Is this Atom Smasher thing going to be turned on for sure?

Question

Personally, i really wish they would not turn it on. I love how a group of intellectual elites will benefit from this, and over 6 billion people will really not gain anything from this...I volunteer and do community service with children and to think that we might put there lives along with mine in danger, even if the risk is small is just preposterous...Just looking at the risk: reward ratio really makes me wonder how anyone would put this into effect...I know we spent like millions or even billions of dollars on this...I play poker a ton and sometimes...you just have to know when to cut your losses...

My thoughts and I really hope there is a way that this device can be just shut down and never be turned on...

Answer 1

Yes, it is going to be turned on.

But, I have to disagree with you. How can you talk about the benefits before it is even turned on? This new atom smasher could lend us information into micro-physics, or even cold fusion. I wouldn't get ahead of myself and say that it will blow up the planet.

The scientists at the Manhattan Project said the same thing, but hey; our atmosphere didn't turn into a giant fireball, did it?

Answer 2

You mean by Particle Accelerators (LHC) at CERN ?

Before answering this question remember that, those scientists and other workers too have a family. They have their children, their parents and their loved ones. Do you think they would risk their lives? Never.

But it is soon going get started but with much alertness and protection.

Answer 3

Agreed.

One of the top scientists associated with this project said the risk of the accelerator creating a black hole that will swallow the earth is extremely small - something like 1 in 50 million.

As small as those odds are, people win the lottery every week with similar odds and I don't remember giving them the right to gamble with my life.

There is a petition of scientists working hard to get this thing shut down but with the billions of dollars involved, it looks like their pleas will fall on deaf ears.

Answer 4

Particle collider you mean? Yes it will be turned on.

As for the risks... Meh, humans are an old species now there is nothing fantastic and new about us anymore.  If we end up destroying the earth and everything on it when this machine is powered-on, who cares, really who does?

And plus one gains nothing if he plays it safe all the time now does he?

Answer 5

There isn't any risk. That's just been overhyped by people who don't know anything about the LHC and hear the media say "this thing could theoretically produce micro black holes". The chances of the LHC producing a black hole or strange quark is negligible. Very negligible. Like "no chance in h**l of it happening" negligible. Furthermore, even assuming that the LHC did produce a black hole it would be so small that it would evaporate thanks to Hawking radiation before it could even come into contact with matter (yes, black holes do shrink over time and eventually disappear). As for strange quarks: if it were possible for the LHC to produce a strange quark we would have already seen that happen in cosmic rays or even other particle accelerators.

Furthermore, the LHC's benefits definitely outweigh the risk. The benefits are that we answer some of the biggest questions in physics (such as what caused the big bang and what is the nature of gravity). Questions that, if answered, would be a huge boon to physics and thus further findings and technology down the road.

Answer 6

Cosmic particles traveling through space sometimes collide at higher energies than what the LHC uses, yet we haven't observed anything strange from such collisions:  no mini-black holes floating through space, no strange matter that converts anything it touches to strange matter, and nothing else worrisome.

Answer 7

Yes it will be turned on.  And no, there is no reason to suspect that anything terrible will happen as a result.  Nothing will happen in LHC that isn't happening all the time in our upper atmosphere, and on the surfaces of other celestial bodies that are being pelted with cosmic radiation of similar and even higher energies.  I don't know any scientists who know anything whatsoever about particle physics who are remotely worried.  And yes, they all have lives and families, too.  It's not even a gamble really.  I don't know who came up with one in 50 million, but that's gotta be just a wag that probably wouldn't hold up if you looked at it closely.

Ryan--the LHC will certainly produce strange quarks in abundance.  They aren't terribly exotic.  It's the strange-lets that supposedly will eat the universe.