The Digg Crew wants to hear your thoughts!
Please take our short survey about Digg and potential feature ideas.
Of myths and men
nature.com — Worries about an apocalypse unleashed by particle accelerators are not new, says Philip Ball. They have their source in old myths, which are hard to dispel.
lekahe- 382 diggs
- digg it
- Cyoshio, on 05/04/2008, -1/+7Being completely swallowed by an ever growing ultra-dense particle? As far as possible ends for our Earth go, I think that's pretty good.
- wonderchemist, on 05/04/2008, -0/+3And you get to be real close to all the people you like to shag!
- kevinmotel, on 05/04/2008, -0/+4and all the ones you don't
- wonderchemist, on 05/04/2008, -0/+3And you get to be real close to all the people you like to shag!
- blueloop68, on 05/04/2008, -8/+16Did you know that at the dawn of the automobile age a debate went on, even in the medical community, that if a human being were to break the 100 mph barrier in a car they would die from the forces at that speed. Crazy as it seems to us, the fear of the unknown can make people think up some pretty weird theories, take Ben Stein for example.
- imikedaman, on 05/04/2008, -3/+7I'm sorry, but that's complete ***** - classical mechanics was very well known by that time. The fact that you think the medical community would be the most knowledgeable - instead of physicists - suggests that you just made it up.
- directrix13, on 05/04/2008, -2/+7***** *****. Newtonian physics will tell you "the forces at that speed" are 0. BTW, Newton predated automobiles by a pretty decent amount.
- Culyt, on 05/04/2008, -0/+11Old myths... like that episode of LEXX?
Stan: Okay, that's enough for me. Xev, come on, just blow up the stupid planet then we can go some place else and find ourselves a nice planet.
790: It makes little difference whether or not you destroy this planet. It is a classic type 13 planet, which typically destroys itself at this stage of its development.
Xev: How?
790: Sometimes through war, often through environmental catastrophe. But more commonly, a type 13 planet is inadvertently collapsed into a pea-sized object by scientists attempting to determine the mass of the Higgs boson particle. - imikedaman, on 05/04/2008, -4/+16I'm not terribly worried about CERN, but what really bothers me is how the "don't worry" crowd is using one logically unsound argument after another to "prove" their case.
1. The argument where particles pound the Earth's surface all the time and haven't destroyed the Earth.
The problem with that argument is that the collisions happen at speeds several orders of magnitude higher than any particle accelerator is capable of producing, and if anything bad was ever created from those collisions, they were launched deep into space due to the large velocities involved. The velocities at CERN will be significantly lower, possibly not even escape velocity - meaning the scaries wouldn't safely be ejected from the Earth's gravitational pull.
2. The "other particle accelerators haven't produced anything bad" argument
That's like saying that since I survived a car crash at 30 MPH, I can survive one at 100 MPH, or saying that if I safely sat in 50 degree Celcius water that I can safely sit in 100 degree Celcius water. Similarly, since the other particle accelerators haven't produced the Higgs Boson, does that mean that CERN is guaranteed to not produce it?
3. The "the atom bomb was going to destroy the world" argument
How the hell is an atom bomb not destroying the world have any correlation with something entirely different? I can't believe people actually use this argument as if it holds any weight.
4. The "we've survived this long, we'll keep surviving" argument.
I'm 22 and haven't died yet, therefore I'll live forever. Seriously, I'm surprised people actually try using this argument. Humanity and the Earth are not invincible, and the duration of our existence has nothing to do with how long we'll continue to stick around.
------------
Again, I'm not worried about CERN really, but these argument are just retarded. What's worse is that I see people reiterating the exact same arguments over and over as if repeating the same flawed statements makes it more valid.- imikedaman, on 05/04/2008, -2/+3I want to clear up the explanation for the second argument, since I didn't word it very well:
The second argument is based on the idea that if the slower particle accelerators didn't produce anything bad, then the faster ones won't either. How can we argue that all the bad things (strangelets, black holes) won't be produced by the LHC since the old particle accelerator didn't produce them, then at the same time say that all the good things (like the Higgs Boson) will be produced thanks to the higher velocities? It's just a fact that things change at higher velocities, and we can't just act like none of the bad things will happen. That's called blind faith and is really dangerous.
Oh, and whenever I said CERN, I really meant the LHC. - Encablossa, on 05/04/2008, -4/+3Your first point doesn't make any sense.
- noumuon, on 05/04/2008, -2/+3the particles in the new accelerator will be very very close to the speed of light.
- Yeyui, on 05/04/2008, -1/+6Irrational arguments to quell the fears of irrational people?
