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Large Hadron Collider Poll


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Poll: The Large Hadron Collider Poll (153 member(s) have cast votes)

To run or not to run...

  1. Yes (126 votes [82.35%])

    Percentage of vote: 82.35%

  2. No (17 votes [11.11%])

    Percentage of vote: 11.11%

  3. Uncertain (10 votes [6.54%])

    Percentage of vote: 6.54%

Vote

#91 cyborgdreamer

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Posted 23 September 2008 - 03:58 PM

My understanding is that the physicists (even the ones doing work on the LHC) do not rule out the possibility of a mini black hole being created but they feel that it will simply evaporate too quickly to do any harm thanks to Hawkings radiation. Hawkings radiation is purely theory with NOTHING but speculation and reams of mathematical models to back it up. Mathematical models have also indicated a near infinite number of solutions for string theory. Scientists have not proved infallible in the past so why the sudden blind trust?


it is irrelevant to the fate of the world if tiny black holes are created and they do not evaporate.


QUOTE (jaydfox)

Luckily, such a small black hole would take a very, very long time to swallow the earth. Probably billions, if not trillions of years. At first, its surface area would be smaller than a proton: it would have a hard time swallowing the occasional atom.

By the time the black hole could work itself up to the size of a large atom (say, a nanometer in diameter), it would have a mass oon the order of 10^15 kg, the merest fraction of the earth's mass. At that size, even if we assumed that material was being sucked in at the speed of light, through a surface area of about 12.5 nm^2, the rate of mass consumption would only be about:
1.25x10^-17 m^2 * 3x10^8 m/s = 3.8x10^-9 m^3/s

That's 4 cubic millimeters per second. That's nothing. After a billion seconds, about 30 years, that's four cubic meters. Still nothing. After 30 million years, that'd be 4 million cubic meters, less material than is spewed from a large volcanic eruption.

We don't need to worry about black holes this small, even if Hawking radiation doesn't exist.



QUOTE (Jaydfox)

Of course it would accelerate. By the time the black hole could double in mass, it would have four times the surface area, so the rate of mass consumption would increase by a factor of four. So four cubic millimeters per second would go up to 16 cubic millimeters per second! To get a lower bound on the time it would take to double in mass from 10^15 kg to 2x10^15 kg, let's assume the full 16 cubic millimeters per second, and let's assume a density of 25 grams per cubic centimeter.

At 1.6*10^-8 m^3/s * 2.5*10^4 kg/m^3, we get 4*10^-4 kg/s. So it would take about, oh, 2.5*10^18 seconds to double in mass, as a lower bound. That's billions of years, to accelerate by a factor of four. The next factor of four would take half the time (twice the mass through four times the surface area), so the acceleration itself would accelerate. But it would take billions of years before the acceleration had any meaningful effect.

The bottom line is, a black hole this small is effectively insignificant, at least as far as the fate of earth is concerned.


http://www.imminst.o...mp;#entry138019

do please at least try to find old threads on the subject and restart those, instead of making brand new ones that need to go through all the stages the old ones already went through before any new information is brought forth...



Instead of humans being afraid of viruses and bacteria, there would be a new threat to humanity, these little damn black holes floating around and through our Earth. Sounds great.

So elrond, how would you like one of these black holes shooting through your body? There wouldn't be a way to contain them because they would inevitably devour all matter in their way!


Since black holes have mass, wouldn't they just fall into the center of the Earth?
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#92 kismet

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Posted 23 September 2008 - 05:38 PM

Any advance in our knowledge of physics will make life better in the long term. The risks with the LHC are negligible. There's no reason not to run it.



I have yet to get an answer to my oft repeated question. How has mine or anyone else on this forums lives been enhanced by the discovery of the slepton, the Mu or the Tau? The Higgs Boson is just another few pages in the text books and a Noble for the scientists. I am not against big science, just against pointless big science that has an element of risk to the entire planet.

