Nice explanation of why one needs not to worry about black holes being created by this atom smasher:
http://carnabyfudge.blogspot.com/2008/03/botanist-lobbies-to-save-humanity.html
This assumes hawking radiation is real, which has yet to be directly observed. I’m not arguing against hawking though, I believe he was right, but if he’s wrong it has ramifications for how quickly a hypothetical black hole would evaporate (never?).
Great post. My own question was also the first letter posted at the end. Good explanations!
What happens if the ‘Hawking radiation’ theory is incorrect, and it doesn’t evaporate?
Another point that CERN itself has made is that the earth has already been bombarded by ultra-high energy cosmic rays for billions of years, with no apparent bad effects. These cosmic rays are essentially the same thing as what CERN produces, but with much higher energy. So why don’t we just study those? Their collisions happen at the edge of space, and occur randomly, uncontrolled.