A black future

ScienceNews ^ | 12/19/09 | Tom Siegfried

[KevinDavis]

Shortly after the first of the year (if not already), the Large Hadron Collider — the most powerful particle accelerator ever built — will smash protons together at record energies. If the Earth remains intact, doomsayers will once again have been falsified. Every time they forecast the demise of the planet, those prophets of Earthly annihilation prove themselves no more foresightful than mortgage bankers or phony psychics.

[GOPJ]

Doesn't it seem a little early - considering our level of knowledge - to be doing these kinds of experiments? I have a relative who taught college physics some years back - and with some of the early runs he didn't know for sure if we'd exist after the experiment. Maybe he was kidding... didn't seem like it.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

I think that wee need to think things through before tampering with the fundemental forces of the universe. Any mistake can have far reaching destruction.

[TheVitaminPress]

If the doomsayers are serious about shutting the project down then it is time they altered their approach. All they need do is pay off some scientists at that CRU place to produce data indicating that the facility emits as much carbon as one of Al Gore’motorcades and then the good folks meeting in Copenhagen can legislate it out of existence.

[LiberConservative]

What is really scary is that the LHC is being run by a bunch of arrogant euro-weenies. The same type of juveniles doing climate “research”.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks KevinDavis.

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[Las Vegas Dave]

Look at the bright side - the collider may save us from global warming!

When our sun uses up it's fuel billions of years from now, it will expand and the diameter of the sun will exceed the orbit of the Earth.

Now that's what I call GLOBAL WARMING!!

[allmost]

Hawking radiation, the fail-safe. Has it been proven? Or is it still theory.

[SuperLuminal]

Before I make any judgment on the risks involved in this undertaking and the integrity of the decisions made to support the experiment, I would have to ask each of the principal scientists one compund question:
"Is there a serious global warming issue...and, if so, is it man-made?"

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

The existence of Hawking radiation has never been observed. In June 2008, NASA launched the GLAST satellite, which will search for the terminal gamma-ray flashes expected from evaporating primordial black holes.

[allmost]

The fail safe is entirely theoretical as well...

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

They must be prepared for any contigency during these experiments including any “side effects” that may appear,especially if their goal is creating a mini black hole. I do not like this project because many things can go wrong.

[allmost]

A theoretical failsafe on a theoretical failsafe is not sound science.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

I totally agree

[Telepathic Intruder]

Not exactly proven, but neither are black holes. Although there is observational evidence for them, unlike Hawking radiation. The problem is that with any black hole we may discover, the Hawking radiation would be so feeble that even the cosmic microwave background would dwarf it by a huge factor. But nevertheless, the first two reasons in my original post serves to make this particular fail-safe just a redundancy.

[allmost]

Dependant on Hawking radiation. The best guess placed on the best guess, placed on the best guess. Doesn’t instill a lot of confidence here.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Hawking himself isn’t completely sure of his theory , but it’s also based on things that have since been proven to exist in laboratories, such as vacuum energy. Namely by way of the Casimir effect. Proving Hawking radiation, however, would be a lot more difficult; beyond our means in fact. It does make sense, however, they way I understand it.

[anymouse]

High temperature superconductive wire, advanced magnet and computer control technology was not available at the time the Texas Super-Conductor Collider (SSC) was being built early 1990s. Using the technology available at the time would have created a very expensive, under-performing “white elephant.” Congress pitted it against the then U.S. Space Station Freedom. The space station barely survived by a single vote. Not enough pork spread around the country on the SSC to keep it alive. All in all, the proper choice was to shut down the SCC before the larger costs were incurred.

[allmost]

The Casimir Effect and Hawking radiation are distinct IMO.

[allmost]

or maybe not...

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Not exactly proven, but neither are black holes

Black Holes have been proven.In 2002, the Hubble Space Telescope produced observations indicating that globular clusters named M15 and G1 may contain intermediate-mass black holes.