If you were riding with me and I wanted to pass a car in a no-passing zone, saying it'll probably be OK, and then ended the safety debate by passing the car anyway, how would you like that? You would in fact be justified in kicking my *** once we stopped.
No, that's like me saying, on a flat, straight stretch of road, that I can pass, but you're saying that a meteor might fall into the passing lane just as we enter it and kill us all, and you want me to prove that that can't happen. It can happen; does that mean I should never pass anyone?

They think they have a good idea what will happen, and the fact that they totally destroyed a several kilometer length of their tunnel shows they don't understand their own creation.
No, it shows they had a mechanical failure. It happens.

Why not?
Because it's irrelevant in this application, for one. Secondly, if you're going to risk v. reward all life as we know it, nothing's worth ending life as we know it. But again, this works off the assumption that there's a good chance it'll end life as we know it.

I'll point way, way back to the burrito in a microwave example. Have we proven that there's no possible way that microwaves could interact with the specific components of a burrito to spawn a black hole that would devour the earth and end life as we know it? Well, by your reasoning, since we cannot prove that there's some unknown science that could cause that to happen, then that means that each time someone microwaves a burrito, it will either end the world or it won't. Thus, we shouldn't microwave burritos, just in case.

All the science involved in the LHC has been studied. Possible outcomes have been worked through, and plain and simple, it was concluded that even if a mBH is created, it will not cause a catastrophic life-ending event. In order for that to happen, something completely and totally unknown would have to occur. Could that happen? Is it likely to happen? Is it even remotely likely to happen?

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Where is the direct quote saying they "don't like doing [the probability game] because it leads to the outcome they don't like?"

Again, you are drawing a conclusion, not providing a direct quote.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

My congratulations to Warren Platts et al on the 1 year anniversary of beating a dead horse.

I'm impressed.

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One of my classics, recycled.

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

And round we go again

Threads like this are a good example of why there are restrictions on time and requirements to support positions.

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I agree. I shouldn't have gotten back into this conversation as it's maddening to me; but when I clicked on it and saw the exact argument still being made, I couldn't believe it. Oh well.

I was hoping the tests would get going and the doomsayers would subside. Sadly, looks like we'll have to wait a while for that.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Nice comeback, Fazor, but the problem with both of our car analogies is that it breaks down when considering the consequences of something bad happening. When the entire planet is at stake, even tiny risks must be avoided, if possible. Now it becomes problematic when huge portions of GDP must be diverted in order to avoid a small probability of a global catastrophe (e.g., global warming). But even with global warming, no one suggests that global warming will cause the extinction of all life on Earth. And the economic cost of forgoing the LHC is trivial. Therefore, it should be a no-brainer: don't do the experiment.

Mechanical failures happen. Theoretical failures also happen.

Why are radiation safety standards and risk analyses irrelevant? Surely, you're not suggesting that the LHC should be held to a standard of safety lower than nuclear waste dumps! I agree!
A good chance? When we are talking about the complete and utter annihilation of the one infinitely valuable item in the universe, any avoidable, non-crazy chance of destruction must be avoided.

Boy, it's ironic that you accuse me of not moving this discussion forward. . . . OK, I'll save you the trouble of having to reread the parts of the thread you've skipped: yes it's theoretically possible that a microwave could destroy the world. The theory behind that is known as quantum tunneling. Michio Kaku has his graduate students calculate the probability that all of their atoms will spontaneously tunnel through a brick wall and reassemble perfectly on the other side. It's a nonzero probability. So, some similar process could cause all the matter in a burrito to spontaneously tunnel into a tiny miniblack hole that would then gobble up the Earth. Therefore, I cannot be absolutely certain that burritos are safe. However, I can be reasonably certain that a burrito safe not only beyond all reasonable doubt, but also beyond all unreasonable doubts--though not beyond crazy doubts. It's crazy to worry about burrito's destroying the Earth--and it would be crazy to worry about the LHC destroying the Earth if quantum tunneling were the only theoretical threat. And here is where your argument descends into mere propaganda: You employ a bait-and-switch argument that conflates two entirely different theoretical processes. That's because quantum tunneling is not the worry. The worry is that:

