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Leibson's Law

Steve LeibsonLeibson's Law: It takes 10 years for any disruptive technology to become pervasive in the design community. This blog is about the disruptive technologies that either have or will win over electronic engineers, some that won't, and why. Written by Steve Leibson, Tensilica's Technology Evangelist. See my history site at www.hp9825.com. You can email me by taking the first letter of my first name, appending that to my last name, then the magic email symbol, followed by the name of the company I work for, and then a dot followed by com.

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Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Will the LHC Eat Planet Earth? If Not, Why Does it Look Like Star Trek's Planet Eater?

Sep 2 2008 6:10PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (10) |
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This article about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) just appeared on the MSNBC Web site. The article, written by Alan Boyle, discusses court cases brought against the startup of the LHC because there’s a small-but-finite possibility that it could create a microscopic black hole that will then proceed to eat the planet. Physics theorists have said enough so that I conclude we just don’t know one way or another even though safety reports deny the possibility of creating a black hole. The energies are too low, apparently. The report states that common cosmic-ray collisions are many times more energetic than the collisions created by the LHC. We do not see lots of mini black holes created by these cosmic-ray collisions, so it’s unlikely that the LHC can create a black hole.

I’m strongly reminded of the bets placed by physicists at the Trinity site about how much explosive energy the first atomic bomb would emit. The bets went from “dud” to “ignite the atmosphere and everyone dies.” We just didn’t know back then, but the extreme outcomes on both ends were very unlikely. We (the Manhattan Project physicists and the US Army) went ahead with the test. It might not have been a smart decision, by we spent two billion dollars and, by golly, we’re going to get a bang one way or the other.

My reason for writing this blog entry is that I was struck by this illustration that accompanied the MSNBC article (credited to J. Pequenão / CERN / ATLAS).

 

 

 

The illustration immediately reminded me of the planet-eating Berserker in the old Star Trek episode, The Doomsday Machine, so I went Googling. “Star Trek” and “Doomsday Device” didn’t work but “Star Trek” and “Planet Eater” gave me a photo (below) and a blog entry in a blog called Steel White Table. (See if you agree about the similarity of the above and below images.)

 

 

 

The blog belongs to Jody and Phillip Cairns of New Brunswick and Newfoundland, Canada but the entry is attributed to someone named “Jenny.”

Seems that a photo of the LHC reminded Jenny/Phillip of the same thing.

In any case, the LHC is scheduled to switch on next week. If it creates a black hole that eats the earth, I hope you’ll understand if I stop writing these blog entries.

(Just added: Mr. Sulu looks like he doesn't believe either. Photo taken from here.)

 

Here's the entire episode in 10 minutes with visual enhancements, from YouTube.

 

 


Related entries in: Society & Culture | 

Reader Comments


at 9/2/2008 8:52:40 PM, JTankers said:
Exactly, the project has more momentum than a collider full of Higg Bosons. The state of theoretical physics is long overdue for a major correction. I predict that Dr. Albert Einstein will soon become far more popular with quantum physics as deterministic quantum theory (along with new found popularity of aether) comes back in vogue. I also hope that micro black holes are not created, because I concur with Dr. Rossler on this one, exponential growth has not been ruled out and theory in favor of the same is very compelling. No likely stopping the Higgs momentum, so hang on!

at 9/3/2008 2:33:16 PM, Patrick said:
The difference between Star Trek''s Doomsday Machine and now is that we don''t have the crew of the Enterprise to rescue us if the LHC experiment goes wrong. I''m concerned about this, because LHC supporters keep resorting to the same lie to endorse it: namely, that cosmic ray collisions haven''t endangered us, so why should the LHC? The reality is that cosmic ray particles do not collide directly head on nor do they collide at exactly equal velocities. What happens is that any micro black holes that cosmic rays would form spin away at thousands of miles per second and pass through any massive body without getting snared by gravity. But the LHC is designed to produce precisely head on collisions and at exactly the same velocities. Any resulting micro black hole will be at rest relative to the Earth and the Earth''s gravity will pull it down to the Earth''s center where it can accrete. BTW, Youtube has clips of the episode you''re writing about, search youtube with: doomsday machine star trek

at 9/3/2008 3:41:53 PM, Steve Leibson said:
What a great idea Patrick! I've added an embedded video to the blog entry. The video is an abridged, visually enhanced version.

