The energy can't be higher than what they put in, so those trillions of tons have to be a huge exaggeration. In fact, we're still talking about particle energies that are less than one millionth of a single joule. If you converted 100% of that energy to light, you probably wouldn't be able to see it.

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"We do not require reality to conform to the expectations of the ignorant"

Huh? Aside from an immediate case of hellacious frostbite, how would an ultra-low temperature experiment be dangerous? Those experiments are being done on a handful of atoms at a time, because its simply not possible to leach the heat out of any substantial amount of matter at any given moment. Heck, if something DID go wrong, the ambient temperature of the air around the experiment would transmit enough heat to warm those handful of atoms up well beyond cryonic levels in a godawful hurry.

You're at more risk from a tank of relatively hotter than hell liquid hydrogen than you are an insignificant speck of Bose-Einstein condensate...

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

That's really not saying much, considering how weak the Earth's magnetic field is. An MRI device can produce a magnetic field a million times more powerful than the Earth's.

The worry for me is that the danger is still there. Yes whilst there is a certain amount of risk in everything we do from taking a walk to going bungee jumping the scale of what will happen in the LHC raises alarm bells in my head.

The problem is that you need some perspective on the issue, otherwise you'll be susceptible to scary-sounding numbers waved around by alarmists:

As with a previous post with a link I attached I raised the points that the energy used here would be around trillions of TNT

No. That particular bit of the article was gibberish. They were talking about particles with energies up to 14 trillion electron-volts (TeV).

That amount of energy is equal to about one trillionth of the food energy in one can of soda pop. It's enough to lift a one-ounce weight straight up about 0.0003 inches.

and that the magnetic field produced by such an experiment would be thousands of times more powerful than the Earths.

MRI machines routinely create fields on the order of 20,000 stronger than the Earth's magnetic field. Thousands of people are scanned by such machines every day. Facilities such as the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory generate fields a million times stronger than the Earth's.

I got this information from a pro - LHC site not an anti - LHC site. Please look at the earlier post with link and let me know what you think.

I think (a) their wording was very sloppy, and (b) you need to calm down and put these things in context. Remember, Nature routinely inflicts far more violent events on the Earth than the LHC collisions, and Man routinely generates far stronger magnetic fields than does Earth.

(Minor grammatical edits.)

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"Slapping a guy on the head is just as funny now as it was eighty years ago."

The ultra-low temperature stuff doesn't occur in nature, its quite possible that the first Bose-Einstein condensate and and other ultra-low temperature phenomena in the history of the universe were those created by humanity and IMO are therefor more likely to cause a major unanticipated effect (eg making the universe crash) than the various high energy events as those take place naturally on a regular basis. Of course the risk of it is almost certainly far to low to be worth worrying about, being crushed by a spontaneously materialized sperm whale dropping out of the sky is probably a bigger risk.

Unless dirty_g has a theory about the true danger of LHCs being covered up by a conspiracy of people who seek to benefit from the risk of creating world-eating black holes, maybe this thread should go in ATM?

Hi guys. Well I dont know much about it being a conspiracy and I certainly do not know enough science to argue against data (so I dont think it would be any good int the ATM thread) I dont know up to you. Anyway back to the the lecture at hand..... It does say on that site it will produce energy qual to trillions of Dynamite. I am reading it right now. Thanks to people who said that MRI machines produce those powerful magnetic fields. Its information like that which helps me understand so thankyou. I prefer answers like that. What about the production of matter more stable than what we have right now? Apparently this is a possibility and could cause some trouble.

The exact quote is:
I'm not sure what the article authors are on about here. Maybe they mean that the particles are more energetic per mass unit, but so what? The quantities involved are so small that you need sensitive equipment to even detect the results. Apples and oranges.

I don't know what you refer to in the second question. Please link and quote the relevant passage - it makes it easier for us to know what to respond to.

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"We do not require reality to conform to the expectations of the ignorant"

The energy released is trilllions of times more than dynamite. Well releasing that energy would be a bad thing. As millions would be like an atom bomb. The word "Releasing" energy puts an explosion type event in my head especially with the word dynamite with it.

But the quantity of dynamite is not specified. One molecule of dynamite? BTW the active ingredient is not TNT but nitroglycerine.

Fred

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"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684

No, it's not. A trillionth of a stick of dynamite is probably a better analogy.

Imaging the release of a trillion ton of TNT.
Where should this energy go?

By the way, most of the energy the LHC consumes goes into the superconducting magnets not into the acceleration.
They accelerate two LHC beams that will consist each of 2835 bunches of 1011 particles each.
Once the 7 TeV energy is reached, the beams will counter-rotate for several hours, and during this time the particles will make four hundred million revolutions around the machine, a truly astronomical number.

At each turn, the beams will be forced to collide in determined places, where the experiments are located.

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"Who does not know anything, must believe everything."
Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 1830-1916

To put that into perspective, one ounce is approximately 28 grams, about as heavy as a stack of ten U.S. pennies. .0003 inches is about 7.6 microns (micrometers), or about 1/7 the thickness of a human hair.

In other words, the energy in such a collision would be able to lift a single penny about one hair's breadth.

Not exactly a calamity, I should think.

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Bring back Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

The energy released is trilllions of times more than dynamite. Well releasing that energy would be a bad thing. As millions would be like an atom bomb.

14 TeV is equal to 5.4*10^-19 kilotons, or 5.4*10^-22 megatons. So each particle collision event is equal to about one-half of one-billionth of one-trillionth of a one-megaton atomic bomb.

Does a billionth of a trillionth of a bomb scare you?

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"Slapping a guy on the head is just as funny now as it was eighty years ago."

Hmmm somehow I think I release more energy than that every time I flip a coin.........

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Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Careful, you might destory the world.

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WHAAAAAT? You mean I can't have a hobby?

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Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

No. Now go put on that Pink Tinfoil Bicycle helmet I bought you for Christmas.

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Spoilsport

[Goes and continues doing his hobby at the secret clubhouse]

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Sic Transit Gloria Mundi