1. the double-beam design flaw results in slow post-collision velocity distributions such that collision products will at times be captured by Earth's gravity;
2. one of the four steps involved in Hawking decay--a "phenomenon" that has never been observed--may not work according to theory, as some theorists have supposed;
3. the universe may exist in 5 to 7 dimensions, such at any metastable mBH's would grow at fast enough rates to be "potentially problematic";
4. attempts to empirically rule out the existence of such metastable, fast-growing mBH's by pointing to the existence of white dwarfs and neutron stars are flawed because neutron stars may be superfluid on the inside, and white dwarfs may be protected by magnetic fiields, or they might possess Eddington limited black holes on the inside that are not noticeablle from Earth, but would be potentially problematic within Earth.

These are not crazy doubts. They might be considered unreasonable doubts in other contexts, in that it would be unreasonable for a journal editor to reject a paper on Hawking radiation because it might not turn out to be real, but in the context of our Mother Earth, such unreasonable doubts must be considered. Therefore, I am reasonably certain that a burrito will not destroy the planet; and though I believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the LHC will not destroy the planet (i.e., I would vote to hang an innocent man based on less evidence), I am not reasonably certain that the planet will not be destroyed, and therefore, I am totally against this misbegotten project.

This is basically an ad hominem argument in reverse. It's a variation on: "Trust them. They have PhD's. They're Rock Stars. They couldn't be wrong--could they?" The fact is, Giddings and Mangano admitted in their paper that they did not use worst-case scenarios throughout their analysis. Plaga, however, did, and if the worst-case scenarios do come true, we're all a bunch of done turkeys. We're all going to feel pretty stupid--myself included--when the earthquakes start.

"Trust them. They have PhD's. They're Rock Stars. They couldn't be wrong--could they?"

The point is, no one knows everything about anything. But you seem to assign some super-properties to the LHC that make it scarier than any other science. What about the first time an atom was split? Should we have never done those tests? What about the first time we created plasma in a lab? Or the first time we beamed radio waves through the air?

You have issues with the LHC because you think that there could be a possibility of some earth-shattering catastrophe, yet you continue to fail to show how that could happen. It's not good enough to just say "We don't know, but it could happen!"

My whole point with the tastey mexican food analogy could as well be made with lighting a match, licking a stamp, or stapling a stack of papers. If you're going to say science is gambling with the fate of the world because it might cause some unknown property of physics to decimate the planet--ANYTHING anyone does could cause some unknown phyics to tear the universe appart.

Show us why the LHC has a higher chance than anything else to do that. Show us what exactly could happen. Then maybe you'll get more support here. Insisting that some magic boogyman of science could mean our doom just isn't good enough.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Jim, I listened to the tape again, and I did misquote Ellis. He said "probability mode", not "probability game". My bad.

Hey, I am not the one going in circles here. I have consistently tried to move this discussion forward. For example, why don't we discuss why the CERN people insist on cranking the voltage up to maximum warp as soon as possible, instead of going slowly, reproducing RHIC's results first, and then increase voltage only a few percent at a time--instead of by orders of magnitude--and then thoroughly understanding the products every step of the way up. It would seem to make more scientific sense to do it that way, anyhow.

In addition, Daffy and gz and I are trying to figure out a regulatory framework for the next "potentially problematic" physics experiment. Even if we survive the LHC, I doubt it will be the last experiment with potentially problematic consequences. It sure wasn't the first. I realize all of you science groupies out there have never met a science project you didn't like. That might change in the future, however. As things stand now, though, any group of scientists anywhere can try any physics experiment that they can get funding for. Even if you are for the LHC, as Daffy has tried to argue, it would behoove all of us to put in place national and international regulatory frameworks to deal with potential global catastrophic threats.

What is giving the illusion of circularity is people like Fazor parachuting into this thread, and repeating his burrito argument despite the fact that I laid that argument to rest pages ago by pointing out that it is a bait-and-switch argument that conflates quantum tunneling with Steven Giddings' well-thought-out theory that the LHC collider will turn into a "black hole factory" (his coinage--not mine).

