That's the one.
http://bigsciencenews.blogspot.com/2...clear-lhc.html
http://www.scientificblogging.com/bi...s_and_bosenova

Including such gems as He-4 being "ionized" into He-3 (molecules of it, to be exact), and the LHC turning into a runaway fusion reactor in the event of a helium leak...

LHC Lawsuit Collides with Pavement

Couldn't have said it better myself.

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While you were on hiatus we already discussed that in the Wagner in Court thread:

In other words, the judge said that the lawsuit reflects disagreement among scientists about the possible ramifications of the operation of the LHC. She also said that the debate was extremely complex and that it was "of concern" to more than just physicists.

As the judge noted above, the lawsuit reflects disagreement among scientists. The actual arguments of scientists CERN or otherwise did not get a hearing in court.

And don't forget that Rossler's suit in the EU court of human rights is still very much alive. The fat lady hasn't sung quite yet.

Moreover, it's a mischaracterization to say that the doomsayer's "claims" are clung to tenaciously, if by "claims" we mean alternative, theoretical scenarios. It's not as if Wagner and Sancho and Rossler and Plaga have a rival, unorthodox, overarching theory in mind and that they believe quantum mechanics and relativity are all bunk. They instead point to the uncertainty of the theories that supposedly guarantee the safety of the LHC. They point to the history of science: e.g., Kelvin's age of the Sun, how Project Shrimp was more powerful by a factor of 2.5, or how everyone but crackpots used to believe that the universe was actually decelerating. They point to retraction rates of scientific articles in scientific journals at rates from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 100.

The doomsayers wonder whether we are about to stumble into a perfect storm of wrong theory, a 100-year flood of misbegotten assumptions that will make Noah's flood look like a picnic.

Amazing...

You should ask yourself whether taking history into account or ignoring it altogether when conducting a risk analysis that depends on the "watertightness" of untested theory is a sign of critical thinking or not.

Explain to me what is untested, exactly.

Come to think of it- how accurate is your knowledge of history?
I hear ridiculous claims all the time like "100 years ago scientists said the Earth was flat!" and all kinds of other nonsense from people that are trying very hard to point out that science can be wrong.

The very idea of mini-black holes? They've never been observed, so no one really knows how they really behave. Yes, there are the astrophysical constraints. But those also depend on a lot of untested theory. Ever been on the inside of a white dwarf? And is the universe really as old as we think it is? As time progresses, the age of the universe tends to decrease.

You may have heard ridiculous claims like "100 years ago scientists said the Earth was flat!" and all kinds of other nonsense from people that are trying very hard to point out that science can be wrong. But you never heard such nonsense from me--that's for sure. I gave the link to Lord Kelvin's original paper. Read it for yourself. He estimated the age of the Earth at 100,000,000 years, with 500,000,000 as a maximum upper bound. I also gave the link to the history of the "Shrimp" bomb that turned out to be a "Prawn".

I remember when former Scientific American writer John Horgan came out with his book, The End of Science. I used to carry it around the philosophy department. All the big discoveries are over, I used to say. Then we found out that the universe is accelerating.

I've come to the conclusion that science still has surprises in store for us. Is it uncritical to imagine that not all such surprises will necessarily be pleasant surprises?

I'm sure that someone here is clever enough to find a reason to be reassured by the following paper (highly recommended by Jerry, though): "Dark matter, dark energy and modern cosmology: the case for a Kuhnian paradigm shift" by J. E. Horvath.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...809.2839v1.pdf

There is no firm hint from measured physics about ”dark matter” or ”dark energy” particles as yet, and their existence would open up a whole new physics deeply affecting the existing view of the microphysical world. The fact that, according to this possibility, we may be ignoring the composition of > 95% of our universe, and the implication that we are not made of the same material that most of the universe can not be overstated.

Instead, we may be well inside a true major scientific revolution in cosmology itself, and thus our vision of the problem still blurred because precisely of that. This would be the case if full revision of the way we look at gravitational physics may be needed (hopefully making dark matter + dark energy go away), as advocated by some.

