"Large Hadron Collider will destroy the Earth this summer" Topic

Scheduled for Summer 2008, a giant particle accelerator will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva. Sounds harmless, right? Maybe not.

If the scientist have it wrong, the accelerator could create a black hole…that will be the end of Earth and possibly the whole universe. You see, the LHC will recreate conditions that have not existed since one trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. As your intuition may tell you, a black hole created inside the earth is not a good thing and would quickly eat the Earth. Or, a strangelet could be created.

A strangelet will convert the Earth into a dense shrunken dead lump of strange matter. But, the black hole is more likely, and will grow to consume the entire universe, returning to the point that the Big Bang will start it all over again.

Is the life cycle of the universe? Supposedly intelligent, curious creatures continue to evolve and experiment until they reach the point they want to know about the origins of their universe, fated to actually recreate it. So, the Big Bang that we study was started by creatures doing what we're about to do, and the Big Bang we create will one day be studied by other creatures, who will create what we did and on and on and on.

Some say 2012 is the year of destruction of the Earth. What if the calendar is off…off by say 4 years…4 years early, time warped by the Earth's wobble? 2008. 3 Months to live.

And you thought that plane with the lasers is scary. This is real. Physicists around the world are debating whether the plan should go ahead. Some say the review has not been done "at arms length" and violates the Precautionary Principle.

Who gets to chose to go ahead or not? Scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research will roll the dice.

If is does go ahead, I hope they roll high!

While we're awaiting the end, which is indeed near, why not play a nice Pulp Game with the intrepid Colonel Wagner and his sidekick Sancho stiking deep into the ECNR's secret cave in Switzerland to stop the final shipment of huge superconducting magnets from reaching the assembly point. Commandos from several European nations will stand between the strike force and it's objective. The way will not be easy nor the sides clearly drawn, for there's more than world domination at stake, more than just the survival of the Earth, and since the Universe is threatened, those who we have seen in their UFOs for decades will finally step in to assist Col wagner and Sancho. Because of Area 51 discoveries, this was not unexpected and the European Commando Command has a few tricks ready.

Can Col Wagner, Sancho and their Alien allies in their strange suits save the universe, or will the scientist and their government allies prevail…to the bitter end. The fate of the Earth is in your hands.

I believe scientists also said that if a nuclear bomb was detonated that it would set fire to the Earth's atmosphere.

Eh… if it does destroy the world I look at the bright side in that I wont have to listen to anymore Britney Spears stories.

Or Paris Hilton. Or any of the other empty-headed famous for being famous lot.

Blackhawk is absolutely right.
if it will stop the britney stories, it will be well worth any side effects.

And deep drilling in the oceans may let magma loose!

And create another moon (see 'Crack in the World')….

If it destroys the earth, I'm going to be quite put out. As the Tick says, "They can't blow up the Earth! That's where I keep all my stuff!"

On the other hand, The Eye of Harmony was a black hole, harnessed in the center of Gallifrey, and providing all their civilization's power. This could be the first step to independance from petroleum!

You Earthlings are so naive. Paris, Britney and their others of their ilk are some of the aliens in their strange suits. When called upon by Col Wagner and Sancho, they will drive their stiletto heels into the temples of their opponents and, using their unique attack strategy of holding hands while jumping up and down squealing with their sound weapons, will drive all before them mad, stark raving mad. So, stop this insane experiment or suffer the fate of more Paris and Britney ad nauseum.

Wow, this is so cool! To be living in a Sci Fi script. This would be a way better Saturday night movie than "Stormtrooper Gargoyle Sabretooth Gnome II."

So who gets to be Rassilon?

Nah, I've already seen this one in 'Undies In A Twist 5: More Ways Science! Will Kill Us All', on some Discovery Channel or another.

I'm renaming all of your Thomas. Hmmm, come to think of it, proof is before you in the media daily. There was a small prototype, about 1:2400 size. Being so small, it did not reach the critical mass to become a Black Hole. However, it did create some stragelets…you know, strange matter. The strange matter manifested itself as Britney and Paris, code names for two of the first locations that will be enveloped in the Black Hole…Britain and France.

