This "Big Bang" experiment that starts tomorrow - will it be the end of the world?

I hope so!

We need to start all over, with everything…

Not just scientists think that… even teenage girls are raising the alert.

I’m not ready to die… and I didn’t know about this, because frankly, I’m bad at following current events. This has made me very upset and pretty panicky, really.

i suggest a ban on LHC questions for the forthcoming 2 days, just to be sure….stupid kids

I’m going off to read about it and hopefully calm myself down…

@iwamoto, apparently, it will take DAYS for the thing to reach its maximum, so if there IS a problem, we won’t see it for days.

To be serious for a second…

I remember reading about The Manhattan Project which resulted in the creation and detonation of the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945.

Before the detonation, some scientists hypothesized that the Trinity Test, as planned, might result in the entire atmosphere being “ignited,” destroying all life on Earth.

Some military “genius” replied, “Well, we won’t know for sure, until we test it, right?”

@poof, take consolation in the fact that the news people I see report it kinda look at the dissenting scientist as though he’s some sort of crackpot.

god, this is like cult members getting into their bombshelters because something is sure to happen…and then….it…doesn’t?...

Or like evacuating New Orleans because of the threat of a hurricane? Foolish because it didn’t?

It’s been delayed so many times! I can’t wait!

Hoping the world doesn’t end,
~Aaron

i’m not even gonna go into discussion about this with you M, have fun in the shelter !

@Mr M
I though LHC was a particle accelarator, unless a big bang simulator is the same thing…

@iwamoto, there’s actually no way to escape the disaster the “nay sayers” are predicting;

@aanuszek1, I think you’re right. I DO know the intent is to try to understand the Big Bang.

but a hurricane is a realistic threat, the LHC is not, this is like a bunch of townspeople condeming electricity as witchcraft….

@ Mr M

ok, just wanted to clear that up :)

@iwa… it’s not?

You mean I need not ritually spill my own blood every morning to ensure the lights come on and the a/c works?

Man, I dunno. I think you are talking crazy.

—

< < off to find yet another band-aid.

The problem, for ME, is that I don’t know enough about the dissenting scientists. I’d like to know what other scientists think of their opinions.

bottom of the page

but if it would, in some totally inexplainable way, go wrong, what are you gonna do about it except for crying about it on the internet ? i mean, there’s so many things to be scared about, why be more scared about this ?

I’m NOT scared personally. Not yet, at least. I need more info which is why I posted. And what’s so unexplainable? The nay-sayers are NOT mere “townspeople” but reputable scientists.

well, i provided evidence why it’s safe, now it’s your turn to show me some evidence why it’s not safe…

Er, I posted this question to get feedback and opinions. If I had the knowledge of Nuclear Physics like you apparently think you do, I might entertain your challenge (Naw, actually I STILL wouldn’t bother).

well, did you check the link i posted, it shows pretty clear why nothing bad will happen, so what is there left to discuss ?

Do you even watch ANY news on television? All day, every channel that reported on it reported it as having the possible ramifications talked about on this board. Nobody, not one single reporter said “If you simply read what iwamoto posted we can all rest well”. Makes me wonder why.

If you really, really want to get into some detailed discussion, I recommend trying this.

oh yeah, i totally forgot, tv is not about ratings, it’s about brining dull news, ha, silly me… btw, do you watch a lot of FOX ? and i think they simply didn’t say that because…they don’t know me..

but seriously, if there’s one thing i learned is that fear sells, keep that in mind when watching tv

btw, here in holland, i had the news on, and guess what…nothing about the LHC…strange…

Do they normally put other news events on Holland cartoon channels?

oh i see, yeah, haha, very funny

well, i think i’ll stop following this question, your ignorance is just ticking me off, well, i’ll check this one again in a few days, or when you send me a message…

Oh man… I didn’t know about this! I’m scared now… D-:

Absolutely not. There were a bunch of great articles about this on gizmodo.com recently. I’m on an iPod touch which still doesn’t have copy/paste but if you search “LHC” on Giz some interesting things should turn up.

In case you’re wondering, HasTheLHCDestroyedTheEarth.com will keep you updated as to whether the LHC has destroyed the Earth.

