“Really people, enough is enough. Death threats? Seriously? According to a fresh report from the Telegraph, gurus working on the mysterious Large Hadron Collider are receiving all sorts of strange messages, e-mails and faxes as the go-live date (this Wednesday, supposedly) draws ever closer. For those curious about why some folks are up in arms over this thing, we’ll simply point you to this very informational rap video; for those opposed to nerdy hip-hop, let’s just say its primary goal is to “seek out new particles including the long-awaited Higgs boson responsible for making things weigh what they do and the possible source of gravity called dark matter.” Somehow or another, the paranoid among us think that carrying out those tasks will rip the world wide open or leave you stuck in 1990 with nothing in your CD player but Ice Ice Baby. Okay, so maybe that last scenario is worth getting worked up about.” - Engadget

As I understand it the energetic particles to be generated won’t be as powerful as the highest energy cosmic rays that are bombarding the earth constantly.  If we were going to destruct, we would have done it billions of years ago.

Occam

They think it’s going to create a black hole that consumes the earth. Problem is that the probability of it happening is far to small to even worry about.

danlhinz - 07 September 2008 05:13 PM

They think it’s going to create a black hole that consumes the earth. Problem is that the probability of it happening is far to small to even worry about.

I suppose it could also DESTROY THE UNIVERSE ...

dougsmith - 07 September 2008 06:06 PM

danlhinz - 07 September 2008 05:13 PM

They think it’s going to create a black hole that consumes the earth. Problem is that the probability of it happening is far to small to even worry about.

I suppose it could also DESTROY THE UNIVERSE ...

Darn! There goes the McPalin ticket!

Anybody else read Blasphemyu by Douglas Preston? I’m only halfway through, but the story is about, among other things, a televangelist who crusades against a government supercollider project which is investigating the Big Bang because this is allegedly a “secular humanist attempt to disprove Genesis.” How life does mirror art…

asanta - 07 September 2008 06:25 PM

dougsmith - 07 September 2008 06:06 PM

danlhinz - 07 September 2008 05:13 PM

They think it’s going to create a black hole that consumes the earth. Problem is that the probability of it happening is far to small to even worry about.

I suppose it could also DESTROY THE UNIVERSE ...

Darn! There goes the McPalin ticket!

I thought the blue particles and the red particles balanced….

Well its sad that they have to try to hurt scientists. Wouldn’t mind having a new selection of politicians. Guess we should make the biggest one on another planet, i think it would be easier to cool anyway.

http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

fmiddel - 12 September 2008 11:09 AM

http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122126297197130483.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Amusingly, the LHC criticism has backfired, similar to the way that media criticism of Gov. Sarah Palin has. The more the critics slammed the machine, the more curiosity and intense interest it generated. Subatomic particle physics and string theory, hardly the subject of dinner table conversation, suddenly became the talk of the town. There’s now even a rap song about the LHC that’s become an instant, monster hit on YouTube

yeah im glad to see something positive coming out of all this controversy. the lhc should tells us a lot of interesting stuff and personally i cant wait.

I think the worst threat from the LHC, is the idiots out there that all of a sudden became experts in Physics after watching a 5 min. rap video on YouTube. I watched an interview with Seven Hawkins (most have probably seen the same one) when he say’s that there is nothing that could happen where the Earth or the Universe would be destroyed.
In the same note, I have seen debate on on the news that destruction of the Earth was a possible result of this experiment. I do not believe this however, being they never said who was saying this.
Doing some research of my own I found a couple of magazine articles in Discover, Scientific American & Popular Science that say what the conditions would have to be in order for the destruction of the Earth to happen as a result of this experiment.. granted each article says it is a long shot even if the conditions where right (not even hinting that it is possible in these circumstances).

The best site I found was:

LHC-Themed T-Shirts Commemorate the Non-Destruction of Earth

http://io9.com/5049330/lhc+themed-t+shirts-commemorate-the-non+destruction-of-earth

Granted I am not a Physics guy myself, but I am more likely to go with Hawkins answer rather than the generic un-quotable warnings I am getting from the news.

One thing I don’t understand is that some people out there put the end of the world for the date that they turned on the machine… not the date that they are doing the actual big bang experiment.. what the hell??

What ever, if it does destroy the world….. God will stop it from happening anyway, so what it there to worry about??

I’m surprised no one has mentioned the ‘worries’ among some science types that the first A bomb test might start an atmospheric chain reaction…....... and poof.  Now that would have been A bomb to end all wars.

then lets keep dancing

[ Large Hadron Collider Renaming Contest from Wired Magazine]
Is this a great photo or what…

Jackson - 19 September 2008 05:37 PM

Large Hadron Collider Renaming Contest from Wired Magazine
Is this a great photo or what…

awwwwwsome!!

Cool photo, Jackson. Thanks!