So, untwist those undies and join Col Wagner and Sancho…there is little time left for action.

I believe scientists also said that if a nuclear bomb was detonated that it would set fire to the Earth's atmosphere.

Nearly. Some *feared* that the nitrogen in the atmosphere would ignite. So the Manhattan Project guys did the calculations thoroughly -- and decided that there was no chance.

I fail to see why creating a small black hole will destroy the universe. There are already monstrous black holes of many Suns in size, and the don't cause our destruction.

In any case, a small black hole does not have the awesome power of a large one. It would fade faster than it absorbed energy. The energy of the LHC is puny compared to the power of the Sun (which drives fusion on a constant basis) and the Sun doesn't generate system eating black holes.

Put it on CNN, this could start another "War of the Worlds" panic. ;-)

If it destroys the Earth I will be miffed – it means my evil plots to take it over will be for nothing.

Mark Plant, those Bose Noise Cancelling earphones will not protect you from the Alien Strangelets Brit and Paris.

It's not the Black Hole that will destroy the universe, it's the recreation of the conditions that existed 1 trillionth of a second after the Big Bang…in it's recreation of the universe, it will destroy all that currently exists. There is really no way to compare the enormity of the event with other cosmic events like enormous black holes, since they will be enveloped along with all matter, antimatter and dark matter.

Of course, there are at least 8 parallel universes, so perhaps some will not be affected…but so little is understood that we just don't know.

Don't even get me started on the tragic circumstances of Col Wagner's first meeting with the aliens before he understood that their objectives were the same. The interesting concern is what will happen if he and the aliens prevail over the EC and stop the experiment. Will the Aliens forgive him and leave, will they continue their world domination through deployment of more Strangelets, will Col Wagner and Sancho leave the cold climes of the north and return to their warm sanctuaries to prepare for the next onslaught of the scientific community?

Nope, not CNN, we're going You Tube and MySpace all the way, baby.

I've been watching this for a while now.
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Interesting. A few too many "shoulds" and "ifs" for my taste. Also, there is instability:

"However these precautions cannot suppress all instabilities, and sophisticated feedback systems as well as non linear lenses are being designed to damp the remaining ones."

Col Wagner and Sancho need your help. Perhaps you can create a diversion by ignoring Britney and Paris and focusing upon Madonna's remake of Casablanca.

Cosmic rays impact the earth all the time with similair energy as to the LHC. And any blackhole created would be too small to swallow even a atom, it would evap immeadiately due to Hawking Radiation.

If stranglets existed, we'd see evidence for them around the jets of black holes.

I'll never get all my painting done before then.

"In any case, a small black hole does not have the awesome power of a large one. It would fade faster than it absorbed energy."

Space isn't empty. It can't be all the time, because if it was we'd know for certain what was in it (nothing) and that violates uncertainty[1]. Space gets particle/antiparticle pairs popping up and then destroying themselves; the net energy of the vacuum is zero, but, kind of like an overdraft, it can "borrow" energy to make the particles and the destruction repays the debt.

If the particles appear at an event horizon, they can be separated by the gravitation during their brief lifespan and can't mutually destroy each other. One of them can then escape into the universe as a whole.

Someone has to pay off the debt and the black hole gets to do it by losing energy; the result is that black holes radiate energy.

The loss of energy in this way is proportional to the surface area.

The ability of the black hole to consume material and gain energy is proportional to the mass (and hence the volume of the event horizon).

Small (ie light) black holes have a high surface area to mass ratio and will evaporate quickly.

In order to last a long time, black holes need to be formed in a dense environment (a collapsing star) in order to gain enough mass to last long enough to consume enough mass…

The ones CERN might make are going to last nano- or microseconds at best. They'll get cool particle tracks with gaps in them that no-one else can understand.

I'm not a nuclear physicist.

