I was afraid this is what was going on. You are obsessing about this. As many very smart people have pointed out there is nothing to worry about. I hope you can get over this issue - the issue is in your mind only.
"some sort of energy field" sounds a lot like "unreasonable assumptions of magic." How can the black hole be dangerous if it is a finicky eater?
There are a lot of things we don't really understand. But one thing we can underline at least is that our human endeavours will always be at scales that will never come close to what the universe does, somewhere, all the time. By which I mean to imply that the LHC, although a very cleverly designed and constructed device, manages to concentrate and accelerate beams of protons with a total energy which is always way less than we see on the surface of the sun, except that the fields there would accelerate protons or other ions to LHC scales only very rarely--things are a lot more chaotic. Here on earth, with relatively low inputs of energy we can generate a locally strong enough field that it accelerates a small number of protons, and suppress all the chaotic stuff. So to me, the supposition that we can build a doomsday device with such (relatively) paltry energy inputs is just anthropocentrism, or giving ourselves too much credit.
Get a clue. The science says there's no possible catastrophic events associated with these particle experiments. Unlike you they're are folks who do know and exercise scholarship in the planning and execution of science. rpenner is a veritable wealth of information on this subject.
Evidently choosing for whatever reasons to completely ignore my #48 which gave you the relevant figures, please cite reliable sources contradictory to that. It's not good enough to just say "well if we wait long enough even extremely rare events will happen". Not if as likely the sun runs out of fuel and dies first. And not if it's recalled there needs to be com collision energies at or beyond planned LHC levels. In the fantastically unlikely event > 10^3 TeV particle energies are somehow solar created, the overwhelming likelihood is collision of such with relatively low-energy plasma, and not head on with another fantastically unlikely > 10^3 TeV ion. Hence the gist of post #1 cosmic ray considerations are relevant. What seems to be implied there - acceleration beginning to end in a strong DC field, is not how past and current particle accelerators work. A large array of either klystrons or magnetrons generate relatively large AC cavity fields through which bunched particle beams receive relatively mild energy boosts on each pass. The carefully arranged phasing being such that only one half-cycle of the AC cavity fields are engaged - a kind of 'rectification' in effect. It's only the many circulations through such arrays that yields the final very high particle energies.
But that isn't what I've been saying. I'm talking about the strength of magnetic fields on the surface and comparing these to the fields the LHC produces. I'm not saying the sun's magnetic fields mean there is a stream of high energy particles leaving the surface. There are strong magnetic fields on the surface of the sun, so there is probably some production of particles with energy in the TeV range, but I haven't said these collide with each other, or even leave the surface (and if they did, we would observe them). The point I've been trying to make is that we've cleverly built a collider that accelerates protons to almost light speed using much less energy (we just concentrate it), why would this threaten the fabric of space or anything else?
I replied to the "physicist" and asked him to join the forums and instead he sent me this: Dear hahnaz I`ve got a similar answer like the ones that you have forwarded, that...: - the energy density plays the most important role concerning vacuum bubbles. - the Universe is already in the correct energy state. - a vacuum transition would need much higher energies. - there are much more powerful events in the Universe. - a train crash has many more nucleons than a Pb-Pb collision. Honestly, myself I actually don`t really expect that the Universe will be destroyed by CERN`s planned Pb-Pb collisions but I think that the risk probability is not zero - and a risk that is not zero is still too big if it is about risking the Universe. I also believe that CERN/LSAG have not proved zero risk in their safety reports (e.g. they don`t have a risk calculation). My most important question (as I believe) is: - Are there at least equal energetic (per nucleon-nucleon interaction) collisions in the Universe which have AT THE SAME TIME at least equal nucleon-nucleon interactions per collision as LHC`s Pb-Pb collisions? But you have given me some very interesting arguments about which I will think further. Many thanks for everything. Take care Niccolò ------- Does this question have any merit? Is there visible evidence and not universe is large even if we don't see it must have happened somewhere?
