Will it kill is all or not? There has been a lot said about the Large Hadron Collider...?

Question

Some are saying that it will end life as we know it; others are saying that any black holes created will be so tiny that they will collapse in a billoneth of a second. Others say that it will turn into a giant black hole and engulf everyone but by the time it happens everything will have gone that fast nobody would know. Can you please seperate the fact, from fiction, because I know stuff gets distorted by the media and it is so frustrating. Thanks.

Answer 1

"So is no one anxious, even in the slightest, about people racing atoms at each other at the speed of light one hundred miles below the ground?"

No.  This has been done for half a century so far on this planet.  In space, this has been done for billions of years: cosmic rays are accelerated by the Galactic magnetic field.  The field may be weaker that what we create on Earth, but the distance on which it can accelerate a particle is much, much longer than what we'll ever had.  Therefore, many of these particle travel much faster (with lots more energy) than anything we will ever create with the LHC or even with the future machines.

"And apparently some scientists tried to stop the project from being initiated but their requests were denied. So there must be some danger in it. Again though, I don't know if that was fact or fiction. Still makes me nervous."

Some scientist (not expert in that field) have voiced concerns, but these concerns have been studied (they are not problems).  Other scientists would simply want to see the money diverted to other projects (like their own, for example).  The LHC does cost a lot of money.

"Oh, and, I should have added all of this on the main question; what will we discover? How things are created? What happened during the Big Bang? I'm apprehensive and excited but I do not want to die. Is it a bit dangerous dabbling in stuff that shouldn't be dabbled in...?"

We will certainly learn more about particles, we may learn about how matter itself is made (explaining nucleosynthesis in the first fraction of a second of the Big Bang).  More importantly, the hope is to discover why matter has mass.  What causes stuff to have mass (and, therefore, generate gravity).  If you hear about the Higgs particle (also known as the Higgs boson or the 'God particle') or the Higgs field, then that is what it's about.

It is always a bit dangerous to dabble in new stuff but so far, there has never been any indication that there is stuff that we should not dabble in.  We should simply be careful.  

And we are.

The "normal" black holes that exist in the universe are massive.  They are made of matter than has fallen onto itself and became so dense that gravity has become too large for anything to escape.

The type of black hole that could, perhaps, maybe be created by the collision of two energetic particle, is an "energy" black hole.  It exists when the temperature at a point exceeds the Planck Temperature (the highest temperature that has any meaning in physics).  It is not a "matter" black hole.  

Therefore, according to Hawking's theory, it should evaporate immediately.  In any event, it would be much smaller than an atom (smaller than even the protons inside an atom), so that it would find it impossible to "swallow" anything.

Cosmic rays are going all over the place with much higher energy; and they collide all over the place.  Therefore, if such black hole can be created, then they already exist all over the universe.  Many particle were discovered by analysing the result of cosmic rays colliding with molecules in our atmosphere ( =  we know these collisions do take place).

Answer 2

I'm with Tina on the quality of information idea, except I wouldn't put it on MY lawn, it might kill the grass!  LOL,,,anyhoo, they've been colliding hadrons and ions and other stuff in Chicago for decades, in San Fran and LA for years, and in frickin' Gainesville ferchrissake...they got a purty good handle on how to make these things work.

GO GATORS!!!

Answer 3

In short, no, it will not.  It will produce energies several orders of magnitude short of those required to create effects discernable to any but the most sensitive of instruments.  I am a professional astronomer working in the field of cosmology, and I'm hoping, in the next couple of years to get some time at CERN, and I can assure you, if I thought it was dangerous, I wouldn't go anywhere near the place!

Answer 4

They had did run the Large Hadron Collider on August 9 this year, and nothing happened to us.  

Answer 5

There's a *theory* that microscopic black holes could be created from the LHC...

The thing about black holes is, the smaller they are, the hotter they are - and they radiate Hawking radiation until they evaporate.  *Any* black hole created in the LHC will evaporate almost immediately - assuming they're created at all.

So... relax.

Answer 6

why not try cern's web site? get it from the horse's mouth.

most of what is on teh internet about lhc is nonsensical garbage, suitable for fertilizing lawns.

i know thinking is not a strong point around here, but try thinking this matter through. the scintists making this thing are not suicidal. they want to find things out. the ppl who put up the money to build it aren't suicidal either. they want to help the scintists. if there was any question, there would have been no funding, no lhc.

(which scintists? names, please.)

(no names = no information. please do not waste our time. oh, and anxious about what, in particular? do you have any knowledge of particle physics? do you actually know what these folks are doing?)

Answer 7

I have no clue I'd go with the 1st one because as well as we know I'm not dead-yet