Criminies, Warren, where did you learn grammar? You applied the logical meaning to a grammatical construct?

It does not need to be either-or. It could be used in the sense of "this, otherwise known as that," a possibility which you overlooked in your rush to accuse them of duplicity. Indeed, the use of quotes around "worst case" would indicate this was their intention.

It is a misquote and they were right to point it out. You yourself have shown how the revised construction can be misunderstood. Also, if Praga got that wrong, what else did he misinterpret? How well does he understand what he read?

BTW, it's rather intriguing that you accuse them of engaging in an ad hom (which I don't think it is) by pointing out the revision, yet you launch your own ad hom based on their actual words and your misunderstanding of them.

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Pippen- to adress your last post.

I recreate the conditions on a Star...
Everytime I turn on my oven.

"What?"

Simply put- that is the same thing (kinda) as what you just said about the LHC recreating conditions.

The LHC canNOT create a Black Hole.
It might, maybe, there is a possibility- could create a Micro Black Hole.

Neverfly I just wanted to put that info out for discussion. It did however relate to an earlier post concerning the non-elastic nature of the collisions being performed. It also related to their safety evaluation comparing their experiments to cosmic-rays. I couldn't find any examples of cosmic-ray collisions with planetary or solar bodies creating QGP. But then again I didn't not find any examples of it not being created, so of course that's just another of my poor examples relating their safety evaluations to their experiments, further proof that I am no doubt simply and ignorant, uninformed peasant.

whats the difference between a blackhole and a microblackhole?

Mass and thus stability are the difference. A blackhole has the mass of a star and the resultant gravitional force. A microblackhole only has the mass of a few atoms, and as such is expected to decay due to the larger forces external to it.

Join the club!

But in all fairness, you have a good point.
Not having the educational background to take a serious and in depth look at the performance of the LHC is, indeed, a severe handicap to determining it's nature. I would know- considering that I am severely limited.
When I first heard the claims about the LHC being a threat- I did look into it with some concern. Even as limited as I am, it didn't take much more than a few hours worth of reading (Spread out over about a week) to put me at ease.

I have a strong tendency to refer to books rather than the internet. So I would be hardpressed to look up some good links for reading. But I can suggest that you start out by taking a very critical look at human behavior, what it means to have a non zero chance- and the amount of fear mongering humans like to do in order to make themselves look like intellectual giant heroes.

Mine has not decayed. It continues to live in my belly hogging up everything I eat.


......

Maybe you guys have a point after-all...

Haha

So in the non-zero chance that a microblack hole appears, it should decay via Hawkins radiation. If it doesn't decay that way, it should decay anyway because it is going to be so small that it's chaces of interacting with another particle are almost zero. Then if it does, it should pass seemlisly through the Earth and get stuck somewhere or it should just evaporate?

So it's safe to say, I'm going to have to go to organic chemistry on thursday?

Blackholes , micro or otherwise, are formed when the external forces exceed the atoms ability to remain cohesive. The protons and electrons collapse in on themselves to create a very dense structure. This takes extreme heat, pressure and gravity which is why it seems to occur only in stars with high mass to radius ratios.
1. decaying blackholes: the atom or atoms temporarily collapse but lack the mass and gravity to resist external forces and are pulled back apart.
2. stable blackholes: the mass and gravity of the blackhole are in stasis with the external forces thus it neither grows nor decays.
3. unstable blackholes: the mass and gravity exceed external forces and thus continue to pull any other atoms in that are captured inside their gravity wells.

CERN does not rule out the possibility of a blackhole being created because their experiments are designed to collapse the structure of the ions being used. Their argument on safety stipulate that if this were to occur it would be the 1st type, would last a fraction of a second and immediately decay. I don't disagree at all with their logic on this. While playing devil's advocate for the alarmists I discussed an alternate scenario. In that scenario the micro-blackhole does not decay fast enough, allowing other ions in the experiment to collide with it and allow it to continue to grow. In this scenario it "could" exceed critical mass, meaning that even after turning off the ion beam the micro-blackhole will have reached sufficient mass and gravity to start attracting other atoms. ie. the atoms in the containing chamber walls etc. It would then start moving towards the center of gravity (the earth's core) growing as it went.
I do not believe this will happen, but the alarmists use this as a possible outcome. I mentioned this earlier in reference to hoping that CERN has a containment field/vessel and an ESA rocket ready to launch the sucker into space.