That's my idea of how those experiments can change life.
Getting closer to understanding the beginning of time and space - the beginning of everything. Getting closer to understanding the universe. Finding out whether life, religion or god can be explained by physics are definitely not worth our time, are they? Or we could just live forever in our small caves, that we call 'the world'.
I strive to live forever, but I don't want to achieve my goal by being a coward and avoiding even the tinniest risks. Only knowledge will allow us to live forever. First knowledge of our body, but eventually we'd need to overcome heat death, proton decay and other problems that require such experiments and thorough understanding of physics.

I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space.

#93 forever freedom

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Posted 23 January 2009 - 06:10 PM

A little more controversy: http://arxivblog.com/?p=1136

There is absolutely, positively, definitely no chance of the LHC destroying the planet when it eventually switches on some time later this year.  Right?

Err, yep. And yet a few niggling doubts are persuading some scientists to run through their figures again. And the new calculations are throwing up some surprises.

One potential method of destruction is that the LHC will create tiny black holes that could swallow everything in their path including the planet. In 2002, Roberto Casadio at the Universita di Bologna in Italy and a few pals reassured the world that this was not possible because the black holes would decay before they got the chance to do any damage.

Now they’re not so sure.  The question is not simply how quickly a mini-black hole decays but whether this decay always outpaces any growth.

Casadio have reworked the figures and now say that:  ” the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible.”

Does not seem possible? That’s not the unequivocal reassurance that particle physicists have been giving us up till now.

What’s more, the new calculations throw up a tricky new prediction. In the past, it had always been assumed that black holes would decay in the blink of an eye.

Not any more. Casadio and co say:  “the expected decay times are much longer (and possibly ≫ 1 sec) than is typically predicted by other models”

Whoa, let’s have that again: these mini black holes will be hanging around for seconds, possibly minutes?

That doesn’t sound good. Anybody at CERN care to clarify?

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0901.2948: On the Possibility of Catastrophic Black Hole Growth in the Warped Brane-World Scenario at the LHC


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#94 mentatpsi

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Posted 23 January 2009 - 06:17 PM

amazing post sam988. That's the only problem with science these days, you invest so much money on this new gadget and get so excited with the possible results, that you skip the most important steps. What's sad is the whole thing has already been built and a lot of money was invested and now due to double checking work you realize you've created more controversy.

Thanks again for the post.

Edited by mysticpsi, 23 January 2009 - 07:04 PM.


#95 mentatpsi

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Posted 23 January 2009 - 07:06 PM

Being interested in psych as i am... it would be interesting to see a real-time polling system that monitors changes in viewpoints over the disclosure of information. The only problem is the sample size would constantly vary and require a stagnation of people. But i think it would be interesting aside from its inherent difficulties in representing

#96 Ebenonce

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Posted 11 February 2009 - 03:07 AM

I just found out actually that the LHC will be re-starting somewhere around October of this year.

If you're wondering how/where I found out, I actually own Scientific Concerns which was formerly LHC Concerns.

I actually re bumped an old thread about the LHC where my site was linked, but this one seems more current, so I added it here.

and cast my vote ;)

#97 kismet

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Posted 07 April 2009 - 05:15 PM

" the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible." Oh, yeah that's indeed frightening! Run for your life, scientists admit they can't prove things.
What next will people start to believe in god when scientists say "the existence of an omnipotent god does not seem possible".

"What’s more, the new calculations throw up a tricky new prediction. In the past, it had always been assumed that black holes would decay in the blink of an eye." How's that even possible? Are you going to tell me the scientists haven't done the math before or suddenly discovered a new magic formula predicting the end of the world?

Or maybe it's just that...
"Jeez– read the abstract. It’s a calculation based on a theoretical model using some very speculative physics for which there is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER. Really. Ignore it.
The main thing to keep in mind is, cosmic rays have energies vastly higher than the LHC. If the LHC could produce black holes, then there would be black holes floating around everywhere."

