I said it was an imperfect analogy; your billiard ball analogy is even more misleading because some of the energy that's conserved is converted into new forms of matter.

It shouldn't be too hard to do the calculation, however.

So do it. Let's see how much it differs from the one you ran for the LHC.

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OK, fine.

I found a link to a paper (Terrestrial cosmic ray intensities) that lists the cosmic ray flux during quiet solar periods of 1 GeV or more at about 1600 particles m^-2 s^-2. Of course, we are interested in TeV particles. Judging from figure 2 in the paper, TeV CR intensities are 10^-6 less than GeV intensities. Since it takes 10³ GeV particles to equal the intensity of 1 TeV particles, then the TeV flux should be 10^-9 times the flux of GeV particles, or roughly 1.6 x 10^-6 CR's m^-2 s^-2.

The diameter of a proton is 0.1 nm or 10^-10. Thus, the cross sectional area of a proton is the diameter squared, or about 10^-20 (assuming protons are shaped like cubes). Therefore, the CR flux through any given proton sized volume is approximately 1.6 x 10^-26 CR's per second. Or to put it another way, we can expect that one CR will pass through one proton-sized volume (psv) every 6.3 x 10²⁵ seconds.

However, the transit time of each CR through each psv is quite short. Since the CR's will be traveling at relativistic speeds, to a first order approximation, we can assume that the CR's are traveling at the actual speed of light, which is about 3 x 10⁸ m s^-1. Since t = d/v, and d = 0.1 10^-10, then the transit time (tt) for one CR through one PSV is about 3.3 x 10[sup]-19[sup] s. Therefore, the probability that any given CR will be within any given PSV at any given moment is the flux times the transit time, which is 5.3 x 10^-45. Thus, the chance for a collision between two CR's (i.e., that any two CR's will meet up in the same PSV at the same time) is 2.8 x 10^-89 per psv per tt.

Now we need to calculate the number of psv's per Earth's volume. If we tack on an extra 500 km to Earth's radius in order to include the exosphere, that gives a radius of about 7,000 km, or a total volume of about 1.4 x 10²¹ m³. Since one PSV = 10^-30 m³, then there are 1.4 x 10⁵¹ psv/Earth-vol.

So the rate at which CR collisions are taking place within the Earth and its environs is 1.4 x 10⁵¹ psv times 2.8 x 10^-89 psv^-1 tt^-1 times 3.0 x 10¹⁸tt s^-1 which equals 1.2 x 10^-19 collisions per second, or about 1 every 8.4 x 10¹⁸ s. IIRC, my old astrophysics professor, Michael S. Turner used to say that there are about pi x 10⁷ s per year; therefore, we can expect a collision between two CR's to happen within the Earth every 270 billion years.

Of course, my calculations are most sensitive to the CR flux because the rate of collisions is inversely proportional to the square of the flux; thus, if I had gone with the original 1600 CR m^-2 s^-1, I wind up with 0.12 collisions per second, or about 3.8 million collisions per year. So it is still useful to figure the importance of angle of incidence. Assuming totally inelastic collisions such that only momentum is conserved so we can do the parallelogram thing, the allowable deviation may be calculated. G&M (p. 79) say "For a black hole to get trapped, and start its accretion, its speed should not exceed the escape velocity from Earth, namely v_E ~ 11 km s^-1 ~ 3.7 x 10^-5c"; therefore, we can dispense with the drag fudge factor. Doing the parallelogram thing, we calculate the deviation as the inverse sine of v_E/2c (divided by two since the orthogonal components will add up. Thus the allowable deviation from straight on is 0.001 degrees. 0.001 / 360 = 2.9 x 10^-6. Times that by 3.8 x 10⁶ collisions per year, and we get about 11 collisions per year that would result in post collision velocities of less than Earth's escape velocity.

However, the above figure is based on the GeV or higher flux. Presumably, only a tiny fraction of those collisions would produce a black hole, assuming string theory is correct, etc., etc.

Only you read billiard balls into it. I simply said that energy was conserved. What you get from the collision depends on what you put into it and what is required to conserve both energy and momentum.

Warren, you started your calculations but didn't finish. Right now you have a range of once every 270 billion years to 11 times each year for "trapped" collisions.

Keep going.

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Well I guess I should have stopped after the 270 billion year calculation. Do you mind if I just delete the rest of the post?

But who cares about all this physics stuff anyway? You all accuse me of continuing to beat a dead horse. Yet you all keep asking me to explain physics details. Here's all you really need to know: CERN acknowledges that there is a risk: they just say that the risk is of no significance whatsoever.