at 9/3/2008 6:24:08 PM, Jack Ganssle said:
Can they aim the black holes? I want one that tears through the accounting computer at my son's college...

at 9/4/2008 9:04:14 AM, SaneScience.org said:
Man''s technology has exceeded his grasp. - ''The World is not Enough'' Zealous Nobel Prize hungry Physicists are racing each other and stopping at nothing to try to find the supposed ''Higgs Boson''(aka God) Particle, among others, and are risking nothing less than the annihilation of the Earth and all Life in endless experiments hoping to prove a theory when urgent tangible problems face the planet. The European Organization for Nuclear Research(CERN) new Large Hadron Collider(LHC) is the world''s most powerful atom smasher that will soon be firing subatomic particles at each other at nearly the speed of light to create Miniature Big Bangs producing Micro Black Holes, Strangelets and other potentially cataclysmic phenomena. Particle physicists have run out of ideas and are at a dead end forcing them to take reckless chances with more and more powerful and costly machines to create new and never-seen-before, unstable and unknown matter while Astrophysicists, on the other hand, are advancing science and knowledge on a daily basis making new discoveries in these same areas by observing the universe, not experimenting with it and with your life. The LHC is a dangerous gamble as CERN physicist Alvaro De Rújula in the BBC LHC documentary, ''The Six Billion Dollar Experiment'', incredibly admits quote, "Will we find the Higgs particle at the LHC? That, of course, is the question. And the answer is, science is what we do when we don''t know what we''re doing." And CERN spokesmodel Brian Cox follows with this stunning quote, "the LHC is certainly, by far, the biggest jump into the unknown." The CERN-LHC website Mainpage itself states: "There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions,..." Again, this is because they truly don''t know what''s going to happen. They are experimenting with forces they don''t understand to obtain results they can''t comprehend. If you think like most people do that ''They must know what they''re doing'' you could not be more wrong. Some people think similarly about medical Dr.s but consider this by way of comparison and example from JAMA: "A recent Institute of Medicine report quoted rates estimating that medical errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 people a year in US hospitals." The second part of the CERN quote reads "...but what''s for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator,..." A molecularly changed or Black Hole consumed Lifeless World? The end of the quote reads "...as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe." These experiments to date have so far produced infinitely more questions than answers but there isn''t a particle physicist alive who wouldn''t gladly trade his life to glimpse the "God particle", and sacrifice the rest of us with him. Reason and common sense will tell you that the risks far outweigh any potential(as CERN physicists themselves say) benefits. This quote from National Geographic exactly sums this "science" up: "That''s the essence of experimental particle physics: You smash stuff together and see what other stuff comes out."

at 9/5/2008 1:23:31 PM, Dave J said:
I have to admit I have some sympathy for the anti-LHC crowd. I'm not too worried about a black hole eating the earth -- though the fact that they can't rule it out is certainly interesting. But this era of multi-billion dollar apparatus to perform experiments that may or may not confirm theories that are far beyond the understanding of even well-educated scientists who do not work in the field, well, it just smells to me. So much of the past work in physics was done with modest equipment and clever experiments. LHC and other colliders seem neither modest nor clever. Though understanding the universe is a nice-to-have, I'd rather see the money go to must-haves like basic R&D in energy to lead to carbon-free sources.

at 9/8/2008 3:12:02 PM, Paddy said:
These scientists are idiots. they say about the projects having fail-safes, and the like, but i am very concerned...well, i guess well find out who was right at about 1pm on wednesday...

at 9/8/2008 4:10:38 PM, boom said:
Long ago in a far off dimension scientists of another world tried this - and created our universe from the mini big bangs.

at 9/8/2008 5:20:52 PM, Steve Leibson said:
The first power-on tests will be with one stream. As the LHC team builds confidence, they will then turn on the second stream. Then they'll cross the streams. You've got at least a few weeks yet. "Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light." —Egon Spengler on crossing proton streams, Ghostbusters

at 9/8/2008 6:30:00 PM, Dave J said:
"That would be bad."

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