I have no confidence in due to Murray's outstanding explanation for all of us who are just awful at Physics and Chemistry ) everyone needs to come to New Zealand.

Everything happens here 20 years later

[EHM-1798 Conrad]

I wont sign the partition either , i quite agree with this project, and will wait to see the result, should be interesting.

[EHM-1883 Matt]

When I posted the topic, I was a bit angry, as you could probably see;D

I feel better now, after all, when I posted this topic, everything was going wrong for me, and then after reading about a possible black hole, I guess it was the last straw!

I wish I could withdraw my signature from the petition, however, is it going to make a difference?:%

I'm more in favour of the machine now, but I still think it's a bit too early to use it. I think they rushed into it a bit.

My best area of physics is Astronomy, which doesn't really help here, so when researching about the Hadron Collider, there are some things that completely throw me off, and the black holes were the only thing I could deeply understand (Thanks to Robert for answering the light question!)

As for the people who want it to be built and started, I'm sure there are numerous petitions for the collider. I've looked for petitions for you, but I can't find any yet. I'll try to find one for you guys;D

@ Murray: I think the protons and the electrons are going to be going at 2/3 of the speed of light. I've heard on other websites (non-official) that when they collide, the collision will be at twice the speed of light, but due to Reletivity, I don't think that's possible. And also, Hawking Radiation has not been tested. That's why the media are probably going to try to terrify us later.

[EHM-1612 Paolo]

Hi guys, this is such an interesting post! I just love physics, but I've never studied astronomy and black holes (and I won't study these subjects until 2008).
I completely agree with this project as I don't see any problem involving this mini-black hole. I read it will vapourize in 10^(-42 seconds) and I think there is no danger at all, just because CERN scientists are the best in the world, and if they say there's no danger I believe them...
They built www, and that wasn't luck

[EHM-1883 Matt]

that's the point I'm making. We don't know whether the Black holes will vapourize. My grandfather (an ex-physicist who worked in World War II, helping to develop the radar) was very interested in this machine. He's dead now, but he was very interested in the theory of hawking radiation, the theory that the black holes will evaporate. My dad told me that he told him (if this is making any sense!) that Hawking Radiation makes perfect sense, but cannot be tested until a black hole is created, and this machine may prove the theory correct. However, it is not certain, because it can only work under particular circumstances. So CERN is going to make these circumstances present in their experiment, so it should be fine, but seeing as it's not even been tested before, we do not know for certain, but I'll believe my grandfather since he seemed confident that if there ever was a black hole, it will evaporate.

@ Ben: This grandfather is on my dads side, not my moms side, so he's english, not Croatian, for once!

@ Paolo: I've never had a very very deep interest into physics, I love it, but I've always loved astronomy more! Can't really say why!

[EHM-0654 Murray]

@Matt: There's currently some very good astrophysicists out there who would happily stake their reputations that Professor Hawking has got it right. If, as observation suggests (within the last year), there are black holes holding most galaxies together, then it's also a reasonable certainty that these black holes are broadcasting vast streams of energy back into the universe as we understand it (again, direct oberservation...).

[EHM-1883 Matt]

Just bringing back this topic,

I've heard it's going to be switched on on Wednesday, but I'm a bit confused as to what they are switching on! I've heard they're just testing to see if the particles will make it successfuly around the machine, I've heard others say they're actually going to do the collision, I've heard people say that nothing will happen and the fun starts in October.

What is actually going to happen?

p.s. I'm not scared of the machine anymore, I just want to know what's going on;D

[EHM-1671 Ben]

Originally written by The Dominion Post (newspaper from New Zealand)
The [Large Hadron Collider] at CERN, the European nuclear research organisation based near Geneva, will be switched on this Wednesday... The LHC will fire particles around its 27-kilometer-circumference tunnel. It well then smash protons - one of the building blocks of matter - into each other at energies up to seven times greater than any achieved before.

This is very exciting...

[EHM-1883 Matt]

Just to turn the tables a bit, it looks like the media has made a big big big mistake and all newspapers have announced that the collision is tomorrow.

Well, just looking around the CERN website and I found that they are not actually doing the collision at all tomorrow, and the media has overeacted as usual and did not listen to the whole story!! Tomorrow, all that is going to happen is they are going to test the beams which is not dangerous in any way, and the actual collisions are planned to happen in October.

So basically, the moral is (as usual) don't trust everything the media says;)

[EHM-1001 Robert]

Well, here, in the radio it was announced only that they switch it ON today for the first time

[EHM-1671 Ben]

...and the world didn't end.

How embarrassing for all those who thought 'alien invaders' were coming, or that black holes would swallow the universe?

[EHM-1883 Matt]

...The collision hasn't happened yet, BBC quickly changed their mind and suddenly they're telling us the collision is in October...