But why do you all automatically accept CERN's version of the truth? Don't you think CERN is biased? Don't you think any particle physicist would at the very least risk ostracization if he or she came out against the LHC? Do you realize that CERN is a semi-sovereign, lawless scientocracy that is answerable to no regulatory or governmental or judicial agency whatsoever? Did you know that CERN in fact has diplomatic immunity from the French or Swiss court systems? What do you really think when John Ellis says that the best way to end the safety debate is to make the LHC a fait accompli? Are you proud of him, or do you think that he's evil? Do you believe that the particle physics community should be subject to the rule of law, or do you think they should be allowed to continue to be a law unto themselves?

Let's move this discussion forward.

What a giveaway!
From the above it would seem that your objection seems to be emotional and political rather than based on science or evidence.

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warren
did a lot of work.


PS world peace

That is false. CERN is an agency of the European Union and is answerable to it.

Here is the EU's Convention for the governance of CERN.

From Article II of that Convention:
It also explicitly lists the building of particle accelerators as among the purposes of CERN.

Further, here is Article XI:
As stated in Article XI above, CERN answers to the International Court of Justice, which is higher than the court of any specific member country.

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Of course it's a giveaway--or else I wouldn't write it. Your next sentence isn't quite on the mark, however. Yes, my objection is mainly political, in that there is a group of 7,000 rogue scientists who answer neither to the court of public opinion, nor to courts of law. And my objection is based on the science--mainly on Giddings and Mangano's as well as Plaga's papers. It is also based on the evidence--or rather lack of evidence, I should say. The argument for it's total safety is totally circular: "Our several but mutually exclusive theories say that the LHC is safe, and so that's why we're going to run the experiment to prove that at least one of our theories that the LHC is safe is true." (Those are scare-quotes, Jim.)

In other words, CERN is answerable to no single country, but to a diffuse collection of countries, of which it takes a supermajority of such to get together and agree to hold CERN's feet to the fire. Thanks for making my point clearly.

Since the words "safety" or "environment" or "extinction of Mother Earth" are not listed in the Convention, there's not much there to misinterpret, or is there? And what is a Member State? Does Rossler, a lone concerned citizen, constitute a Member State? I don't think so. The situation is as if only the U.S. Federal Government had the power to sue Exxon. How would you like that?

Here's an Article you neglected to mention for some reason. It has to do with LEGAL STATUS: In other words, CERN and its citizens are granted what amounts to diplomatic immunity. Local Swiss or French environmental laws and regulations don't apply to CERN or the LHC, and local Swiss or French courts don't have the standing to file civil suits against CERN or the LHC.

Basically, CERN is an Andorra-like principality sandwiched between France and Switzerland. It has about 7,000 full citizens, and thousands more non-citizen workers, and it's government is unique on the planet, in that it is the world's first and only scientocracy.

Higher??? A United Nations court? The word I would have chosen is "weaker" as in weaker than the court of any specific member country.

ETA: From the International Court of Justice's official website:

Only States may apply to and appear before the International Court of Justice. International organizations, other collectivities and private persons are not entitled to institute proceedings before the Court.

In other words, all citizens of the world are utterly disenfranchised regarding a matter that potentially affects there very survival. It's freaking unbelieavable. Particle physicists have replaced the cardinals and druids. . . .

i bet hes hating that.

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-Albert Einstein-

Wow. I guess it's just as well that the US never built the SSC. Then we would have had posts complaining about how the hegemonic US was unilateraly building a device that would destroy the world without any consent from anyone else.

So long Warren. I won't say I enjoyed all of your posts, but at least they were, in general, readable. Why you felt the need for a blatant sock puppet, I don't know. Last refuge of the mistaken? Perhaps.

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"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

It's not only the ICJ that has authority as it says above, the EU member states can decide to use some other method.

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What sock puppet?

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I am aware that this is your major point of contention. You feel the risk is significant. I'm just trying to get you to compare it to the risk of a natural collision resulting in TEOTWAWKI.

I don't automatically accept CERN's "version," anymore than I automatically discount yours.

As for bias and possible ostracism, maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I honestly believe that had CERN or some particle physicist run the calcs and found a significant chance of Worldwide Destruction, it would have been reported and investigated. I don't think any reasonable person or organization would seek to advance a personal agenda if there was the very real rick that they, too, would be destroyed in the process.

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

Thank you Jim. I've posted a picture of my lovely "sock puppet" in my profile so you all can see for yourselves just how real she is.

I think my calculations are probably roughly, OK. The 11 per year figure is a total upper limit. Or to put it another way, the fact that the Earth is still here shows that GeV CR-CR collisions at least don't produce world swallowing mBH's--that I'll grant you.

I mainly wanted to demonstrate how sensitive the calculation for CR-CR collisions is to the CR flux. An order of magnitude reduction in the flux will result in a two-order of magnitude reduction in the number of collisions. Really, if it's possible to make mBH's at all, it's going to require TeV energies or higher. If I could find a reference for the actual flux of TeV CR's, it would be easier to pin down the actual rate of such CR-CR collisions.
Yeah, but even so, think about what's really in it for a particle physicist to come out against the LHC. It's a lose-lose situation for them any way you look at it. Remember, no one, not even JTankers, has suggested that the LHC will for sure destroy the planet. But say a particle physicist comes out against the LHC, and nothing happens. They're a cooked goose--they've angered the rest of the community and they've shredded their reputation.