Edited by kismet, 07 April 2009 - 05:23 PM.


#98 forever freedom

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Posted 08 April 2009 - 05:11 PM

I had forgotten about the LHC. It's only going to work in Semptember-October this year... so many accidents -i'm glad there isn't any chance of a fatal blackhole appearing, because if there was i wouldn't trust much in these scientists'/engineers' calculations.


edit: i'm not saying they're incompetent -'im sure they're as competent as its humanly possible. actually, that's the problem; they're just faulty humans.

Edited by forever freedom, 08 April 2009 - 05:12 PM.


#99 kismet

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Posted 10 April 2009 - 01:34 PM

Some non-zero risks remains, but you won't feel sorry if you're dead anyway! I believe the risk is as non-zero as the risk of being abducted and killed by aliens or by divine intervention... but that's just my guess.

Pretty cool facts (if true):
This is an elaboration of "At first, its surface area would be smaller than a proton: it would have a hard time swallowing the occasional atom." (I think that's what jaydfox said)
"I got tired of reading the comments. Do Not Feed the Crackpots, folks! It only encourages them, even though you may think you’re doing them a kindness.

If we make black holes (and I hope we do, and that we can detect their decays), they pose an infinitesimal threat. I use infinitesimal in the following sense:

If the threat of being killed by a single solar neutrino is considered significant (which it isn’t — you’re bombarded by 6E10/cm^2/s of them), the chances of any black hole created by the LHC taking in matter and growing would still be infinitesimal by comparison. Let’s do the math.

The energy available to create a black hole at the LHC totals 14 TeV per interaction, plus the mass of the protons (negligible, for our purposes — less than a tenth of a percent of the total energy).

That means that a black hole with a mass of 2.5E-20 grams could be created. What kind of Schwartzchild radius would it have?

About 4E-50 m. Compared to a proton (2E-15 m) and an electron’s classical “radius” (1.5E-15 m) — that’s a hundred million billion billion billion times smaller than an electron.

Worse, its gravitational pull would be indescribably feeble. It couldn’t “suck” anything in without running straight into it.

Since the space inside and between atoms is vast nothingness for the most part, I’d be surprised if the black hole at that size, with nothing to guide it, encountered ANYTHING that it could eat EVER, much less within a second, much less enough somethings to counter its evaporation. Remember, anything like a point particle that it DOES manage to consume provides it with something between 1/10,000th and 1/1,000,000th of its initial mass/energy budget. It has to eat FAST, but it can’t.

The only real problem with the 1 sec. problem for me is that it makes detection of decay products impossible, since it’s probably left the detector far behind, and because we are used to things happening in 10E-24 seconds."
(By Prufrock on Jan 27, 2009)

Edited by kismet, 10 April 2009 - 01:40 PM.


#100 Arcanyn

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Posted 14 June 2009 - 12:36 PM

Assuming stable black holes, the 'worst' that could happen is that it will eventually swallow the nucleus of an atom (the odds of this happening are remote). This could either occur by it swallowing the nucleus directly, or by the black hole first swallowing an electron and consequently becoming negatively charged, and then swallowing a nucleus on account of electrostatic attraction. After that, there is no reason to believe that the resulting positively charged black hole would do anything but behave as an ordinary (albeit more massive) atomic nucleus. It would attract a cloud of electrons around it, and participate in chemical reactions just like any other atom. The sorts of black holes we're talking about have such tiny masses (only ~100 times a typical nucleus at most) that the gravitational field produced by them would be practically unnoticable. For instance, when describing a hydrogen atom, we don't worry about the gravitational attraction between the proton and the electron, because it is so absolutely insignificant as to have no impact at all on the atom's behaviour - if the force of gravity were to cease to operate altogether, hydrogen atoms would behave no differently. Even if we were to have an black-hole nucleus a million times as massive the gravitational field would still be trivial. As such, there is no way such a black hole nucleus could ever devour the Earth - the gravitational field is nowhere near strong enough to overcome the electrostatic repulsion between the black hole and other nuclei - when you consider how difficult it is for us to just get a couple of deuterons to fuse together; the thought of a positively charged black hole of the sort of minescule mass likely to be produced by the LHC even managing to swallow one other nucleus is laughable - the odds of this happening would be considerably less than the odds of two hydrogen atoms in a water molecule spontaneously undergoing nuclear fusion. The most that could possibly result from the production of stable black holes would the the creation of a few atoms of anomolously high atomic mass; which could have the potential of leading to the ability to create ultra-high density materials, as well as the possibility of creating stable isotopes of otherwise radioactive elements such as astatine and radon, if a means of producing them is sufficient quantities could be devised.

