Will the LHC kill us all? I'm scared.?

Question

Will the LHC kill us all? I'm scared.?

Answer 1

The L*****n Horticulture Club?

Answer 2

There have been alarmists with every new advancement in atomic technology.  This is getting more publicity than in the past because of the Internet.  For some reason, there always seem to be a few people who know nothing about these technologies and just can't resist the Chicken Little syndrome: "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!".  There is nothing to be afraid of regarding the LHC.  It is being operated by people who understand the risks and know that catastrophic outcomes are impossible.

Relax.  Look forward to some new discoveries.

Answer 3

No LHC will not kill us.

Even if they succeed in creating tiny (microscopic Black Hole) they will (a) not suck in everything around us and (b) evaporate rapidly.

Consider this: If the sun were replace by a black hole of the same mass, the gravitational pull on the earth would NOT change, we would continue to orbit. Granted the lack of light would present a few problems, but we would not be sucked in.

Answer 4

There are far more probable disasters facing you, e.g., heart disease, cancer, poverty, influenza, automobile accidents, murder, warfare, starvation, being hit by lightning, airplane crashes, suicide.......................

CERN is not trying to kill you.

You will be better off dealing with the more probable events and not worrying about the highly improbable ones.

Answer 5

how?

it is the biggest, baddest particle accelerator ever built. it is so big it fits in two countries. scintists are going to find out neat new things with it. it's really cool.

Answer 6

Relax, the LHC will not kill us. Please check out the link below. There is a podcast you can listen to on your computer which can explain who the LHC works and what we hope to learn from it. In addition there are links to various websites for more info about the LHC. I hope this will allay your fears.

Edit: Here's a simpler explanation. You cannot get more energy out of a reaction than you put into it. The LHC simply doesn't generate anywhere near enough power to destroy the world.

Answer 7

If the LHC manages to create a black hole (which would be really cool) it will be so small that it will evaporate before it has a chance to suck in much of anything.  Remember that it will not have more mass than it started with, and it will only have the mass of a few protons at most when it forms.

And how will it be created?  That would be when two atomic nuclei are smashed together with such energy that they become small enough.  This takes a boat load of energy, and if the LHC can make one, it would be the first ever made. Except that cosmic rays, which rain down from the sky all the time, are of much, much higher energy.  So if LHC can make black holes, it's not new to the Earth because cosmic rays must be making them all the time.  We're still here, so it must be perfectly safe.

Answer 8

Worst case scenario, that we know of, it will create an atom size black hole that will disintegrate instantly.  Not enough time to consume any magnets there, let alone the Earth.

And that even if they do make a stable atom of antimatter, the amount of a single antimatter isn't enough to power a flashlight, let alone a city.  You need several grams worth of antimatter to level a city, and that would be literally more than a trillion, trillion times as much antimatter that the LHC can produce.

The only thing it might kill is your electric bill.

Answer 9

black holes: the energy needed to create a microscopic black hole is 1.22 x 10^19 GeV. the maximum power that the LHC can reach is 1.19 x 10^6 GeV. even if it were possible for the LHC to create a black hole it would disappear in less than a billionth of a second. and even if it didnt disappear it would have less gravitational pull than a helium atom.

strangelets: there is no proof that they even exist. even if they did exist it would most likely decay. even if it didnt decay theres no way it could convert the entire earth into a lump of strangelets, because that would require extra mass and therefore extra energy, which is not available.

magnetic monopoles: if they were possible they would already exist. there are 2 choices. there can be electrostatic monopoles, or magnetic monopoles. apparently the universe prefers electrostatic over magnetic for some unknown reason because magnetic monopoles do not exist.

and billions of times a second there are cosmic rays smacking into the atmosphere of the earth that have more energy than the LHC can produce.

so no, there is no chance at all.

Answer 10

If the scientists really thought there was any danger, they wouldn't do it. Would they? Or am I being helplessly naive?

In any case, it's one of things you are powerless to affect, and you must simply accept that, and stop worrying about it. Live every day to the fullest, and what will be will be.