I am not the expert here, but from past posts by others, the proton-proton collisions that have already taken place, are more energetic than the per nucleon energies in the Pb-Pb interaction.., so the answer would be yes... In fact both at the LHC and in nature there have been more energetic collisions than would be produced by the Pb-Pb collisions. Remember most of the nucleons (protons and neutrons) in the Pb-Pb collisions would be scattered, and as I believe rpenner pointed out, the per nucleon energy (not the total energy I initially confused the issue with), in a Pb-Pb collision is less than the per nucleon energy of the already completed proton-proton collisions. If I am wrong in the above, it will come out!
The question is not sensible. Nucleons aren't things in a √s = 14 TeV collision. You have only a hot gas of partons. And the partons, at those energies, only interact pairwise due to asymptotic freedom. The harder the collision, the less-dense the gas of partons. The revelation that the very high energy cosmic rays have more protons than at lower energies improves the safety picture given from cosmic ray data, in terms of nucleon-nucleon interaction energy as measured in the center of mass. Throughout all this (and Niccolò has been at this since at least 2006-2008), there is no indication of a model of a scary disaster scenario. All the actual work is done by real particle physicists. Rather than do physics, Niccolò attempts to position himself as an admittedly know-nothing critic of science. Might as well ask a chicken about movie reviews. Saying "you're not doing it right" is no way to contribute to human knowledge -- the correct thing to do is demonstrate scientists aren't doing it right by doing the job better. But that's the competition that scientists are always doing already. That's the definition of doing science, and for over 300 years scientists have competed to do the job better with obvious fruits of success. Question! If two protons with arbitrary energies ( \( E_1, E_2 > m_p c^2\) ) collide at an arbitrary angle in the lab frame, what's the formula for √s ? Let \(\theta\) be the angular difference from a head-on collision. Then we have : \(\left| \vec{p}_1 \right| = \frac{1}{c} \sqrt{ E_1^2 - m_p^2 c^4} \\ \left| \vec{p}_2 \right| = \frac{1}{c} \sqrt{ E_2^2 - m_p^2 c^4} \\ \vec{p}_1 \cdot \vec{p}_2 = - \left| \vec{p}_1 \right| \left| \vec{p}_2 \right| \cos \theta \\ \sqrt{s} = \sqrt{ 2 m_p c^2 + 2 E_1 E_2 + 2 \sqrt{ E_1^2 - m_p^2 c^4} \sqrt{ E_2^2 - m_p^2 c^4} \cos \theta } \) Basically, this says that if \(E_1 = E_2 = 14 \, \textrm{TeV}\) then \(\left| \theta \right| < 120^{\circ} \) means \(\sqrt{s} > 14 \, \textrm{TeV}\). That's 2/3 of a circle, but 3/4 of the solid angle of a sphere. Question! Assume the flux of cosmic ray is entirely protons \(F(E) dE = \frac{10^{23} }{\textrm{sr} \cdot\textrm{m}^2 \cdot\textrm{s} \cdot\textrm{eV} } \left( \frac{E}{1 \, \textrm{eV}} \right)^{-3} dE\), for E between \(10^{11}\, \textrm{eV}\) and \(10^{19}\, \textrm{eV}\). What's the differential numeric density at a given energy? \(N(E) dE = \frac{4 \pi \, \textrm{sr}}{c } F(E) dE \approx \frac{4 \pi \, \textrm{sr}}{ 3 \times 10^{8} \, \textrm{m} \cdot\textrm{s}^{-1}} F(E) dE \approx \frac{4 \times 10^{15} }{\textrm{m}^3 \cdot\textrm{eV} } \left( \frac{E}{1 \, \textrm{eV}} \right)^{-3} dE \) What's the total numeric density between \(10^{11}\, \textrm{eV}\) and \(10^{19}\, \textrm{eV}\) ? \(n_1 = \int_{10^{11}}^{10^{19}} N(E) dE = \frac{4 \pi \, \textrm{sr}}{c } \int_{10^{11}}^{10^{19}} F(E) dE \approx 4 \times 10^{15} \textrm{m}^{-3} \int_{10^{11}}^{10^{19}} E^{-3} dE \approx 2 \times 10^{-7} \textrm{m}^{-3}\) What's the total numeric density between \(7 \times 10^{12}\, \textrm{eV}\) and \(10^{19}\, \textrm{eV}\) ? \(n_2 \approx 4 \times 10^{-11} \textrm{m}^{-3}\) What's the volume of a sphere 1 AU in diameter? \(1.4 \times 10^{34} \textrm{m}^{3}\). What's the volume of a sphere 1 light-year in diameter? \(3.5 \times 10^{48} \textrm{m}^{3}\). What's the approximate volume of the Milky Way galaxy? \(6.7 \times 10^{60} \textrm{m}^{3}\). The density of cosmic rays is slight, but space is vast and so even collisions between cosmic rays where \(\sqrt{s} > 14 \, \textrm{TeV}\) seem likely to happen with regularity.