Edited by pyrovus, 14 June 2009 - 12:40 PM.


#101 Lallante

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Posted 21 April 2010 - 09:27 AM

What properties would a stable, atomic sized black hole have? Arcanyn mentions it could be used in chemcial reactions - how so? with that effects?

#102 Guacamolium

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Posted 21 April 2010 - 11:28 AM

Yeah, I think an armada of scientists from around the globe who deal with particle physics, quantum physics, and more, probably know what they're doing. Especially considering the amount of planning involved and oh yeah, that there are other particle smashers around the world that predate it. It's just bigger.

It's one thing that we have to do to get the unified theory of physics completed.

#103 Alex Libman

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Posted 09 May 2010 - 12:55 PM

If it requires government funding, then it isn't worth doing, and the resources spent on doing it by force are harming more valuable and timely scientific research that will not be undertaken as the result.

Edited by Alex Libman, 09 May 2010 - 12:55 PM.


#104 chris w

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Posted 09 May 2010 - 03:00 PM

If it requires government funding, then it isn't worth doing, and the resources spent on doing it by force are harming more valuable and timely scientific research that will not be undertaken as the result.

Yeah, because both DARPA and NASA produced useless pieces of junk in the sixties that had absolutely nothing to do with Internet and space exploration. You're more than a libertarian, you're a libertarian gospel preacher, Alex.

Edited by chris w, 09 May 2010 - 03:12 PM.


#105 Alex Libman

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Posted 09 May 2010 - 06:35 PM

Imagine that you're planning to buy a new pickup truck sometime in the future, perhaps when your current one breaks down, and your local mafia boss finds out and rushes in to "help". He forbids you to go to any dealers or test-drive any cars, and delivers a slightly lemony Toyota Corolla that you could have bought yourself for $15,000, charges you $80,000, tells you that you're only allowed to buy fuel from his friend's gas station across town, and warns you that he'll throw you in prison if you ever look under the hood without his permission. Oh, and if you don't kiss his butt with gratitude he'll get upset and call you a traitor or a mental case, etc. That is a perfect analogy for how government works, with R&D as well as everything else!

#106 niner

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Posted 10 May 2010 - 03:35 AM

Imagine that you're planning to buy a new pickup truck sometime in the future, perhaps when your current one breaks down, and your local mafia boss finds out and rushes in to "help". He forbids you to go to any dealers or test-drive any cars, and delivers a slightly lemony Toyota Corolla that you could have bought yourself for $15,000, charges you $80,000, tells you that you're only allowed to buy fuel from his friend's gas station across town, and warns you that he'll throw you in prison if you ever look under the hood without his permission. Oh, and if you don't kiss his butt with gratitude he'll get upset and call you a traitor or a mental case, etc. That is a perfect analogy for how government works, with R&D as well as everything else!

Alex, you lived in the Soviet Union back in the day, right? I can see where your opinion of government has been colored, but I have to say that all governments are not identical. This is making me wonder if libertarianism isn't some sort of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder...

#107 e Volution

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Posted 10 May 2010 - 06:36 AM

Your growing on me Alex Libman :|? Still totally disagree with you on all things nutrition though!

Re black holes I think you just can't go pasts cosmic rays hitting our atmosphere... End of argument.