Interesting article. Yes, gravitational physics may change in the future. Lots of things change in all branches of physics.

So what does this article have to do with the LHC being a danger? I didn't see any mention of it in the article.

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"The universe is driven by the complex interaction between three ingredients: matter, energy, and enlightened self-interest." - G'Kar

Just that arguments that mini black holes (mBH's) are harmless depend on semiclassical approaches to gravity, yet it may be that such traditional approaches may have to be radically revised.

Were that to happen, whither the arguments that guarantee the safety of the LHC?

You're grasping at straws again, as well as slathering them across in other threads totally unrelated to the LHC discussion.

What do you honestly think? The arguments for the safety depend on a lot of theory, don't they? Yet that theory depends in turn on the underlying scientific paradigm. Yet it appears that whole edifice could get overturned any day now. If we're going to "bet the Planet", don't you think we should have firmer foundations upon which to build our safety arguments?

Not really, no. They rely heavily on a great many well understood principles.
Established? You make it sound like Blind Faith or belief.
Rocks are hard too. If I do an experiment that is based on the "belief" that rocks are hard- am I endangering the Earth because "what if Rocks are Actually SOFT?!"?
Come on!
No it does not!
What on Earth made you claim that our basic physics is on the verge of being overturned?
Did you just invent that off the top of your head or what?
You think an ArViX paper PROVES that our Physics theories are on the verge of Overturning?

Come Back To Reality Warren Platts.
You have been so high up on your doomsday soap box for so long that the clouds have gotten in your ears.
Can they really get any firmer?
The most damage the Planet Earth is facing at this point is a splitting headache from all the doosmday whining.

The arguments for disaster depend a lot more on theory--no wait, that implies a much higher level of review and rigor. The arguments for disaster depend a lot more on wild speculation.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

Well, what is the argument for disaster? It's that LHC will turn into a "Black Hole Factory" (CERN's term--not mine). It's that the string theorists are correct, and we actually live in a 5-dimensional world. It's that maybe, just maybe, Hawking radiation--a hypothetical phenomenon that has never been observed--might not actually happen, or if it does, it may not happen fast enough. Meanwhile, both particle physics and cosmology are ripe for one of those "shocker" moments, when you realize this ain't the way I thought Kansas was supposed to be like moments.

Have you read this thread?

You know.. THIS thread? Where THIS topic is? Not all the OTHER threads you seem to be slathering your Doomsday prophecies (aka Garbage) on?

Warren Platts- Repeatedly it has been Covered: Hawking Radiation is just a BONUS.
So if there is no Hawking Radiation evaporating MBh's- IF they get created at all- It makes no difference.
If Hawking radiation DOES exist- that's a bonus.

Golly- have you pursued the Tevatron this harshly?

Bonus? What do you mean "bonus"? I don't get where you're coming from--you're saying the first principles of physics rule out string theory?
I actually did express reservations about the Gravitron. Reasoned arguments got me to change my mind, and I accepted the fact that the Gravitron was reasonably safe.

No. He is saying (as others, including myself, have said, and you have repeatedly ignored):

EVEN if there is no such thing as Hawking radiation, a black hole produced by LHC will still be completely harmless.

Because it will be of such an insignificantly small size that it won't be able to gobble up a piece of lint off a particle physicist's jacket, much less * the entire Earth *.

This is based on the results of doing the math on how much energy LHC can produce, and the resulting infinitesimal size and corresponding weak gravity of the black hole.

You are, as usual, intentionally missing the point of what people are saying.

Yes, Hawking radiation would be a bonus - it would mean that the infinitesimal black hole that's incapable of swallowing anything would ALSO wink out of existence immediately.

If it didn't because Hawking radiation doesn't exist, it still does not matter one iota.

Bring on the teeny black holes. I'd love to see them.