I wish I knew even one bit of what all this mathematics means. I am assuming it is your way of saying do not worry and everything will be okay?
That was said a long time ago. You posted a reply by Niccolò, describing him as a physicist. Who instead of posting himself asked you for more information. Rpenner just gave it to you.., in a form your physicist should be able to understand. Now I don't know the man and am not interested in wasting time discovering who he is, but if he was really a physicist, instead of a pretender, he could explain the math and accompanying conclusions to you... I get the impression he would be unable to do so... Basically it boils down to, in simple words.., there are a lot of naturally occurring collisions of equal or greater energies happening all of the time. They just aren't happening in a laboratory like the LHC where we can study them. That is why the LHC was built, so we could study things, that happen all of the time somewhere else, where we can study them.
Continuing my calculations, even with the paucity of cosmic rays of high energy, still a proton-proton collision where both protons are cosmic rays is \(\sqrt{s_{NN}} \geq 14\, \textrm{TeV}\) is expected on the order of 1 per cubic AU per year or several million times per second per cubic lightyear, or a quadrillion times within 40 AU of the Earth during its lifetime. Thus the types of parton-parton collision seen at the LHC are (on a cosmic scale of the here and now) trivial. These calculations are available to all physicists. Niccolò does not argue why a Pb-Pb collision at a lower value of \(\sqrt{s_{NN}}\) is more dangerous than p-p collisions, and he cannot, because he's just making up stories, not arguing from facts and logic. He then salts his story with facts to make it sound sciency -- that's not the same thing as doing science. It's not science's job to investigate every fairy tale; it suffices to show that the world should be a very different place if the hypothesis that magic world-eating black holes and trivial-energy vacuum collapse were real. Earth is ancient, lots of things in the sky are ancient, and nothing just goes "poof" and wipes out existence. Therefore existence is not shoddily constructed and we can have our dance party without fear that the floor will collapse and fall into the basement -- there's no evidence that we even have a basement. If Niccolò were a physicist with an actual case, he would be making it in the scientific peer-reviewed press, not posting it on Facebook.