#108 chris w

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Posted 10 May 2010 - 12:50 PM

Imagine that you're planning to buy a new pickup truck sometime in the future, perhaps when your current one breaks down, and your local mafia boss finds out and rushes in to "help". He forbids you to go to any dealers or test-drive any cars, and delivers a slightly lemony Toyota Corolla that you could have bought yourself for $15,000, charges you $80,000, tells you that you're only allowed to buy fuel from his friend's gas station across town, and warns you that he'll throw you in prison if you ever look under the hood without his permission. Oh, and if you don't kiss his butt with gratitude he'll get upset and call you a traitor or a mental case, etc. That is a perfect analogy for how government works, with R&D as well as everything else!

If your analogy was to be applied to the 2 of my examples then the big bad mafia boss would actually be the first man to ever build anything like a pick up truck, and a couple of decades later it is available for wholesome citizens to build up on the initial gansta project and create whatever crazy trucks they imagined ( think of space tourism for bored Russian millionairies, Internet speaks for itself I guess ).

Edited by chris w, 10 May 2010 - 01:17 PM.


#109 chrwe

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Posted 10 May 2010 - 12:55 PM

I wish all this money went to SENS. But seeing that it doesnt anyway, far-off seeming technology and research has often (in the long run) brought about dramatic changes in technology that actually benefits people. So I hope that we will see this long-term effect here, too.

By the way, the fact that the first run went awry because of a bird dropping a baguette in it almost made me believe in "higher forces" with a definitive sense of weird humor which I can much appreciate :|? :)

Edited by chrwe, 10 May 2010 - 12:58 PM.


#110 chris w

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Posted 10 May 2010 - 01:14 PM

I wish all this money went to SENS. But seeing that it doesnt anyway, far-off seeming technology and research has often (in the long run) brought about dramatic changes in technology that actually benefits people. So I hope that we will see this long-term effect here, too.

By the way, the fact that the first run went awry because of a bird dropping a baguette in it almost made me believe in "higher forces" with a definitive sense of weird humor which I can much appreciate :|? :)


And if we accidentally stumble upon God in there somewhere, then we won't need SENS anymore :)

Edited by chris w, 10 May 2010 - 02:10 PM.


#111 Alex Libman

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Posted 10 May 2010 - 11:23 PM

Having made my main point, I'm going to move the potentially-endless Anarcho-Capitalism debate to a more appropriate thread.


Your growing on me Alex Libman :|? Still totally disagree with you on all things nutrition though!


Thank you. :)

I know that I might be wrong about the health benefits of veganism (or my "Tax Resister Diet", as I call it), and I tried to attach that disclaimer to all threads where I've advocated it. I'm only about ~6 month into that experiment, and I wouldn't have carried it this far if the perceived results were not sufficiently positive. It could be perfectly subjective, especially since I'm overweight, have awful family medical history, and I find it next to impossible to consistently limit my meat / fish portions to minuscule amounts at which the benefits aren't outweighed by the harms.

#112 ChromodynamicGirl

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Posted 12 October 2010 - 04:38 AM

Well, I think government subsidized science (like government subsidized anything) is an utter waste and prone to go into useless and counter-productive alleys.
That being said, the LHC is not going to destroy the Universe. The energy levels are insignificantly small to stuff like Gamma-ray bursters. Or the sun.

#113 revenant

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Posted 25 January 2011 - 03:26 PM

It is an important step in the advancement of our civilization. Also, it is necesary that governments be involved in the cooperative oversight and funding of a project like this.

Edited by revenant, 25 January 2011 - 03:52 PM.


#114 robomoon

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Posted 17 May 2011 - 03:42 PM

There is no better choice in here but to vote against LHC. Since chrwe already raised awareness about a more important opportunity: Those billions should have better gotten invested into SENS. Urgently Pleasing Hint to Investors in CERN http://www.longecity...918#entry463918 got news about security.




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