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Sorry, but that your point is so obviously wrong, it went right over my head. Even Giddings and Mangano say that the wrong kind mBH could be potentially problematic on timescales of 10⁵ years. They at least give lip service to environmental ethics and agree that destroying the Earth in 300,000 years would be a bad thing. Maybe you think that's not a bad thing. You'd be wrong.

That's why Giddings and Mangano do the whole white dwarf and neutron star song and dance. They wouldn't have to if their calculations showed that all conceivable mBH's producible by the LHC would not potentially gobble up the Earth on time scales shorter than the predicted future lifetime of the Solar System.

Plaga, of course, gives plausible reasons for thinking that a mBH could grow to the size of a kilogram in a fraction of a second. Yes, G&M, in their rebuttal say that Plaga's calculations were off by 23 orders of magnitude. But it turns out that Plaga wasn't using the equation they said he was. So where does that leave us?

And the white dwarf argument is not without problems. I reproduced here the equation in G&M that's supposed to constrain the theoretical variation in cosmic ray produced mBH's stopping lengths within white dwarfs with weak magnetic fields (it turns out that the vast majority of white dwarfs are protected from cosmic rays by powerful magnetic fields). There is a term (D - 5) in the denominator, implying that the whole equation blows up when D = 5 such that the stopping lengths of 5th dimensional mBH's (the most dangerous kind) within white dwarfs are completely unconstrained. This is such a glaring hole in G&M's argument, I thought for sure that I must be massively wrong somehow. Yet who has stepped up to the plate and showed me the error of my ways?

There are other potential problems with the astrophysical argument as well. I refer you to my earlier posts since you don't have the time or inclination to read the primary literature.

No. It is not me that is doing the ignoring around here.

To return to the topic of the day, and keep the thread moving in a noncircle, I'd like to return to Master Neverfly's contention that physics is not on the verge of a Kuhnian paradigm shift:
As the paper was saying: something's got to give--either in particle physics or in astrophysics. Either dark matter and dark energy will have to be brought out of the cold and somehow fitted into our theories of ordinary matter and energy--which will require a revolution in particle physics--or else dark matter and dark energy will have to be done away with altogether--which will require a rewriting of the laws of gravity. Either way, that's a huge source of uncertainty. The theoretical core of modern physics is rotting out. That does not bode well for arguments that purport to guarantee the safety of the LHC. We need to be as certain that the LHC will not destroy Mother Earth as that Warren Platts will not win the Nobel Prize in physics tomorrow. I think the latter is more certain; that's not right.

Warren Platts getting a Nobel prize could happen, the Nobel prize commitee only needs to agree to make a practical bad joke. Unjustified - yes, absurd -yes, impossible not a bit.
IIRC string theory predicts something like 11 dimensions not five.
But the mbh gobbling mass up to 1 kg in a fraction of a second is a new dimension of absurdity with nothing to back up other than wild speculation.

Now that is a quotable quote if I ever heard one...
Get a job with the media.
You're really good at word distortion. And I wouldn't be surprised if you actually believe it too. it'll help you report with seeming sincerety.

That he used the wrong equation and that explains why he was off so badly?



Well, for one: You wouldn't listen anyway. You would continue to repeat the same tired arguments as you have been doing.
Two: I have no idea what the D-5 thing is all about.

Such black and white thinking...

Warren Platts, have you read any of the papers out RECENTLY on the direct or near direct observation of Dark Matter?

What's the point in even arguing anymore? No one is going to convince the other person.

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My Youtube vids, http://uk.youtube.com/user/RossPK81

I still like being called "Master."

Yes Master. . . .

I've already compromised myself--I'll never get those photo-ops with Brian Cox!
Master, we already went over this, when you said you weren't too concerned about a black hole eating up the Earth within 300,000 years because you figured a GRB would do us in within 100,000 years. That's why you're confusing me. You're forgetting what you've already admitted.