And even if one did harbor serious reservations, they could easily conclude that the LHC is a done deal anyway--and it certainly looks like that's going to be the case, I must admit. In which case, what is practically to be gained by saying anything? The LHC will either prove to be harmless, in which case nothing was lost by opening his or her mouth, or else the earthquakes will happen, which he/she never believed had the power to stop anyway.

Alternatively, a particle physicist might actually believe that their voice could prove to be the tipping point that could turn the public tide against the LHC, putting an end to it forever. And let's say they were successful and put a stop to the LHC. The vast majority of other physicists will still remain stuck in their earlier conviction that there never was a significant risk to begin with, and so the whistleblower's will be finished, and nobody will ever know for sure that their whistleblowing actually saved the lives of everybody. That is, they'll never know whether their sacrifice was worth it.

I think to myself what I would do if I was an up and coming youngish particle physicist. Given my same politics and environmental ethics, I would still be against the project, as I am now, but I figure I would probably not say anything and just cross my fingers and hope for the best. Like I've said before, my opposition to the LHC isn't based on any weird beliefs in strange ATM physics theories. I accept the primary literature at it's face value, except for their final conclusion that the risk is of no significance.

So it's not surprising to my mind that the sole, technical objections to the LHC come from two old men who are not particle physicists. They've got their tenure, and they don't have to risk the ostracization that even a grand old man in particle physics would have to face (or least to not the same degree--and since they're mavericks anyway, they're kind of used to it). Rossler and Plaga may be kind of eccentric (aren't we all?), but they are not mental lightweights. Plaga at least has published substantive astrophysical research in Nature (and don't forget that a large part of the safety argument is astrophysical, so, really, Plaga is in the proper academic bailiwick to criticize the safety argument.)

I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to lead the project. Just imagine how difficult it would have been to find a particle physicist named Dr. Strangelove.

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That is the exact same reasoning used by Creattionists against supporters of Evolution.

All the scientists know it's wrong but they are either afraid of speaking out or they have 'vested interests' so they all go along just to keep their jobs.

Is that the best you have?

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All the scientists know it's wrong but they are either afraid of speaking out or they have 'vested interests' so they all go along just to keep their jobs.

Hmmm, lessee...

Keep quiet, go along, keep my job, and die,
OR
Speak out, raise a fuss, get fired, and live.

Yeah, I'd sure be torn up by that one.

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

It's funny you should mention the evo/ID debate, because that is another example where there is a HUGE cultural pressure to tow the line, and circle the wagons against anti-science. The best example is that little email exchange between Michael Ruse and Dan Dennett, both famous philosophers of biology with impeccable credentials. Here's a few juicy tidbits from the full exchange:

Dennett to Ruse: I think the NYTBR is under the spell of the Darwin dreaders. I'm afraid you are being enlisted on the side of the forces of darkness. You may want to try to extricate yourself, since you are certainly losing ground fast in the evolutionary community that I am in touch with. As you will see, I do lump your coinage in with reductionism and “scientism" etc. and think you are doing a disservice to the cause of taking science seriously. . . .

Ruse to Dennett: I am a full professor with tenure at a university known chiefly for its prowess on the football field, living out my retirement years in the sunshine. I have no reputation to preserve, and frankly can say and do whatever . . . I want to without sinking further.

Now, for the record.

I am a hard-line Darwinian and always have been very publicly when it did cost me status and respect. In fact, I am more hard-line than you are, because I don't buy into this meme bull. . .

It is true that I condemn or at least want to point to evolutionism, which I do think functions as a secular religion but never have I said that Darwinian evolutionary theory is anything but a genuine theory. I am the guy who stood up in Arkansas and said this when all of the fancy philosophers would not have any part in the fight. . . .

Second, I have no more belief than either you or Dawkins I call myself a sceptic because I think that atheism is unprovable, but I don't believe in the trinity or whatever, and have never concealed this, especially not to the Templeton people, to whom one might think I would suck up.

Third, I would defend to the death the right of you and Richard Dawkins to say what you like. I would print those bloody cartoons,

. . .

Fifth, I think that you and Richard [Dawkins] are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design. We are losing this battle, . . . what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues. Neither of you are willing to study Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas. It is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard claims. More than this, we are in a fight, and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will. . . .

Dennett to Ruse: I'll wait before replying to you. I doubt that you mean all the things you say here. Think it over.

