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11 June 2008

LHC startup risk, black holes, strangelets -- A-VP reports, you decide / Game Over (maybe) / We're Toast (maybe)

1 Comments:

Blogger JTankers said...

I see that the GLAST telescope has been launched today.

How much time might be required before analysis of GLAST data might indicate proof or rejection of Hawking Radiation theory?

This could be critical in determining the safety of the Large Hadron Collider, due to begin collisions later this year.

Unlike what CERN tells the public, the Large Hadron Collider Safety Assessment Group (LSAG) writes that current safety arguments are not valid proof of safety. Micro black holes might be created by the Large Hadron Collider, they might not evaporate, they might grow quickly and we have not been damaged by cosmic rays because cosmic rays pass harmlessly through Earth. CERN also tells the public that a new safety report has been completed, but so far the final report has not been released for review by world’s scientists.

The legal complaint before US Federal Court in Hawaii demands 4 months to review this safety report and a permanent injunction if safety can not be assured to within reasonable industry standards. First hearing is scheduled for June 16, 2008.

Learn more at LHCFacts.org
Wednesday, 11 June, 2008


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In the interest of bringing the arguments of all sides to the public's attention, Agence-Vleeptron Presse has filched the Home Page of http://www.LHCfacts.org/

As we posted some time ago, a lawsuit has been filed in U.S. federal court in Honolulu calling for, among other things, a cease and desist order to end all federal government cooperation with the scheduled startup of the Large Hadron Collider. Several U.S. Department of Energy facilities are participating in and assisting the LHC.

One plaintiff is a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from the University of California at Berkeley.
Fuller news accounts of the lawsuit can be read HERE.

Essentially plaintiffs contend that the Large Hadron Collider will, or stands a substantial risk of, creating a small Black Hole, which will risk considerable damage to or the destruction of the Earth.
Another theorized candidate for LHC-caused damage is the creation of a strangelet.

=====================
Wikipedia:

A strangelet or "strange nugget" is a hypothetical object consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. The size could be anything from a few femtometers across (with the mass of a light nucleus) to something much larger. Once the size becomes macroscopic (on the order of meters across), such an object is usually called a quark star or "strange star" rather than a strangelet.

=====================

The Editorial Board of A-VP feels very strongly that if the Earth, starting a few kliks west of Geneva, Switzerland (46°14′N 06°03′E), is going to be destroyed this summer, we don't want to be the news agency that didn't warn readers in advance that this was a possibility.

So A-VP is giving you time to ponder this scientific controversy, move as far from Geneva as possible, and stock up on bottled water and long-shelf-life foods. (There are also very nifty camping lamps and radios which run on hand-crank generators and don't need batteries or external electricity.)


Already today A-VP has been reminded of the impending global extinction of honeybees (Colony Collapse Disorder).


Now this.

Okay, here goes. Home page of http://www.LHCfacts.org/

===================

Some scientists are very concerned…

Have we learned anything from the space shuttle Challenger failure? paraphrase: Freezing Weather Risk? 300% safety margin! Launch!

- JTankers, computer scientist and independent researcher

Prof. Dr. Otto E. Rössler
Prof. Dr. Otto E. Rössler, creator of Chaos Theory’s Rossler Attractor

…after 50 months the earth to a centimeter would have shrunk. It would be nothing more there, not only no more life, there but also the earth would be… a small black hole.
-Prof. Dr. Otto E. Rössler, Max Planck Institute, University of Tübingen [1] [2] [3]

“ … the scientists are fully aware that it is not a project without a grave risk to the life of the Earth.”
-Dr. Raj Baldev, Theoretical Cosmology [1] [2]

… put a stop to this insanity.”
-Teresa E Tutt, Ph.D, Nuclear Engineering Texas A&M University [1]

… stake the very survival of all life on earth on the truth of their ZPE stuff! … a gamble.
-Dr. Paul J. Werbos, National Science Foundation [1]

YouTube Coast to Coast AM video
“LHC may cause mini black hole and swallow earth”

    Part 1 of 4
    Part 2 of 4
    Part 3 of 4
    Part 4 of 4

“Hawking Radiation… 50/50 chance of working or not”
“Once you have identified some problems you have to be able to prove they are not going to happen”
“Cosmic Ray Argument has been Debunked”
by Nuclear Physicist Walter L. Wagner [1] [2]

Question: COULD THIS BE THE MOST DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND?

It is certainly the largest. It is a 17 mile underground tunnel that was begun in 1983 and forms a circle under two countries, France and Switzerland. And it is about to be part of the most anticipated scientific experiment ever created by man.