Well, I went back over G&M's formulas to do a worst case scenario for a 6-D mBH in the macroscopic regime. G&M's formulas (4.46) and (4.49) (p. 25) have a parameter λ_D that can range from 3 to 6.6 for D > 4 and from 4 to 18 for D = 4. Thus the higher the λ, the shorter the accretion timescale. G&M just set λ = 4 for their numerical examples, a conservative, but non-worst case assumption. A truly worst case assumption would use the highest allowable λ. Thus according to my calculations (for D = 6):

(4.46) (λ = 6.6) t = 8,333 years (6-D subatomic to atomic transition)
(4.49) (λ = 6.6) t = 14,697 years (6-D atomic to 4-D transition)
(4.49) (λ = 18) t = 5,388 years (4-D to M_Earth transition)
total t = 28,418 years

(You have to do equation (4.49) twice because it covers two phases of evolution: (1) growth from atomic scales to the point where regular 4 dimensional growth takes over; and (2) the 4 dimensional evolutionary phase where the black hole grows until its mass = M_Earth.)

So, under a worst case scenario for a 6-D black hole, the situation could get potentially problematic an order of magnitude sooner than the earliest "conservative" estimate of time until potential problematicity that I could glean from G&M of ~ 300,000 years.

Therefore, Hawking radiation is more than just a bonus for theoretically harmless mBH's that can't grow fast enough to be a potential danger. There are allowable choices of parameters that do allow for potentially fast growing mBH's. It would be nice if Hawking radiation could provide an absolute safety guarantee, but unfortunately, Hawking radiation cannot provide an absolute guarantee, and if Plaga is correct, Hawking radiation can be a danger in itself.

Then there's the astrophysical arguments. Unfortunately, they cannot provide an absolute safety guarantee either. So all we have are a series of arguments that say that the LHC is probably safe--but this is a far cry from having a reasonable certainty that the LHC is totally harmless, at least on global scales (it seems like a dangerous place to work with all the mishaps going on). And when the Home Planet is on the line, we must insist on reasonable certainty as the only allowable standard of proof.

We should be long dead then; this sort of speculation ignores the fact that cosmic ray collisions with the atmosphere are far more energetic, and they have yet to destroy Earth.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

Ok; I may not be keen enough to follow all your math and arguments, but I do feel I know enough to ask...
How valid is the 6D scenerio anyway? Is there as much data to back it up as there is for 10D or 11D?

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

We've been through this so many times before in this thread; it's easier for me to just quote G&M again: "In view of the value for Earth [stopping distance of mBH's] 3 × 10¹¹ cm, these [stopping] mechanisms [in Earth] cannot efficiently slow down neutral C[osmic]R[ay]-produced black holes in Earth, or in other bodies such as planets and ordinary stars." (p. 33)

I agree that my choice of parameters is "fine-tuned", but they are taken from the allowable parameter space. You might be right that it's more likely that we live in 10 dimensions rather than 6 dimensions, based on a priori considerations. However, such a priori considerations cannot rule out a 6-D (or 5-D) world, and there certainly is no experimental data that can rule out 6-D scenarios. The mere fact that 6-D scenarios might be unlikely compared to 10 or 11-D scenarios doesn't really affect my argument: or rather it would if all we were talking about was a $100 bet on the outcome of an experiment. In the present case, we're betting the planet. "Unlikely" isn't good enough. We need reasonable certainty (a term I thought I had coined, but I see that Plaga uses it as well) that Earth-swallowing scenarios cannot occur.

My worries about the LHC are a bit different. I don't think about mini-black-holes. But I think the LHC could resonate with the earth under certain circumstances. The complaints are more like about this machine called haarp: a presumably scientific apparatus could be turned something, that could influence the whole world by modifying the earth fileds. This could be done with remote controle of experiments and two beams that collide in specific rythms, that could be specific to things, areas or even persons.
That should be prevented by random timedelay of experiments or limitation of the power of the LHC and sever monitoring of the remote access.

so what's the frequency of the Earth?

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All Moderation in Purple

1200Hz.

Hold on...

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WANTED:

Schroedinger's Cat

Dead And Alive