- ponchietto, on 05/04/2008, -0/+7Point 1:
Cosmic rays hit the earth at a wide range of energy [including LCH range], not only at very high energy
and anyway the particle shower resulting from the collision is mostly headed toward Earth not space (conservation of momentum)
I never heard anyone use the other points... but i agree they are pretty stupid. - gkwillie, on 05/04/2008, -1/+3The first argument you used doesn't make much sense to me. High energy cosmic particles bombard the earth all the time, but they don't 'fly out into deep space' like you seem to imply. They break up in our atmosphere due to interactions with particles present and literally decay as they hit earth, producing measurable effects that can tell us about its properties. Let me repeat myself. ALL those interactions RAIN DOWN ON THE EARTH, and do not fly out into deep space. These properties include extremely high energy, much higher then the LHC is able to produce.
I ask you, if particles at many times the energy of anything capable of being produced in LHC collide in the atmosphere and literally rain down those byproducts on us earthlings EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY, do you really think there is any possibility of something much less powerful wreaking far more damage?
Oh, and another thing, Escape velocity is 11.2 km/s, whereas the speed that the particles in the LHC travel a hair below 299,792.458 km/s.
for reference: Cosmic particles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-energy_cos ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_rays
http://digg.com/general_sciences/No_the_LHC_won_t_ ...- gkwillie, on 05/04/2008, -1/+2Update, the last link doesn't work. Here is a direct link:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/03/29/no-t ... - imikedaman, on 05/04/2008, -2/+2The particles will be traveling at equal speeds but in *opposite* directions, which can easily result in something traveling at less than escape velocity after the collision. Here's a Wikipedia link you may like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider
"A concern against this cosmic-ray argument is that, if dangerous strangelets or micro black holes were created at LHC, a proportion would have less than the Earth's escape velocity (of 11.2 km/s), and therefore would be captured by the Earth's gravitational field, whereas those created by high-energy cosmic rays would leave the planet at high speed, due to the laws of conservation of momentum at relativistic speeds"
And don't even get me started on that article. He uses "strangelets are theoretical" as proof that they won't be created, then ignores the fact that Higgs Boson is ALSO THEORETICAL and acts like Hawking Radiation exists despite also being theoretical, never being tested experimentally, and there being plenty of evidence against its existence or efficacy.
- gkwillie, on 05/04/2008, -1/+2Update, the last link doesn't work. Here is a direct link:
- imikedaman, on 05/04/2008, -2/+3I want to clear up the explanation for the second argument, since I didn't word it very well:
- Revolutionista, on 05/04/2008, -2/+6Those Mayan-calendar nutcases are going to be pissed when this thing causes the apocalypse four years earlier than predicted. Most of the books published won't even get to see their paperback releases.
- DesdinovaEL, on 05/04/2008, -0/+3I'm sorry but I'm just not that worried about all this.
- dildoolielly, on 05/04/2008, -7/+2Hell, the fundies are planning Genocide
Preaching death and destruction to millions of people on as many corners as possible and filling the heads of precious innocent impressionable children with disturbing stories of hell and damnation and devils and eternal suffering.
The nutballs want to see Armageddon, if only to prove that they didn't spend their entire lives dedicated to a loser lifestyle. - yetimonster, on 05/04/2008, -0/+1"As high-energy physicist Joseph Kapusta from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis points out1, such dire forebodings have accompanied the advent of other particle accelerators, including the Bevalac in California and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in New York."
kapusta is slovak for cabbage - alefox, on 05/04/2008, -0/+4dugg for title
- bincoder, on 05/04/2008, -0/+1Doesn't a superconducter passing infinite current produce an infinitely strong magnetic field, bound to fling earth out of orbit and attract all iron objects in the universe to it? Sure, if your superconducter Is the size of the universe already. There is no such thing as infinite anything, including infinite gravity or mass. But its still amazing how people who should know better throw around the word infinite like its a common occurance that happens every day. An infinitely massive black hole would have inhaled everything that is or was or will be zillions of years ago no matter where it was located without regard to time or distance. That means there are no infinite black holes, anywhere, and certainly we can't make one with a few tax dollars.
- Marrach, on 05/04/2008, -0/+3 I stopped being wary about the end of the world being caused by arrogantly indifferent scientists.
I want an apocalypse to come. I want Jesus to appear in the skies. I want to see ALL the Jehovahs Witnesses and ALL the Bus and Subway Bible screamers to rise up into the Heavens-- and to pause in mid-air long enough to hear THUNDEROUS applause echo upwards from EVERY Town and CITY as the rest of us cheer them onwards and away!
Then the rest of civilization can continue without undue interruption and I can ride the bus to and from work in PEACE.
On the other hand, if the CERN scientists are also secretly building a medium-sized spaceship for themselves, their children and the extra mistress or two-- then we might have something to worry about. - BloodyCochlea, on 05/04/2008, -0/+0This is a really good article. Mixing Faust with science equals good reading.
- eminiguy, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1"kapusta is slovak for cabbage." Same in Polish and Czech, but it's not cabbage that we are most concerned about here.
- Azerael, on 05/05/2008, -0/+1If the CERN particle accelerator works as planned, it could answer some of the most important questions of our time.
Regardless of the potential consequences, I think that's worth the risk.
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is