Suffering Extreme Anxiety Because of LHC in CERN - Please Help

Is it really confirmed that vacuum is stable?

 

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I understand, but those replying should at least have enough social intelligence to know that when someone says they are fearful of a given event/object, they should not reply justifying their fears (the exchange between zephir and temur).

Furthermore, the whole "who cares if we die, we're just animals with no purpose" attitude shown by many on boards like this is not helpful.

 

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Do not worry. The Earth is bombarded constantly by cosmic particles far more energetic than those could be produced in LHC.

 

I think I just saw a chink in the "money as a concept" thing: it's only irrelevant if you have a whole lot of it. It's relevance is inversely proportional to the assumed value of your bank balance, especially the Swiss one(s).



To someone with anxiety feelings about the scale and properties of the unknown, try the following meditation:

at some time, go sit on a hill or somewhere away from all the noise of civilisation, daytime or nighttime (but you can see stars at night). Sit and relax: just breathe and try to be aware of what's around you (if you can still hear traffic and so on you're probably still too close to civilisation).

If you can see stars, or if it's getting dark enough to maybe see the Moon or Venus or another bright planet, look at it and consider that the light reaching your eyes, and registering on your visual cortex, has been traveling across the relative vacuum of space for some time. It takes a few seconds for light reflected from the Moon to get to planet Earth. Moonlight comes from the Sun, of course. The Sun is the reason you're alive, and can stay alive. Every thing that is alive, is alive because of the Sun (except maybe the lifeforms around deep-sea vents).

Consider that, despite everything that has happened, all the close calls you have had in your entire life, all those times you could have easily died: you missed death, or cheated it, by a hair's breadth, by a split-second, or because you made some "last-minute" change of plans, or because, when you fell asleep at the wheel and drifted off the road and totalled your car, you somehow missed those trees by about a half-second.

Think about all the things that happened to both of your parents (but you probably don't know what they were, and you probably aren't aware of how many times you yourself have had a "close shave"; really you can only remember the obvious ones), how close they also must have come to leaving this life, many times. How many people have had to survive, back through your family history, for you to be here, now, staring up at something in the sky.

And then consider that you, your existence, is every thing you have ever seen, or heard, since you started to see or hear. And also everything you've touched, or that has touched you (every caress from your mother as a child, or anyone else at all, even the punches or slaps, every breeze that you have felt on bare skin, every rainstorm), every thing you have tasted and eaten, has become you.
You are that which you experience, in every sense.
Without the experience (eating something is experiencing it, getting some fresh air and sunshine is breathing and making vitamins that keep your body going), there's no you. You are your experience.

The light from across the depths of space, maybe from some star thousands of light-years away, which must have been "emitted" long before you, or your great-grandparents were born, maybe before humans started hunting in groups, is impinging on cells in the back of your eyes, right now, because you are here to see it.

As if this distant light has waited for you to come and sit, and see it, right now; it has not experienced the "flow" of time, time has no meaning at all, in the space where radiation "travels", or gets from one place to another...It has meaning now, in this place, at the back of your very own eyes, and in your cortex.

 

Yes.

If you're scared of this subject, you should not be posting here. And expecting kindness and sympathy on a public internet forum? That's pretty optimistic of you.

No one can assure you that nothing bad will come of these experiments, but the chances are so low, it's not worth worrying about. You should be much more worried about that undetected kilometer-wide asteroid that's heading straight for us. It's coming. We're just not sure when.

 

The Lifeboat Foundation addresses the issue of particle accelerator dangers:
http://lifeboat.com/ex/particle.accelerator.shield

 

Thank you for that uplifting website.

 

Frud11, Thank you for your reply and yes I understand I need to take a step back and breathe a bit.

But as for looking at the stars, that is not going to happen. I do not like feeling alone, and there is nothing more lonely than doing that.

 

Oh really? Sort of well proven? Great help there zephir.

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Its that kind of superstitious irrational thinking (that many people have) that is most detrimental to people with OCD.

Please beware, you will get some good advice on this forum, and some lousy advice too.

 

Apparently, you are supposed to stay away from the meds, (which have been proven to help millions of people) but "god" is worth pursuing, as well as snake oil, and feng shui, apparently....

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I'm not dissing acupuncture. Anything that helps people relax these days has to be acknowledged.

