In "News Of The Weird", from the August 23 edition of the San Jose Mercury News, there is mention of the above Lab's director forming a committee of physicists to find out if their Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider will destroy the Earth. They are planning to replicate the Big Bang in an experiment using full nuclear collisions with the collider later in 1999, and some physicists believe it could create new kinds matter or form mini "black holes" that would suck in all surrounding matter.
Anyone know more to the story?


<a href="http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/ent/docs/weird23.htm"><font color="#0000ff">News of the Weird</f></a>




[This message has been edited by astrogame (edited August 25, 1999).]

Hope they dont forget to "Carry the 1" on that calc hehehe

I've read about this someplace I don't remember. The upshot was that we are quite safe from annihilation. The energies achieved at Brookhaven are still a far cry from some of the hyper-energetic cosmic rays that hit Earth on a regular basis. So, if collisions of such high energy could cause armageddon, it would have happened a loooong time ago.

------------------
I am; therefore I think.

ion collider, doomsday fears rev up
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider—a powerful particle accelerator
designed to probe primordial matter from the Big Bang—is cranking up for its
first experiments, while scientists fend off speculation that its use may destroy
the planet by creating a black hole.

Science news had a small article about the debate on this project. This is he summary , sorry i couldn't find the complete text.