I think with the time it would take for it to grow and consume the Earth, they could put a leash on it, drag it into a ship and blast it to Pluto

That was my first thought, in which case, the "this otherwise known as that" basically functions as an "and", which is symbolized by a comma. From the Chicago Manual of Style 15th edition, page 250:

That's why I said Praga did them a favor: the "and/," meaning of "or" is the most likely interpretation given G&M's overall project; because otherwise, you have to take the sentence as imply that they did not in fact use "worst case" (their scare quotes) assumptions to replace each uncertainty that they ran into.

Not if they want to win.

No, I said the revised construction clarifies the meaning--otherwise you have to take that "or" literally--as in logically. They are physicists after all--I'm sure they understand the Propositional Calculus. Thus, when they point out the missing "or", so as to contrast that with the "this, otherwise known as that/and/," meaning of or, then I guess the only alternative is that they really do intend that the "or" be taken literally.

Right. Good point. Now you don't have to take seriously Praga's distinction between the "quantum gravitational regime" and the "semistandard approximation regime", and how the former just may not happen to follow the semistandard rules.

I thought that the so-called misquotation was pretty trivial as it came out of a footnote and it clarified what I took to be their intended meaning, and was therefore rather mean-spirited, especially considering the respectful tone that Praga took in his own paper.

But now I admit that I was wrong. It was not in fact an ad hom; they apparently thought that the revision changed the substantive meaning of the sentence, therefore implying that they did not in fact use worst case assumptions for all the uncertainties they encountered. Which in turn implies that they cannot offer a reasonably absolute guarantee of the safety of the LHC.

I keep hearing talk that two 7 TeV beams will collide, resulting in a 14 TeV collision. E.g. when cjameshuff said that a stationary, 14 TeV mBH formed by the two beams colliding that happened to get hit again by one of the beams would turn into a 21 TeV mBH, and then go skittering off into the universe. But perhaps he's wrong about that.

Do you guys understand what a fast-moving tiny black hole would do to the planet in terms of tidal force?

I'm not going to get into a peeing contest about the grammar used, my degree is in math, not english so I will stick to things I have a background in.
Warren and I have both expressed our disappointment(for lack of a better term) in CERN 's response to Praga's work. Mine is their replacement of an unknown variable with a "worst case" quantity without signifying what they consider to be worst case. I am a big fan of analogies so I will use building in an earthquake zone. The magnitude of the potential earthquake is the obvious unknown. So when building the engineers consider the statistical probability of various magnitudes and replace that variable accordingly and then provide that information. ie. this building will have a .001% chance of collapsing in a magnitude 5, a .002% chance of collapsing in a magnitude 6 etc. on up. CERN however did not make any effort to explain what criteria they used as "worst case". That doesn't mean they don't have the worst case covered, it doesn't mean their assertions or mathematics are wrong. It just means they released a statement that scientifically isn't worth the paper printed. Replacing an unknown variable with a "worst case" quantity without defining "worst case" leaves that quantity as unknown.
For my part I think they are caught in a "catch 22". They've pushed theory as far as they can go and now need to begin testing that theory. Thats what good science is all about. Unfortunately they can not provide the 100% assurance of safety that the public would like, because noone has done these experiments. I want them to go ahead with testing, but am unwilling to call the alarmists idiots. CERN in my opinion has not and cannot provide that 100% safe guarantee. I believe that they have done everything possible to safeguard the public because they are scientists not suicidal dimwits. I have chosen to trust them, but feel they do themselves and the public a disservice by continually releasing safety statements that are so fault ridden and contradictory that even an idiot like me can shred them.

They *did* say that collisions like these happen often in nature. They didn't say these temperatures, the quark gluon plasma, etc occurred as well, because given the information that the collisions produce these conditions and that the collisions occur in nature, it should be unnecessary for them to do so.

