Comments:Large Hadron Collider restarted
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Oh yes, let us find this thing that has no relevance to anybody and risk destroying our planet. Hooray for science! 206.74.5.136 (talk) 06:57, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
- C'mon quit blaming "science"...MOST of the things blamed on science were under the control of politicians/governments or business/industry. THIS one is largely under control of scientists;
- the bad news is the seemingly ideological faith in Hawking radiation (which AFAIK has never been observed) cut short thorough examination of the evaporation issue; the good news is that even if micro-black holes are stable, it would probably be extremely difficult to produce a micro-black hole with velocity less than escape velocity (i.e. in a very very narrow energy range above creation threshold) even if that were the goal. Whether an MBH could pick up enough mass in one transit through the Earth's diameter to become gravitationally bound is a more complicated problem but given the TINY mass and hence infinitesimal gravitational FORCE, mass accretion via gravitational attraction seems unlikely to accomplish that. Whether mass accretion via other mechanisms of attraction could operate is a complicated and unasked question. Similarly, the nuclear cross-section of an MBH is likely large compared to heavy elements, so some fusion events might add mass during one transit. These might simply fission the beast...or increase the cross-section.... If I had more time and less workload I'd attempt a cheesy calculation of mass accumulated per transit based on gross assumptions...but alas.... 76.172.219.186 (talk) 13:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
We'll see what happens in the future. For some people this is like the early 1920's but there seems to be more of a rush to find a "theory of everything". For me it's just another peel away at the infinite complexity of nature and more profound advancements once we make an actual scientific theoretical model of a new science. These kind of advancements are what made most of our devices possible today. My suggestion is to just enjoy the ride and not worry about the end of the world.
At any rate, the number of scientists declaring that this device poses a threat to the earth is vastly, VASTLY overshadowed by the number stating there is no threat from mini black holes or strangelets. I won't get into the technical details, but the bottom line is, the end of the world scenarios are based on bad science and massive "what-if" extrapolations - if this bothers you, you can also worry about a butterfly's wings in Brazil causing every volcano on earth to explode simultaneously. Or, for that matter, getting in a car accident and dying on the spot. What's life without a little uncertainty?