Walter Wagner is a Nuclear Physicist no? He had some of those ideas as well. RPENNER - you brought up an argument that was raised in 1999 with the RHIC (essentially, 'rediscovering' the argument, I believe). The first safety assessment argued that head-on high-E collisions of high-Z particles (Lead, etc; i.e energetic cosmic rays) occur in nature in deep space (true by what you say and what we observe) exactly mimicking the RHIC and since the strangelets they would spawn would be 'swept up' by nearby stars and made to go supernova, then we should see a high supernova background, and since we don't, ergo dangerous strangelets aren't produced by those collisions. But the problem with that, and which was acknowledged by the RHIC people at the time when they re-did their safety assessment, is that the strangelets produced are highly radioactive - i.e. they have short half-lives on the order of micro-seconds to minutes, possibly. That's what theory suggests, anyway. So, if that is true, then they would decay out before causing a star to go supernova, and we'd never see the result. But on Earth, a few microseconds in close proximity to low-Z material at relatively low speed (thermal velocities) might allow for capture and growth. also arguments of "we're still here" after the RHIC colissions probably are not the best. 1) we really don't know what's going on with the single-strange-quark material they've been producing (after detected, what happens to it? - does it fall to the center of Earth and start growing); and 2) even if the RHIC hasn't created dangerous strange matter, the LHC might. The old 'argument' that higher energy results in a lower probability of strangelet creation is bogus. Higher energy does not result in higher speed quarks in the qgp (and hence less chance for re-combination) - rather it has more energy available for energy-to-mass quark production and one would expect even more quarks, including strange quarks, and hence strange matter production at the LHC, though combinations with more than one strange quark (which is what we see at the RHIC), along the lines of the chinese group I cited that predicts strange matter production. New solutions for the color-flavor locked strangelets Prof. Guang Xiong Peng, Xin Jian Wen and Yuede Chen (2005) A paper reporting that the charge of color-flavor locked strangelets can be positive, negative, or nearly neutral. http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0512112 see also:http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0612253 "As a follow-up, the RHIC dropped their false argument and instead went with the argument of strangelet production being "extremely unlikely"; which is the same argument used by Frank Wilcek in the LHC lawsuit. That suit was dropped on a 'technicality', with the appellate court claiming that if things go south, it won't be the fault of the U.S. government, as the U.S. government has too little money invested for the court to have jursidiction; which of course is a cop-out. Now that the RHIC is unexpectedly producing matter with strange-quarks in it (but only one, it is believed, at the RHIC energy), they've quietly dropped that argument. Indeed, the LSAG also used that argument, even though one whole detection chamber is designed primarily for the detection of strange matter! The fact that some groups contradict others is part of the problem. We also saw that when a large number of CERN researchers produced and published a paper claiming violation of relativity; when I and many others said that could not be, and that there was a systematic error they had not yet detected. Later, they found their systematic error (that was the CERN report of faster-than-light neutrinos, which shows in my view a certain egotism, as well as 'superstition' on the part of many of those working there)."
Enough! Is it time to move this somewhere else, like the Cesspool? Rpenner has answered his "concernss" repeatedly and more than adequately, but that wasn't enough for the OP. The po' thing brought up Walter Wagner and physicist in the same breath. Now he's just talking dirty. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The error associatiated with the neutrino experiment has nothing to do with CERN. It was a mechanical error and has nothing to do with the physics. It generated an erroneous experimental result because of mechanal failure. I'm pretty sure that Walter Wagner is not a physicist. Apparently you're just another crank who thinks science is trying to burn down the universe with the LHC.
As a matter of fact I am not another crank who thinks science is trying to burn down the universe with the LHC. I am just receiving information from both sides to the point where my head is starting to spin. I DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ON THIS SUBJECT. I am not well versed in any of this past the MCAT level testing. I would appreciate less personal attacks because I clearly mean no harm. The internet is filled with information and it is hard to decipher what is real and what is not.
Furthermore, everything I wrote up above was sent to me. None of that was my original writing. I just wanted to see how you guys respond, clearly not with facts but with personal attacks calling me an "old crank".
If you are being sent this kind of garbage from unverified sources.., or unverifiable sources.., you should put them on ignore or what ever other feature you might have, to avoid further harassment. You have been told repeatedly that there is no dooms day coming, and that your sources are not what they claim to be. Rpenner has spent a great deal of effort to provide credible detail about the science. You have your answer, which is a consensus of those posting here. There is no point in adding, "but I was told this", arguments. You don't seem to be listening to the right sources.
You were presented a great many facts here, yet none of them seemed to be what you wanted to hear. Continuing to wring your hands, and saying "I don't understand the math, but I'm sure there may be an error in it, because Walter Wagner has grave concerns!" is what leads people to the obvious: That you are trolling.