The European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) is just weeks away from firing up the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This is the most powerful particle collider ever created and it will accelerate trillions of heavy lead particles to almost the speed of light and then smash them together head on. These head-on collisions at a combined rate of two times the speed of light (relative to the observer) will create an enormous concentrated energy of 1,150 TeV, tera (trillion) electronvolts, or 1.15 Quadrillion electronvolts of energy. This is expected to create conditions that haven’t existed since the big bang.

This experiment is being carried out by some of the world’s top scientists, including Nobel Prize winners. Their hope is to smash atoms into smaller pieces than ever before possible so that they can verify the veracity of several theories which have never been proven. If they can do this, they will win more Nobel Prizes and receive other great rewards.

The problem is that at this energy, at this scale of physics, almost all we know is based on theories, the very theories they are trying to prove. And some of these theories predict that when those atoms smash together at such a high energy, the conversion of energy to mass (E=mc2) could create miniature black holes or worse. These MBH’s could possibly be captured by the earth’s gravity and begin gathering matter from the center of the earth. If this were to happen, our entire beautiful planet could be compacted down to the size of a golf ball. This is a very dangerous experiment simply because we are right on the frontier of what we know and what we can only imagine.

This subject is very complex and there is a heated debate raging from both sides of the issue. Our goal here at LHCFacts.org is to lend a voice to the growing movement of people that would like to see a thorough safety review performed by some group that is not beholden to the scientists at CERN and does not have a financial interest in this billion dollar experiment. Please read through the material we have compiled and let us know your thoughts by posting comments. Let us know if you think we have gotten something wrong, too. We are not physicists. We are only collecting the words of the physicists and putting together a story. And in return, we hope to receive a story of safety back from CERN. So far, CERN has promised us such a story, but has not delivered. And the zero hour draws uncomfortably near.

So please, have a seat and read on. The scientists at CERN have a lot invested in this experiment. They may be willing to take risks that you and I would be appalled at. This is why it is important that we learn all we can about the LHC, before it is too late.
-Another

LHCFacts BLOG OF THE DAY:

    Collider Incidents
    by JTankers with comments from 2001 Nobel Laureates for Physics Dr. Eric A. Cornell and Dr. Carl E. Wieman, and MIT’s Professor Kerson Huang, world leading experts in Bose-Einstein Condensate research

LHCFacts ARTICLE OF THE DAY:

    a. Safety Issues in Layman’s Terms (lhcfacts) by JTankers
    b. The Coup de Grâce by Another
    c. James Blodgett’s Deductive Logic by Another
    d. First Hearing in US Federal Court of Hawaii, June 16, 2008 by JTankers
    e. Culture of Superiority? by JTankers

EXTERNAL ARTICLE OF THE DAY:

  • 6/09
      Three arguments against turning the Large Hadron Collider onOxford University, Ethical Perspectives on the News
  • 5/30
      DOOMSDAY DEBATE UPDATEby Alan Boyle on msnbc cosmic log
  • EXTERNAL BLOG OF THE DAY:

  • 6/09
      Is CERN Open and Honest about LHC Risks?by JTankers on CreateDebate
  • 6/06
      The Safety issues in Layman’s Terms (lhcconcerns)by JTankers
  • 6/02
      a. LHC alarmists and the culture of superiorityby Luboš Motl Pilsen
      b. A heartbreaking book about time travelby Martin Meenagh
  • 5/31
      Black holes at the CERN collider - will physicists bring the earth to a premature end? by Steve, Brisbane, Australia
  • 5/30
      a. Life at CERN in Pictures by Kathryn Chicalashaw
      b. The Sad State of American Particle Physics By Alexis Madrigal
  • 5/29
      a. CERN and the God(damn) Particle by William Henry
      b. The Large Hadron Collider by Bogdan
      c. A Challenge to JTankers by Physicist SU3SU2U1
  • Q: What is the Large Hadron Collider?

    The ‘LHC’ is the largest, most expensive scientific experiment ever created. It is located along the French and Swiss border and it will create conditions not seen since the first fraction of a second after the big bang 13.7 billion years ago. This experiment is expected to begin colliding particles some time in 2008.

    Q: Why all the concern now?

    When funding for the LHC was approved decades ago, scientists believed that there was no reasonable danger. But then scientists discovered a few years ago that the LHC might create something called a micro black hole, and CERN then predicted that it might create micro black holes at a rate of 1 per second. And the creation of just 1 micro black hole could potentially destroy the planet in our lifetime.

    Q: But surely no scientist would purposefully destroy the planet, that is just not credible!

    No, the scientists would not purposefully destroy the planet! But they might do it by accident and they might take risks that are much much higher than they are willing to tell you they might. Just like the managers that recommended Launching the Shuttle Challenger did not believe that it would explode. They knew there might be a reasonable risk because their engineers told them there might be a reasonable risk. But the managers said (paraphrase) “there is no proof of reasonable risk… launch!”