Once again, there is nothing, nothing unique about the LHC collisions aside from the fact that they take place inside a massive pile of detectors.


Mass-energy is conserved, as is momentum. But it's much more than twice as hard to achieve a 14 TeV beam as it is to achieve a 7 TeV beam, and the products would emerge in a extremely narrow cone, making it difficult to see anything.

That was actually a very conservative, beyond-worst-case back-of-the-napkin estimate. It gains both mass and kinetic energy from the third impact, so it would actually violate conservation laws if it really massed 21 TeV. It would realistically be something less than that, and have a higher velocity. But the chances of the proton-MBH event occurring in the first place are ridiculously slim.


Do you? We're talking about one with <25 zeptograms of mass. There wasn't even a defined SI prefix for quantities this small until 1991. It's direct gravitation won't have any significant effect, its tidal force will be practically nonexistent. If you dropped a particle into it from a hydrogen atom's radius away, it would take:
sqrt(2*25 pm/((G*14 TeV/c^2)/(25 pm)^2))
4.3 seconds for it to reach the black hole!

And the target has essentially no size, even in subatomic terms...if the particle has any sideways velocity, it'll miss. And if it's positively charged, it will be pushed away with far more force than the attraction of gravity from such a small mass...until the black hole grows large enough for its gravity to outweigh its charge, a proton or atomic nucleus will have to have an initial velocity that throws it at the black hole hard enough to overcome the repulsion. Electrons will be attracted by the charge more than the gravity, but they're so light and there are so many other competing electromagnetic fields in matter that they're unlikely to be captured and neutralize the charge that actively prevents it from absorbing protons.

In case it was missed earlier, I quoted the LSAG report here:

Large Hadron Colliders a DANGER??

Again, from the report:

So, whatever the LHC can do has been done over, and over, and over again in nature.

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"They *did* say that collisions like these happen often in nature. They didn't say these temperatures, the quark gluon plasma, etc occurred as well, because given the information that the collisions produce these conditions and that the collisions occur in nature, it should be unnecessary for them to do so."
They didn't say these collisions produce QGP in nature, nor has any other physicist nor have you produced supporting evidence to support it. It's the same tired argument used throughout this thread. I took the time earlier to investigate where QGP does occur and could only find it theoretically existing in the core of neutron stars. Please take the time to find a reliable source indicating that these collisions produce QGP in nature and I will happily apologize for my mistake. Until then rehashing the same line provides no new material for discussion.

FYI QGP is not the same as quarks and gluons being released in a cosmic ray collision with a planetary or solar body. My charming analogy for this one is the difference between peas and carrots vs. peas and carrots in a bubbling soup pot.
All hail the great analogy king and bow down to him!
ps. I also posted a link from a previous collider experiment in 2000(I believe) where they think they created it but it didn't last long enough for the detectors to analyze it at that time.

Yes, that has now become abundantly clear. Ah, well.

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Ah yes another fine example of flaming instead of taking time to research my question.
Is this when I am supposed to start repeatedly ranting "I asked you a question now answer it!" No I have better things to do, like go to work bah.
I'll be back later and continue my research, meanwhile that gives you several hours to poke around and investigate. Find me some evidence please, meanwhile I will stick to my comments.
"Cosmic-Ray collisions release greater energy than the collisions in our experiment." Does not equate to "nature has and does conduct our experiment harmlessly all the time".
Remember folks, it's their safety papers I dislike, not their experiments!

That portion of the LSAG report is a great example of the rhetorical technique known as hyperbole. As is saying the LHC is as safe as a burrito fart.

And it all depends on that extrapolation of the semiclassical approximation to the realm of quantum gravity. . . .

Well, only if you want to pass the course. And, by the way, I can tell you from direct experience, that your existence is much more endangered by organic chemistry lab than it is by the LHC.

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No, this is where you read the answers already given and try to understand them. For example, and already mentioned more than once:

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This from the guy who insists that the LHC was designed to produce black holes.

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I lost track of this thread about the time it switched to biology.