I also acknowledge people have bad experiences with medications, (what with them actually doing something, they are bound to effect people, some adversely) but that doesn't mean everyone else needs to stay away from them too.

 

forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=18225&view=findpost&p=264912

Already debunked by myself, months ago. Zephir never learns.

 

Nor does anyone, but if you want to confront yourself and your fears, you're kind of obliged to do it yourself.

You don't have to go somewhere away from all the noise and other people's worries and so on. You can see stars out a window, or from a backyard.
The point though, is that there is a world out there, and it's going to keep doing what it does, regardless of our explanations and expectations.

But keep in mind that it's all you, you aren't really a "self" either, we're all kind of "multiple personalities", or more than one thing (if you think about how even your own brain, is actually various layers, and structures, you might see what I mean with that).

Anyway, here in the West, it seems we have little time for people with anxiety and other kinds of "problems"; you are also in charge of your own treatment (we all are, doctors generally act as go-betweens, and help pharmaceuticals conglomerates to treat people with "off the shelf" remedies--and make a tidy profit--the Western paradigm).

But you already know what the answer is (to who you are), you may have just forgotten for a bit...

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Michael83,
Don't fear progress, a lot of people had fears over the first nuclear tests as some scientists ran disaster scenarios like the whole planets atmosphere catching fire and turning this planet into a new star in our solar system. Well you're here now posting, as you can see that never happened, it was a fear and people did readily fear it however it wasn't ignored since part of humanities evolution has been the healthy usage of fear of the unknown to try and be prepared for unforeseen events.

When someone flicks a switch on a large project like this, it goes through years (And CERN is definitely in Decades) of Scrutiny, the worlds best mind work hard to try and forward science while making sure that any accidents are kept to a minimum. (The sort of accidents I'm talking about are small and localised like breakdowns and hopefully no more near fatal ones as it was during construction.)

I can say from the discussions I've had with people on subjects in regards to events like the ones that occur at CERN, that you shouldn't have any concerns as it will all work out. I can't explain why here because it's a very long and drawn up discussion, but I will point out that for the most part scientists do the Mathematics first to gain the hypothesised outcome, then they do small tests to make sure their mathematics holds true before moving to larger overall tests. At each stage it's usually scrutinised by many different Scientists, Theorists and Mathematicians in the field first and they all know to listen if someone spots something thanks to Pauli. (Pauli Effect)

For the sake of a quote:
"There is nothing to Fear, but Fear itself" -No Fear!

 

Michael:
Don't sweat the small stuff. Even if the LHC managed to produce a black hole, it's too small to be stable and would almost immediately evaporate. I'd only start worrying if they started working with masses the size of a mountain, i.e. a couple of cubic miles of matter or its equivalent. Since they can't do that here on Earth, then there's no problem. It will take planetary accelerators throwing small asteroids at each other at near light velocities...a loooong way to go since NASA has a hard time even getting a couple of tons to geosynchonous orbit.

And folks are making antimatter all over the planet without major disasters - they never accumulate enough to be a significant danger.

There was a good non-technical article on risk evaluation in Time Magazine a couple months ago that you should read and digest. If you're going to go OCD (and that's a nasty monkey to have on your back), try to channel it to do the evaluations and comparisons rather than the improbably possible results.

 

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litany_against_fear

 

Stryder and Dr_Zinj, thank you for your responses. They helped a lot.

The one thing I keep telling myself is that they said the same thing about RHIC and it's been over 8 years and nothing has happened. Many worried about Tevatron too, but nothing has happened there. I just hope they're not doing guesswork and they know what they're doing. It's some mind boggling and downright frightful stuff they're dealing with.

 

Helpful link

Hey, I am intelligent too. I graduated with a B.S in Mathematics and after college I had to learn to cope with my own demons (not to sound religious). This site really helped me, check it out I think it may help you and hopefully you can learn to face your fears till their gone

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. Oh yeah, sounds like you worry a lot, I did too, still do...

ww.selfgrowth.com/articles/Miller32.html

 

Michael83: You have a good perspective of many of the posters on this forum. Even BenTheMan, who usually posts good physics, posted a lousy attitude post that we shouldn't worry because if we die, no one will be around afterwards to worry anymore. What kind of a lousy answer is that?