Tessara, the links to the relevant primary literature are in this thread. The "search this thread" button at the top of the window isn't perfect. Also look in the ArXive and search under Giddings and Mangano, and especially Plaga ( On the potential catastrophic risk from metastable quantum-black holes produced at particle colliders) Giddings and Mangano's response

Here's a link to an interesting paper by Giddings on Black hole production

Also: High Energy Colliders as Black Hole Factories

Very funny CM; now where is that post on how my physics is all wrong that you promised me a long time ago?

Drunk Vegan Maybe it'll be another year before you read this thread again?

OMG! You are not reading a word I say! Here is what I wrote:

The primary literature is in the links I gave to Tessara above. Please do your homework if you want to contribute to this thread. At least just give me a fresh take--I can live that. . . .

So if:
1) the chance that a mBH is created at velocities not sufficient to escape earth (the possibility of that happening is much debated)

and

2) a part of an observed by not completely explored theory is wrong in such a way as to support a problem-causing mBH from not decaying

and

3) the universe exists in five to seven demensions, which is a big "if" and also hotly debated

and

4) the mBH reacts different in the earth than in any other observable celestrial body

THEN

it could cause a catastropic event to occur.

.... and that's not beyond a reasonable doubt? It's more risky than any other science ever done (bearing in mind that we have to view all other experiments as they were initially carried out, without the after-the-fact knowlege that they are safe).

I just do not agree with that. Sorry.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

I've thought about it, and have decided to withdraw from posting the discussion. I have made my point previously (as in months ago, not the recent posts) and have no compulsion to try to convince you to view things the same way I do.

I know when I'm getting to emotionally vested to be constructive, and do not wish to continue making the same repeated statements. It should be rather clear where I stand on the subject, so I think I've said all I need to say.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

I would like to see that discussion myself. Not because it adds to any safety issues, but because I wonder why they wouldn't establish some sort of baseline comparison to other instruments.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

As in well-within the realm of considered possibility (cf. High Energy Colliders as Black Hole Factories: The End of Short Distance Physics Phys. Rev., 2002; Astrophysical implications of hypothetical stable TeV-scale black holes Phys. Rev. 2008)
If Hawking radiation has been observed, that's news and you need to provide a reference.

A big IF supported by string theory that has not been ruled out empirically.

Not in any other object, only exotic objects like white dwarfs and neutron stars deep within the quantum gravitational regime where the semiclassical approximation just might not hold; the consensus is that cosmic ray produced mBH's pass harmlessly through ordinary planets and stars.
No, according to the theory, it would cause a catastrophe--if it didn't cause a catastrophe, that would falsify the catastrophe theory.

This is what I mean--you're not reading closely, I just said in post #1603
Thus, despite the fact that you've mangled the physics, it's not because of the physics that we are in disagreement. We disagree over what are called standards of proof or standards of evidence. My point all along has been that "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is OK for capital murder cases, but, as any judge will tell you, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is not the same as a practical, reasonable certainty--a certainty of the kind where we know a burrito in a microwave will not destroy the planet--and yes it's not an absolute certainty because of quantum tunneling. Being wrong in a capital murder case is tragic, but it is not catastrophic.

And so, "It's more risky than any other science ever done", because there never was a theory before (other than mass quantum tunneling) that can rival the metastable miniblack hole hypothesis.
I'm sorry to hear that Fazor, I know you to be a nice guy. Keep in mind that when having debates, it's a good idea to try and give your opponent a sympathetic reading. It helps first of all in understanding the position you are arguing against. This prevents misconstrual and hence arguing against a straw man that your opponent is not advocating.

What kind of silliness is this? First of all, "cranking up to maximum warp as soon as possible" is actually rather slow, because you cannot just flip a switch from 0 to 100%.

Then, a lot of the stuff that is "intermediate" is not really interesting, becauese that has been done in all the previous accelerators. Where were you complaining when those were switched on? I have serious doubts about your understanding of handling such delicate equipment as the LHC.

This is just a beginning to be a rather pointless discussion at this point. First try to come up with a reason that a mini black hole can absorb anything that is bigger than it.