Perhaps this was already raised, but:

The conditions in the LHC existed at the time of the big bang, well soon thereafter. Seems that would have been a great time for any itsy bitsy teeny weenie micro black holes to have a feeding frenzy. If Hawking radiation or some other method doesn't allow them to evaporate, where are they now?

Yes it does. There is nothing different between those collisions and the ones occurring in the LHC.


It is the same. Two bundles of protons and neutrons smashing into each other with enough energy that the quarks and gluons briefly interact as separate particles. In one instance, it occurs in a detector, and in the other, in stellar and planetary atmospheres and on every rock in the sky. Even in "empty" space, with random atoms of gas. In nature, the resulting particles explode outward into empty space, a star, or a planetary body; in a particle accelerator, into an array of detectors.


No, it's not. Those numbers are determined by simple observation. They are not exaggerated. These events really have happened that many times and continue to happen. It really is that unlikely to cause any catastrophe. There are no rational reasons to fear it.


At this point, this is a lie, plain and simple. You've had it explained numerous times. These numbers are based only on the fact that these collisions occur constantly throughout the universe. They do not depend on any extrapolations of gravity or any untested theory. They depend on simple observation: this stuff happens, nothing bad results.


It could be worse: http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/img/asse...ed_4.19.05.pdf

I'm the liar? Why don't you tell everyone what the difference in velocity relative to Earth that an LHC induced mBH has compared to a cosmic ray induced mBH. . . .

And why don't you tell everyone that any mBH's that these cosmic rays create pass harmlessly through the Earth. But that any mBH's that the LHC create will be trapped by the Earth's gravity.

But aren't cosmic ray induced mBH's trapped in white dwarfs?

Assuming of course that nature allows us to extrapolate the semiclassical approximation to the quantum gravitational realm.

Lurkers, your attention please: the CERN argument that it will be OK to unleash mBH's here on Earth depends on the assumption that cosmic ray induced mBH's get stuck in white dwarfs--but that assumption depends upon another assumption: that quantum gravitational objects like mBH's obey the same semiclassical laws that ordinary particles like protons obey. It's not necessarily so, however. Why should we think that mBH's are going to behave the same as protons and neutrons given that mBH's dwell deep within a quantum gravitational zone that intersects the higher dimensions????

There certainly is no law of physics as we know it that mandates that higher dimensional objects like mBH's deeply embedded in a quantum gravitational environment must obey semiclassical approximations developed for the ordinary objects we encounter in every day life.

The mBH's might obey semiclassical laws--but then again, mBH's might obey their own laws. It could very well be the case that quantum gravitational laws allow cosmic ray induced mBH's to pass harmlessly through white dwarfs. Therefore, it very well could be the case that all cosmic ray induced mBH's are harmless because they pass through everything due to their extremely high velocity.

And it could very well be the case that slow mBH's produced by the LHC will be deadly, just because they will be trapped within the Earth.

The fact is, no one knows whether mBH's are safe or not.

Roaming the Earth to and fro. But they're moving to fast to stick around and cause trouble.

I still don't think you're getting my point here. Please hear me out.

I think we can both agree that there is a low enough probability such that any lower probability is essentially equal to zero for any conceivable human purpose.

So I would like to ask kindly for you to pick out a probability such that any higher probability might possibly have a practical significance, but that any probability lower than the one you pick would always be treated as zero for any conceivable human purpose.

Remember, the new PowerBall has about a 1 in 200 million chance of winning, so you probably want to pick a probability that's even less than that.

Just humor me. . . .

Your point is moot. I'm pretty sure that you don't even realize it.
Instead, you have seized the limelight while you heroically defend planet Earth from the ebil gweedy sinetists.


Well then what the heck are you pulling your hair out on this thread for?
I can't count at this point how many times you have made statements in the largest font you can find.
I suggest you take a Chill MBH and swallow it with lots of ice water.

Significantly less!!!

I'm begining to think that you are unaware of just how significantly less.
No. I think your uninformed claims have been humored quite enough at this point.

Well is 1 in a trillion essentially equivalent to zero for any practical human purpose?

How about 1 in a quadrillion?

Swift?
Van Rijn?
cjameshuff?
Jim?
Pippin???
Fazor!