However, THIS has me rather worried

You say it, iwamoto. It’s all hype.

@shockvalue – Awesome. Did you make that? The picture, I mean.

@iwamoto, Sorry you took so long to do that, but THANKS anyway. Now the rest of us can have an intelligent discussion.

And as for ME ever sending YOU a message, I think there’s a better chance that the earth WILL implode.

Yesterday’s xkcd

yes, an intelligent discussion…seriously, with every comment you make you seem to make yourself look more and more like an ignorant teen

but anyway, noting happened today, read up on it, seems like the first big tests, as in, big bang tests, aren’t scheduled for a year….

but today at work i was thinking, this seemed so familiar, then it hit me..Y2K, the masses didn’t know what it was..BUT, tv told them all about how it could be the end of the world, how live would cease as we know it, yeah…let’s not trust american tv, ok ?

@iwa… well, I think the argument could be made that Y2K presented a real problem and that it was successfully averted thru a great deal of effort.

Personally, I’ve worked with plenty of databases, related program code, and ancillary procedures that did not gracefully handle the transition to year 2000. It took a massive coordinated effort at many levels to get past the bulk of the problem. Billions of dollars was spent on it collectively around the world.

In that way, maybe that then does reinforce your point: that with care and planning, disaster can be identified and prevented.

The naivety around Y2K where people holed up in bunkers in remote areas was that those folks assumed that, in essence, the problem was either not fixable or that no one was actually working on a fix.

In summary, the folks who built the LHC don’t want to blow up the world (or eat it with a black hole, or shift us all two steps sideways dimensionally into nothingness) any more than the rest of us would want.

the LHC was a success! And we’re all still alive!!! :-D

well….all they did was send a proton down the tube, what could have gone wrong ?

What could have gone wrong?!?

-

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling,

Forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes,

The dead rising from the grave,

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria!

@rob, you beat me to it. I worked in a hospital at the time and, had we NOT tested and redesigned, we WOULD have had respiratory therapy machines that would not have worked, lab equipment that would not have worked, OR equipment, elevators…there WOULD have been a lot of disasters had there not been the careful and detailed planning and work for years before.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26439957?GT1=43001

..what jack said

lol oh noes its going to destroy us all <rolls eyes>

You fail at both physics and life if you seriously believe that the LHC could create a black hole that could swallow the earth.

“CERN scientists say that a black hole is “virtually impossible.” Martin Rees, a U.K. physicist, has put the odds of a CERN black hole at one in 50 million.”

“While supermassive black holes, like the one at the center of our galaxy, do gobble up stars and planets, microscopic black holes, like the ones the LHC could create, would look and act completely differently.

“It’s like we only had one word for every animal out there,” said Wilczek. “It’s like they had elephants in mind when they came up with the word ‘animal.’ But little amoebas are animals too.”

“The word is the same but the object is very different from the standard image that people think of.”

If (and that remains a big “if”) the LHC creates a black hole it will be extremely tiny, much smaller than a single atom, said Wilzcek. Its mass will be the same as the two protons that created it. Its range will be small—only a few times the diameter of the two protons.

According to Wilczek, that’s too small for the baby black hole to eat enough particles to grow to any real size. With no food, the black hole will simply wink out of existence in a fraction of a second.

To create a stable black hole, one capable of consuming the Earth, the black hole would have to be several hundred tons. A LHC-generated black hole would weigh a tiny fraction of a gram.”

READ

..yeah but, tv said…

Is it or is it NOT correct that a noted scientist in the field is taking legal action to stop the experiment because of the dangers he anticipates? Does anyone know who he is and what his reasoning is? Is it political? Jealousy?

it could very well be jealousy, even a great mind can be overcome by emotions

i do wonder who it could be, i know that hawkins said nothing would happen, nothing bad, but also nothing good, as in, they won’t succeed in their quest for the particle

maybe you could google it ?

hey did you guys know you can actually track the progress of LHC here, they have webcams online here…I’ve been watching for a while now, interesting.

http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

A really good video explaining how the LHC works

I like my video a bit more =)