    Q: OK, I want the facts, what questions should I be asking about Large Hadron Collider?

    I recommend the following questions…

    Q: Scientists are not worried about this experiment are they?

    A: Actually some may be worried, according to Dr. Raj Baldev, Cosmo Theorist . Dr. Baldev says “ … the scientists are fully aware that it is not a project without a grave risk to the life of the Earth.

    Q: Micro black holes probably won’t be created will they?

    A: Actually according to CERN’s safety web site in 2008 predicted creation of up to 1 micro black hole per second. And CERN still predicts that micro black hole creation will not be an unexpected event.”

    Q: Wouldn’t more powerful cosmic rays create micro black holes if particle colliders could?

    A: Some scientists have argued that cosmic ray collisions are the same as head-on collider conditions, but the facts do not support that assertion. Occasionally a cosmic ray may involve a single proton traveling so fast that it may have more net energy when impacting a relatively stationary particle on Earth, but the results will be safely sent into space. Head-on collider collisions may involve thousands of protons (or protons to anti-protons) colliding all at the same time, head-on at 99.9999991% of the speed of light in both directions (colliding similar to a head-on car collision) in temperatures lower than space with powerful magnetic fields to help focus all the energy to a single point in space (extreme focus of potentially much more mass than a stray cosmic ray) and particles created may be captured by Earth’s gravity, possibly including the first micro black hole that might be created containing thousands of protons or the energy of thousands of protons and/ anti-protons, in the first second of full energy collisions. The differences between cosmic ray impacts and collider collisions are significant and numerous.

    Q: Don’t Micro Black Holes just evaporate?

    A: The black holes we know of grow at rapid rates, and the following PHDs and Professors of Math and Physics argue that micro black holes might only grow:

      Dr. Adam D. Helfer: Do black holes radiate?

    • this prediction rests on two dubious assumptions…
    • no compelling theoretical case for or against radiation by black holes
      Dr. Adam D. Helfer: QUANTUM NATURE OF BLACK HOLES

    • …the correct picture of a black hole is very different
    • …completely alters the picture drawn by Hawking

    Q: But don’t most physicists still believe that micro black holes will evaporate?

    A: Actually James Blodgett, who has a masters degree in statistics conducted a Delphi Study of 15 physicists, and he says “In 2004, I tried a series of Delphi questionnaires in which I asked physicists their estimates of several components of collider risk. As an example of the variability, estimates that Hawking radiation would fail ranged from 0% to 50%. The data are as follows: 0, 0, 1E-10, 0.001, 0.01, 0.01, 0.01, 0.02, 0.02, 0.07, 0.1, 0.1, 0.3, 0.35, 0.5. This was… before we were aware of the papers questioning [Hawking Radiation]“..

    Q: But Stephen Hawking says the experiment is safe, and isn’t he one of the most famous scientists on Earth?

    A: Actually Dr. Stephen Hawking is famous and creative, and he is hoping to win his first Nobel prize if he can prove that Hawking Radiation is real. But his theories often tend to be disputed or found incorrect. Hawking Radiation theory may prove to follow this trend also.

    Q: Ok, so if micro black holes are created, and they do not evaporate, then how fast would a micro black hole grow?

    A: Germany’s Dr. Otto E. Rosssler, inventor of Chaos theory’s Rossler attractor, predicts possible destruction of the planet in just years or decades: Abraham-Solution to Schwarzschild Metric Implies That CERN Miniblack Holes Pose a Planetary Risk

    (Dr. Rossler’s theory is that when a MBH accretes a charged particle, say electron, this will not go straight into the MBH, but will circulate around the MBH for a while, and by doing this, a magnetic field will be created which will attract positive and negative charged particles, each at the opposite poles of the MBH, thus accelerating the accretion rate.)

    Q: What will CERN do if they discover that the Large Hadron Collider is creating micro black holes that don’t evaporate?

    A: According to recent reports, CERN will stop the experiment. One recent post on the topic reads “… if there was a black hole at the interaction point, we could very easily detect a huge drop in the rate of events within a millisecond (from 40 MHz to 100 Hz) and turn off the accelerator.”

    Q: So we should be safe correct?

    A: Unfortunately once a micro black hole has been created, it may be absorbed by the Earth in just seconds. And once that happens, there is no known power on Earth that could halt the process of micro black hole growth.

    Q: Ok, but why aren’t micro black holes created in other colliders?