The above attests to the pressure that even Grand Old Men with tenure face within a given academic community--in this case it's evolutionary biology. So your point, Captain Swoop only reinforces my point, that there can be strong cultural pressures within a given academic community to toe the party line. It would be surprising indeed if particle physics were exempt in this regard. The obvious behavior of that community leaves little doubt, however, that there are in fact strong cultural pressures within particle physics to not rock the boat.

Again, your counterargument only makes sense if you're pretty darn sure that something bad is going to happen. I myself am not very sure that something bad will happen. In fact, if I were a betting man, I would give pretty good odds that something bad will not happen. Indeed, as I've mentioned repeatedly on this thread, I would vote to condemn an innocent man to death based on less evidence than the evidence that's been presented that the LHC is in fact totally harmless.

However, I believe the Planet Earth has infinite value. It is the only planet in the universe that harbors life as far as we know for sure. Besides that, it's all of ours only home. Therefore, I hold--and I think you all ought to hold--CERN and the LHC to a higher standard of proof than is required in a capital murder case. The standard has got to be certainty: as in the same level of certainty that lighting off a microwave oven will not destroy the Earth. And for anyone to say that the LHC is as safe as a microwave oven, they misunderstand the physics involved, because the only possible threat a microwave oven possesses is that all it's atoms might spontaneously tunnel into a black hole, whereas the LHC is practically designed to produce black holes. And if you don't think the LHC will produce mBH's, and you don't find Steve Giddings' arguments that it will to be persuasive, then that RHIC fireball ought to give you pause. And given that black holes might very well be produced, it only takes a couple of wrong ideas about their behavior to result in world-eating monsters.

Granted, these guys know what they are doing. But there would be no point in doing the experiment at all if their theories did not peter out into the desert of wrongness. That's why we do science. Remember?

There is a circularity to the safety argument:

Theory says it's safe
Let's run the experiment
And prove that it's safe

So you are using the same arguments as the Creationists. 'Teach the Controversy'

Sew enough FUD and claim the scientists don't know what they are doing or they do know and are keeping the 'truth' under wraps.

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"Teach the controversy?" Since when have I advocated teaching about the LHC in schools at any level???

However, your stance is not doing your crusade against anti-science any favors. To paraphase Prof. Ruse, what we need is not knee-jerk technologism but serious grappling with the issues. These issues go far beyond the unknown physics of the LHC and mini-black holes, such as the the culture of CERN and particle physics in general, the proper role of risk analysis, the value of the Earth, and whether science should be subject to judicial review.

IMHO, this holds for many avenues of scientific research: genetic engineering/manipulation, cloning of humans, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence... not so sure we have a handle on all of these and similar issues.

I believe we should proceed with caution in respect to the LHC, because we are experimenting in realms which we have only investigated theoretically. We do not know if Hawking Radiation really exists, and if curled up extra dimensions really exist or not...

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

Just when this whole cern thing had finaly calmed down, along come two scientists feeding the media and conspiricy theorists again, raising their ravenous appatite for doom and gloom.

... Three physicists have reexamined the math surrounding the creation of microscopic black holes in the Switzerland-based LHC ... and determined that they won't simply evaporate in a millisecond as had previously been predicted.

... mini black holes could exist for much longer — perhaps even more than a second...

Casadio, Fabi and Harms think the black hole would ... pass through the Earth or out of the atmosphere before it got to be a problem.

"We conclude that ... the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible. ..."

Original article found here:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,483477,00.html

Post edited due to copyright

Wow, that's one of the most irresponsable pieces of journalism I've seen, and that's saying a lot. I love how the author seems to weave his or her own conclusions into the findings to make the article state something that was not found by the researchers.

For starters, the article doesn't state what, specifically, they found to make them believe the mBH decay could be longer than previously expected. I didn't expect the article to say that, though. But without being able to view their findings, the only thing we have to say their findings are more accurate is the word of the journalist. And from the rest of the article, the journalist is obviously fear mongering.

The researchers say that their findings don't make it any more likely that a mBH would cause a problem; yet the writer decides to throw his own "ifs" into the equation then report as if these trusted scientists just proved that disaster is more likely.

Besides, the whole "Scientists can be wrong!!!" argument is ludicris when you're quoting the findings of three scientists as your proof. That reduces it to "Scientists' findings are irrelevant because scientists have been wrong in the past! Now listen to what these scientists have found!"

Oh well, that's Fox "News" for you.

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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 think Warren will like this (even if it is from FOXnews...)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,483477,00.html

__________________
______________________________________________
“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

lol, even the ct'ers refer to Fox as "faux news"
but it still has them all up in arms, I'm in a forum full of them right now, so in the interest of getting back to more tirvial discussions, like rampant congressional corruption, I wanted to get some solid science injected in to this and dispense with it quickly.

Well, we have a very large thread in General Science, found here, about it. Also, here's the link to the .pdf of the actual paper in question, which I am currently reading through (but probably won't understand).

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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."