What is Digg?Warning: The Content in this Article May be Inaccurate
Readers have reported that this story contains information that may not be accurate.153 Comments
- lohphat, on 04/13/2008, -5/+55STOP STOP STOP STOP
The Earth is bombarded with cosmic rays on a daily basis wich have more energy than the LHC could ever produce. STOP spreading ignorance and fear.
What is this? Fox News? - dvdchris, on 04/13/2008, -0/+33Title misleading. This topic has been talked about for a week on digg- my body COULD self-immolate and spontaneously combust; is it going to happen? Not likely.
- floort, on 04/13/2008, -0/+27This is too much hype for no reason. This has already been proven to be impossible in another Digg story (can't remember which one).
- briansearles, on 04/13/2008, -1/+27One thing is for sure - if we all do die from this, it will be hands down the best death ever.
- lekahe, on 04/13/2008, -0/+26This is just a huge race between Fermilab and CERN.
I have visited CERN and seen the accelerator and I am totally convinced of its safety.
There were speculations about CERN being able to find the Higg's boson first since the construction took so long.
Now that it might be about to succeed, speculations arise...
Why isn't anyone questioning Tevatron, Fermilab's particle accelerator?? - Sludgehammer, on 04/13/2008, -1/+21Well, after reading that, I know I've stopped shaving. Better safe then sorry.
- TexasCanuck, on 04/13/2008, -0/+19Sorry folks. A catastrophic, earth-destroying event isn't going to happen.
What are they smashing ? Gold atoms typically ? Even *IF* a blackhole forms, it will only last a few picoseconds before it evaporates.
There just isn't enough mass being interacted with for anything catastrophic to happen. - ncairns, on 04/13/2008, -1/+19The physics underlying this is as sound as anything as yet inherently theoretical can be. By a staggering margin, the most likely outcome will be the generation of tremendous heat and pressure semblant of the conditions immediately following the Big Bang and lasting an infinitesimal fraction of a second. In other words - exactly what CERN was designed for.
Think of it this way though. Yielding to the mathematical near-certainty that there are other intelligent lifeforms in the Universe, and further to the high probability that at least some of those are substantially more advanced than we are, it is considerably more likely than the LHC killing us all that an alien science experiment millions of light years away and ago went gone hideously wrong in a way of cosmic implication, the outermost furrows of which could be reaching the Earth just as you read this. - bagelpirate, on 04/13/2008, -0/+16Please don't post titles like "New atom-smasher could open a black hole and swallow earth"
Because it can't, and won't. Everyone with a brain that has worked with this stuff has been saying so, but then idiots put up retarded sensationalist headlines like this, and the mass of idiots swarm. - blast_flame, on 04/13/2008, -0/+15Yeah, interested in halting it...
- rot13ubercrypto, on 04/13/2008, -0/+13Fail.
- tont0r, on 04/13/2008, -2/+14A random digg user's word is all i need to be relieved of any concern I had for safety.
- Prototek, on 04/13/2008, -0/+11Here is CERN's response about safety at LHC:
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/Safety-en. ... - chudgoo, on 04/13/2008, -0/+10THIS JUST IN!
Taking Physics 101 qualifies a person to make unfounded ignorant statements - kylere, on 04/13/2008, -1/+11This has been on Digg's front page twice already, and on Slashdot etc. It is silly and bad science, please stop propagating this, before snopes has to cover it.
- lohphat, on 04/13/2008, -0/+9See what happens when ASCII art approaches the event horizon?
- inactive, on 04/13/2008, -0/+8buried for being inaccurate
"However, studies done by CERN show that the energies generated will be too low to make black holes. Also, due to a weird effect called Hawking radiation, the tiny black holes would evaporate instantly. The two litigants, however, say that Hawking radiation is not an established fact, and therefore we should be more careful. While that’s technically true, they forgot something important: the same rules of quantum physics that make a black hole in a subatomic collision also indicate they would evaporate. So if you’re worried they won’t evaporate, then you shouldn’t be worried they’d be created in the first place. " - vikingkory, on 04/13/2008, -0/+6you win some, you lose some
meh
It happens - donjacko, on 04/13/2008, -1/+7because they are nowhere near as powerfull
(just for reference i agree that it is totally safe) - BlueSkyfish, on 04/13/2008, -1/+7Here's the Large Hadron Collider right now
http://yeskarthi.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/0002. ...
Here's what will happen after it's turned on
http://i29.tinypic.com/wwkpvp.jpg - Aidenf77, on 04/13/2008, -2/+7Shouldn't the protesters have voiced their opposition and concerns before the 8 billion dollars was shelled out to build this? It's interesting that all the speculative worrying is happening now that this invaluable research tool is about to come on-line. Buried for the ridiculously inaccurate title.