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善數, 不用籌策 (shàn shù, bù yòng chóu cè)
He who is good at counting, uses no counting tools
“A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is”
道德經, 二十七 (dào dé jīng, 27)

I'm sorry to hear that Fazor
I just wanted to add that I am still reading this thread, and will follow along (i.e., not just slapping down my opinion then running. Not the most favored approach here ). I just didn't want to hold the conversation up by repeating myself. I am certinaly interested in what there is to be said.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

OK, good point: the LHC cannot be instantaneously brought up to maximum warp; it takes a matter of hours--if everything works right.

What about that "black-hole precursor" that was found that one time at RHIC? That was a one-off event that we really don't understand well. I think it would be a good idea to try an produce a few more of those at LHC and then thoroughly understanding what they are and their implications for string theory, etc., before turning the LHC up to full power. Besides, whether the intermediate products are boring or not is beside the point: it is not science that is driving the schedule of the LHC, it is the desire to put an end to the safety debate that is driving LHC's schedule. John Ellis in the video I linked to said as much himself (as did Fazor just above ).

Actually, I was employed by the Physics Department at Colorado State at the time. I discussed the existential risk posed by RHIC, with Marty Gelfand, my boss, and he didn't seem to think that a 1 in 50,000,000 chance of destroying the world was a big deal, even though that's a much higher probability than many lotteries run in the world these days. I tried to convince him otherwise, but it didn't do any good.

That would be in Giddings and Mangano (2008), section 4.1 "Accretion Basics" (p. 15-16): "Black holes whose production is accessible at the LHC have an initial radius of the order
TeV^-1. As they absorb matter, their physical and capture radii grow."

Ironic that on the first page(The abstract), they say:

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

What's really ironic is that weasel words like "of any significance whatsoever" would get redacted from the lowly Wikipedia!

Depends on what article in Wiki you are referring to. Is it a copy of the currently discussed article, or a different article all together?

Let's have a cite so we can see for ourselves, please.

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

Who cares about wiki, it's not like that is the most supreme source for real knowledge. It seems like you hurt yourself more with referencing the Giddings & Mangano paper. And the RHIC apparently has a different interpretation of the "black hole precursor, than the paper by Nastase. Those papers are a bit over my head, but I saw that the 2006 paper is still not published, ADS does not show it as published.

I did find another paper discussing Review of speculative "disaster scenarios'' at RHIC" where they state in the abstract:

And that is something that keeps being forgotten, that in nature in cosmic rays, these collisons happen, so maybe we should try to turn off cosmic rays too.

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Any comments in glorious red are to be considered in ModeratorMode.


善數, 不用籌策 (shàn shù, bù yòng chóu cè)
He who is good at counting, uses no counting tools
“A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is”
道德經, 二十七 (dào dé jīng, 27)

Here's the cite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...d_weasel_words

Weasel words are words or phrases that seemingly support statements without attributing opinions to verifiable sources. Weasel words give the force of authority to a statement without letting the reader decide if the source of the opinion is reliable. If a statement can't stand on its own without weasel words, it lacks neutral point of view; either a source for the statement should be found, or the statement should be removed. . . .

For example, "Montreal is the nicest city in the world," is a biased or normative statement. Application of a weasel word can give the illusion of neutral point of view: "Some people say Montreal is the nicest city in the world."

Although this is an improvement, since it no longer states the opinion as fact, it remains uninformative.

"There is no risk of any significance whatsoever from such black holes" is stated as if it were an objective fact, when in fact the qualifier "of any significance whatsoever is a normative opinion. Who decides the significance? CERN, apparently. Giddings and Mangano could have provided a quantitative estimate of p_catastrophe, (because it was done for RHIC), and then let the readers judge for themselves just how significant the risk is. But they chose not to.

Actually, the press release you cite is not a different interpretation, it is a clarification of Nastase's paper, The RHIC fireball as a dual black hole, that just makes sure that people understand that what Nastase describes is not a real black hole, but is a black hole "analog", and Nastase never claims otherwise. Perhaps he didn't publish it because the "fireball" he describes caused a "firestorm" at RHIC--and Nastaste doesn't have tenure. I see that Nastaste has been been banished to Tokyo Tech for now.