You might wish to go to Wikipedia for more information. Check out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

http://www.lhcdefense.org/

These are well-referenced articles which show that there is essentially no clear proof that miniature black holes or strangelets will not be made that are free from possible runaway reactions.

Why is this not discussed more is a good question. Even CERN is now doing yet another safety review, which they expect to publish shortly [early 2008 I'm told]. One of the reasons is money - most everyone who says not to worry is drawing an income derived in part from supporting the LHC effort. They certainly do wish to believe the risk is very low. However, the risk-evaluations performed to-date have been shown to be faulty for several reasons, which you should be able to piece together at the above links.

However, you should not be obsessed with your worry - channel it instead.

As to calculating the odds - - no one knows how, and any of the risk evaluations that show low odds are entirely falacious. The argument that lower-energy accelerators [RHIC, AGS, Fermilab, etc.] haven't done anything disastrous, so we no longer need to worry -- advanced even by some in this forum -- is quite falacious as I'm sure you should recognize. Likewise, the argument that we didn't ignite the atmosphere when we did atmospheric weapons testing, so we don't need to examine the safety concerns with the LHC, is equally falacious. We do need to examine the safety concerns as they potentially impact ALL of humanity. Physics is notorious for screw-ups, and we can't ignore a potential one of this magnitude.

And, yes, don't self-medicate. If you need medications, consult with your physician.

Regards,

Walter L. Wagner

 

Mr Wagner, I've read about you and I respect your efforts greatly.

However, I must tell you I suffer from immense anxiety (my entire body tremors and I almost lose touch with reality) when thinking about the possible dangers of this machine.

I do not believe you are ignorant of this subject and I do not discount your opinion, however I do believe that the thousands and thousands of scientists worldwide, who study this topic as their life's work will not endanger the world for the sake of keeping their meager paychecks coming.

Of course they cannot prove there is no danger, which is where I think you come along.

You have said, "However, you should not be obsessed with your worry - channel it instead."

I do not understand what you mean by that, or your relaxed tone in a matter that regards the livelihood and fate of the entire human race.

If there is such a danger, shouldn't people be taking it more seriously and trying to get attention to this subject "by any means necessary"? For the sake of the entire planet?

Or perhaps I misunderstand your perception of your evaluation of the dangers.

Do you believe there may be a one in a million chance of danger instead of a one in trillion? (ie still unlikely, but much less unlikely than estimated)

Or do you believe the odds are completely unknown and possibly random? (as in, anything could happen, we don't know, it could be safe, could be dangerous, etc)

Or do you believe (and I even hesitate to type this) that there is a "clear and present" danger, as in like 1 in 5?

If those who are worried about LHC truly fear it, shouldn't they be putting in a greater effort? Not just legally, but to physically prevent it from being activated? I read on the legal defense fund site that one gentleman gave $10 for the effort. It almost made me laugh, but in a very worrysome way. "Here's ten dollars to save the human race." Or some scientists sending a few letters back a forth, "Ohh there might be a problem, blah blah blah, this and that, kind regards..."

The entire world is in danger they say, and this is the best they can do? Do people even take it seriously?

When I think of the danger, I think of all of my dreams and goals, and all the people I love. I think of all the people out there who have families. Wives, husbands, and kids they love. Those kids in school whose teachers are telling them they can be anything they want when they grow up. An entire civilization, billions of people, trying to carve out a life for themselves. Some of them bad, some of them good, but on the whole, most of them wishing for good in the world. I'm not poetic enough to describe the entirety of this world's splendor or the good intentions of it's citizens, but I know you can picture the imagery of all those lives in your head as I have.

All this, so we can learn what happened after the Big Bang? Without sounding like an uneducated yokel, "Who cares?" These experiments do little to help us besides filling up more pages in textbooks. The whole "go where no man has gone before" attitude with some areas of science is nonsense in my opinion.

Am I missing something? What level of fear is appropriate for this situation? As someone who is not a science expert, I rely on the opinions who those who are. I do not see Stephen Hawking or any other famous scientists speaking out against this in a serious manner (as in "the world is in danger, we must stop".) If a robber on a dark street put a gun to your head anyone would shake and shiver in fright, but no one "in the know" is doing so regarding this. I feel like I'm the only one truly worried.