- NathanielJ, on 04/13/2008, -0/+5You dumb bastard. It's not a roller coaster car, it's a sailboat.
- Pixelante, on 04/13/2008, -0/+5The best death is cardiac arrest due to overstressful sexual intercourse. You come and you go.
- AngryAngryBrian, on 04/13/2008, -0/+4Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness...
You cannot grasp the true form of Giygas' attack. - NeoNightmareX, on 04/13/2008, -1/+5But.....will it Blend?
- donjacko, on 04/13/2008, -1/+5why?
- championchap, on 04/13/2008, -1/+5Didnt the other story state that "there is this little thing called Hawking Radiation"
Basically, even if a black hole were to form it would vanish within milliseconds of its creation, and thus do no actual damage - inactive, on 04/13/2008, -3/+7No it couldn't, the 'black hole' (if it could make one) would be so small that it would evaporate because of Hawking Radiation almost instantly
- inactive, on 04/13/2008, -4/+8Biblical prophesy does not indicate that the Earth will be swallowed up by a black hole created by man. There's nothing to worry about.
- inactive, on 04/13/2008, -0/+4He divided by zero.
- yoshman, on 04/13/2008, -0/+4Don't you watch Diggnation? Digg was totally bought by Fox News 13 days ago!
- bongle, on 04/13/2008, -0/+4To add to ncairn's comment, cosmic rays with more energy than those that will be generated in the LHC have impacted Earth's atmosphere for billions of years, yet we're all still here. The LHC will do nothing that isn't already happening in the upper atmosphere, it'll just let us study those events in a controlled environment.
- TheKeithD, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3Oh man, Earthbound. I love that game!
- textrant, on 04/13/2008, -1/+4Even if black holes are created in the LHC (which the people at CERN agree is likely) the Schwarzschild radius of any resulting black hole would be too small to enable it to consume nearby matter. Also the black hole would decay through Hawking radiation faster than you can say 'Bob'. Anyone who disagrees with Hawking radiation has a valid point, albeit valid in the 70's before we found extremely good empirical evidence for its existence.
Oh and I have a degree in physics, and i'm not worried. If we are wrong, we won't know about it. - jordn, on 04/13/2008, -1/+4in the words of Unreal Tournament....
GOD KILL!!! - DaviDTC, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3Why did we drop an atomic bomb instead of those little monster snaps you throw at people?
- inactive, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3I wonder if the chicken little's of the world are also the same idiots who are screaming environmental catastrophe with 'global warming'? None of the arguments I see opposing the particle accelerator tend to be based in reality, but junk science and speculation much like 'global warming' is. Seems that they hate progress and scientific advancement for the sake of hating progress and scientific advancement, much like the muslim world does. They would rather have the western world and other developing countries back in an agrarian age where the world lives in communes with people crapping in open ditches and using rocks and twigs to wipe their butts. Unbelievable!
- hazard99, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3From my understanding, many scientists believed that setting off an atom bomb would cause a chain reaction, causing every atom to split. I wouldn't get too worked up.
- SevenTwo, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3They could always wait to turn it on around 2012.
- KaiUno, on 04/13/2008, -1/+4Digg has a mind? It's just relays news and opinions you know, it doesn't take sides. It's not Fox.
- willfe, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3The trouble is, we sort of *do* have lots of credible, reasonable ideas about what will happen when we turn it on. We also have plenty of ideas what *won't* happen.
This line of complaint from these nay-sayers is as dumb as the witch hunting nonsense from the last century. This isn't "magic" just because laymen don't understand it. - travis6690, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3No, no, I see it. Tilt your head to the right, it's a roller coaster car.
- alittleroy101, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3Ah, life is now complete, eh?
- jaznova, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3Plus, I seem to remember an article entitled "CERN to Morons." What's to worry about with that kind of confidence?
- alittleroy101, on 04/13/2008, -0/+2I pronounce this particle accelerator CLEAN!
- willfe, on 04/13/2008, -0/+2News flash: multiple people can submit stories on Digg.
- searcade, on 04/13/2008, -0/+2Yeah
- booshack, on 04/13/2008, -1/+3ARGH I am so tired of these sensationalist doomsday articles about mankind's most important scientific endeavor EVER.
- Pogojoe, on 04/13/2008, -4/+6Do they really have any idea what is going to happen when they set this thing off? I heard and read about all the theories and possibilities but it still remains that we have never conducted an experiment of this magnitude before.
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