    A: Existing colliders are many times less powerful than the Large Hadron Collider. And most physicists think that the much lower power existing particle colliders have not created micro black holes. However there have been some incidents that hint that science may be close to creating micro black holes even with less powerful colliders. For example, Horatiu Nastase of Brown University writes: “We argue that the fireball observed at RHIC is (the analog of) a dual black hole.” The RHIC fireball as a dual black hole, and Nobel laureate Dr. Eric A. Cornell, does not rule out the possibility of stable micro black hole creation after an unexpected bosenova implosion at the university of Colorado.

    Q: I heard there is a lawsuit, what is the status of that?

    A: The first hearing in the US legal action is June 16, 2008 in US District Court of Hawaiian before the honorable Judge Helen Gillmor. Comments include those from the Harvard Crimson “[this lawsuit is] not frivolous” You may assist nuclear physicist Walter L Wagner with the legal action at LHCDefense.org

    Nuclear Physicist Walter L Wagner is noted for his role in the discovery of an anomalous cosmic ray in 1975 that was tentatively identified as a magnetic monopole. See Time magazine, August 25, 1975, “Bring it Back Alive” and “Evidence for the Detection of a Moving Magnetic Monopole”, Physical Review Letters,. Vol. 35, (1975)

    A recent blog sums up the arguments fairly well I think

    [User] wrote:… I can’t even begin to explain why. This is patently ridiculous that someone would be “anti-safety”

    Let me help explain. On another forum I posted the following in response to a safety argument:

    [user] wrote:

    http://www.wissensnavigator.com/documents/OTTOROESSLERMINIBLACKHOLE.pdf

    Thus, the currently accepted “safety net“ can be described as having 4 levels:

    (i) the miniholes may fail to appear;

    (ii) the overwhelming majority will leave the earth immediately;

    (iii) all will evaporate;

    (iv) if not, a long period of linear growth – “1 quark per week eaten“ – lets them be pussycats since it will take at least a million years before they “eat the earth“ [3,4].

    What if there’s a level (v)?

    The problem is we don’t know the answer to any of the questions above, they are not safety net, they are simply unknowns.

    (i) miniholes may appear at a rate of 1 per second as CERN predicted;

    (ii) one stable mbh could accrete [destroy] the planet, and most multi-proton mbhs might have velocities too slow to escape Earth;

    (iii) evaporation may be a myth as Professor Belinski argues;

    (iv) linear growth may be myth as Dr. Rossler argues;

    Recall the management argument before the last launch of the shuttle Challenger “What risk? 300% safety margin, launch!”

    Another recent blog is also a good indication of the state of the science on this topic:

    [user] wrote: Seriously. We get it. Wikipedia has an inadequate analogy on their page. For crying out loud, it’s irrelevant. This doesn’t even remotely belong on the front page. It’s completely irrelevant.

    It is absolutely relevant. If you had a reasonable explanation for the mechanics of Hawking Radiation you would be fighting to post it correctly on Wikipedia.

    The fact that you do not is fairly strong evidence that you can not, and a fairly strong indicator that black holes losing energy is a conjecture, a conjecture that requires Dr. Albert Einstein to be doubly wrong according to Dr. Stephen Hawking, that may very likely be absolutely incorrect with potentially very serious consequences.

    (For more Facts view the Hawking Radiation topic)

    JTankers
    Administrator


    3 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    it's all a bit alarmist don't you think...to the superlative. even the concept of a black hole is just a mathematical construct. we claim to have observed them...but their true physical nature is still elusive and frankly it's a whole lot of sensationalism.

    too many people played too much half-life.

    Vleeptron Dude said...

    hey, you're the guy who tried to scare me about the honeybees yesterday.

    My beekeeper pal -- North American Beekeeper of the Year 3 or 4 times, he knows his stuff -- says the CCD scare is way overblown, and it can't be blamed on cell phones.

    But he does point the finger at massive agribusiness hauling giant truckload caravans of thousands of hives all over the continent for crop pollination.

    Back to the LHC and the Black Hole ...

    in the last decade black holes have moved from theoretical mathematical constructs to pretty solid verification. They're there. Trust me on this one.

    Will we get one this summer in Geneva? Nah. Don't think so.

    Never overlook the power of Summer to make newspaper and TV editors bored and desperate for something masquerading as news.

    I'm still very excited about the LHC startup and the possible finale to the search for the Higgs Boson. I ordered my LHC t-shirt today, should be ready tomorrow! With the black hole dragon eating Earth!

    Anonymous said...

    Wait a minute, I read this book by Stephen Hawking..he mentioned Higgs somewhere.... theaoretical physics, quantum thoeory and women all have one thing in common: I tried to understand, but apparently I am too dumb.
    But black holes are no longer theory, see here
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gEDpCVJlQ0
    there is also a cool NASA vid somewhere from Chandra but I cant find it at the moment.

    As for the LHC, I WILL BE THE FIRST TO FIND OUT. Then I shall fulfill my duty as MOTG one last time...