ETA: I see his idea was accepted to a conference in Kyoto though: AdS-CFT and the RHIC fireball

No, what is continually forgotten is that products of cosmic ray collisions cannot be captured by Earth's (still less the Moon's) gravity well; the architecture of the LHC is unique in the universe in that it takes two concentrated beams of high-energy protons and aims them directly at each other so that their momenta cancel each other, producing slow moving decay products such that some of them will be captured by Earth's gravity well if they persist long enough (Giddings and Mangano 2008, sec 2.2 "Cosmic ray collisions on Earth").

That's quite some kitten! It's already destroyed several kilometers of itself! But you should also read Rainer Plaga's "On the potential catastrophic risk from metastable quantum-black holes produced at particle colliders" before forming an opinion. He concludes: "that there is a residual catastrophic risk from metastable microscopic black holes produced at particle colliders."

ETA: He also proposes an eminently sensible program for mitigating, though not eliminating the risk by (1) increasing the power slowly, one step at a time, increasing power only after the preceding step has showed no signs that dangerous phenomena could be produced; (2) perform no action without analyzing the results; (3) have a protocol in place so that the LHC will shut down immediately upon the detection of an mBH, and then only resume mBH production when after it has been determined empirically that such mBH's are not of the dangerous, metastable variety.

So in the interest of moving this discussion forward, I ask all you science groupies out there:

I fail to see why in the billions of years there could not have been some collisions that resulted in slow moving particles that could be captured by the Earth's gravity well.

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Any comments in glorious red are to be considered in ModeratorMode.


善數, 不用籌策 (shàn shù, bù yòng chóu cè)
He who is good at counting, uses no counting tools
“A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is”
道德經, 二十七 (dào dé jīng, 27)

Sounds like a reasonable way to proceed to me...

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"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

Yeah, and it'll probably be another year before I read anything that specificially explains why it's impossible to accelerate an object to speeds faster than light, too.

This thread falls under the category of "interesting, but mystery solved."

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And what is the difference between two beams of velocity 1 hitting each other and one beam of velocity 2 hitting a target of velocity 0? the products will still have the same energy

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Wow, Warren, that sounds like a "zero probability" statement! Are you sure? Have you run the calculations?

What is the probability of a cosmic ray collision generating a mBH that could be caprured by the moon (or earth) and result in the destruction of that body?

And, please, please don't tell us it's close enough to zero that we can ignore it.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

What are the chances that (a) two, very tiny high-energy cosmic rays actually meet up within Earth's gravity well; (b) that their momentum components (which has two variables, mass and velocity) add up to net post-collision velocity of less than the escape velocity of the Earth? I would guess that it would be pretty small.

It shouldn't be too hard to do the calculation, however. Take the cross-section of a proton and the cosmic ray flux, and calculate the rate that one cosmic ray will be within any given cross-section at any given moment. The probability of a collision at that spot will then be the square of the former figure. Then take the inverse sine of the escape velocity of Earth (plus a fudge factor taking into account the drag imposed by the Earth on neutral, metastable black holes--easily obtained from G&M's analysis) divided by the speed of light, double that amount and divide by 360 degrees, and you'll get a good first order approximation of the fraction of collisions that will result in velocities trappable by the Earth. Take the fraction times the rate of collisions, and then multiply by the number of total proton volumes in the Earth.

That's awsome, but I want to hear from the science groupies!

Then why are you reading this sentence?

It's not the energy that's the problem, it's the resultant velocity that's the problem. This is an imperfect analogy, but imagine one car traveling 300 km/hr that rear-ends a stationary vehicle with it's brakes off. Both vehicles will keep moving at an initial velocity close to 150 km/hr. Now imagine a headon collision of two cars traveling at 150 km/hr each. The total energy involved both cases is the same, but in the headon collision, the two cars will fuse and be at rest with respect to the Earth.

It is a very imperfect analogy. In a collision both energy and momentum are conserved. What you are describing are two perfectly inelastic collisions. In that case the conservation of energy is satisfied by the heat generated in the colliding bodies (kinetic energy at the level of the random motion of the constituent atoms), and the macroscopic kinetic energy is not conserved. But if, for instance, you smack two protons together the collision will be elastic and the energy as well as momentum will be conserved.