But I do know some and they're not worried at all. Far from it -- they're all quite excited about getting some data. There is a good chance that we'll get enough data to start sorting out which of the many competing Theories of Everything are useful.

[1] The principle basically says that we cannot have absolutely perfect knowledge about any quantum system.

One of my colleagues has been involved in this.

Any black holes created will be so tiny they won't have any significant effects.

Ooooo Scary!

When Fermi et al. conducted the first controlled chain reaction under the UoC stadium, they too were concerned about the possibility that their experiment would go out of control. So, in order to guard against a runaway reaction, they built a shelf over their reactor, and stacked it with buckets of water. If the experiment went out of control, a scientist with an axe was to chop the rope securing the shelf, releasing the buckets of water into the core, and thus cooling the core and shutting down the reaction.

They were madmen.

why not just put a hitch in the rope? or was that a bit technical for scientifical types

So is it a large collider of hadrons, or a collider of large hadrons? If I'm going out, I'm going out as a pedant!

It's about time!

Back to Physics 101: Gravity is a function of *mass*. In order for the super-collider to produce a black hole capable of destroying Earth, the black hole would need to be of stellar mass. I really *don't* think they're moving stellar masses around under France. Though it might explain a lot.

Calico Bill has saved us all! He has unpainted lead.

As long as they do it after my holiday in Cornwall I don't care…..I can't believe none of you have realized what date it is today???

"I can't believe none of you have realized what date it is today???"

Err, 31st March is what the original post says.

We have some crazy satellite in orbit that could possibly destroy the earth as well. I don't remember all the details -- something about discharging the world capacitor all at once. Result: the surface of the earth is scourged down to a depth of 2 to 4 miles.

In Col Wagner and Sancho's world, it was, and still is, 1.4.08.

Parzival, I nearly choked with laughter…explains a lot, indeed.

Steve Flanagan, pedants are on Col Wagner's side, so draw your weapons from that strangelet over there that looks like Britney.

Maddan, join the Col. Stop the mad scientists (apologies to Martin :) from destoying the universe and you can then merrily proceed with your evil plots to take it over.

Robert J Sawyer addressed this in his book "Flashforward"

link

A lot of people talk about destroying the world, good to see someone doing something about it.

Get yur aluminum hats right here!

Energies comparable to that given to particles in the collidor have already creating cosmic rays near spinning black holes or colliding neutron stars. If the universe wasn't destroyed by those then it won't be now.

The nice thing about being optimistic about these sort of apocalyptic scientific disaster scenarios (H-bomb sets atmosphere on fire, etc) is that if you're wrong and the eggheads really *do* destroy mankinds by accident, no one's left to tell you how foolish you were.

The pessimists, on the other hand, have to actively hope that they're wrong and will look like idiots. They have a much harder row to hoe if you ask me. :)

I'm assuming that it will cause the Dead to walk the earth…

When I posted this on the General Message Boards for April Fool's Day, THE MAN behind the curtain automatically crossposted this on the Science Board, the Pulp Board and the Modern Discussion Board.

Of these 3, Pulp is the correct one. I wanted to create an adventure for Col Wagner and Sancho with aliens, scientists, commandos and misguided allies with a threat to the safety of the world. None of this is a real threat, of course, unless…well, that's for next year ; )

So, if for a moment you took any of this seriously, or as an affront to science, you may now rest easy. The world will not be destroyed by CERN. Now that it is no longer April 1 (regardless of the PST), the world is now safe.

"if for a moment you took any of this seriously"

CERN actually really does have a document on their website explaining to people that yes they have thought about this and no they're not going to suck the world into a black hole…

We're all gonna die. It's the 'when' that causes us concern.

And the how.

Faust23 19 Apr 2008 11:53 p.m. PST
We're all gonna die. It's the 'when' that causes us concern.

I'd like that when pushed off until I can finish painting all my minis.

We are safe from black holes. Lets face it, the minute one appears near a wargamer it will immediately be filled with a pile of unpainted lead.

10 days to go

link

Pity, because we have family film night on a Wednesday.