Large Hadron Collider

[1960darrenh]

I'm interested to hear peoples opinions on the soon to be switched on Large Hadron Collider.

The LHC is a particle accelerator located on the France/Switzerland border; it has been dubbed the largest, most expensive, most powerful experiment ever attempted.

Concerns have been raised regarding the safety of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on the grounds that high-energy particle collisions performed in the LHC might produce dangerous phenomena, including micro black holes, strangelets, vacuum bubbles and magnetic monopoles.

My concern is with the Black Holes but only because I do not understand about the other risks. According to scientists, we have been bombarded by Cosmic Rays (What the LHC will be mimicking) since time began and we have survived that. They also agree that Black Holes WILL be produced at the LHC but will disappear within a nanosecond because of Hawking Radiation. However Hawking Radiation is just a theory and HAS NEVER BEEN PROVEN! There is also concern that these Black Holes could be held in the earths gravitational pull, therefore not being allowed to escape into outer space. This will cause the BH to eat the earth. Ok it sounds like science fiction but this is a major reality and more people need to know about it.

The LHC was due to be turned on in Nov 07 but because of delays it is now scheduled to operate in August 08.

Your opinions etc will be gratefully received.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Coll ider

http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/

[Rev. Green]

I have no worries about black holes from the LHC. Some of the cosmic rays that you mention are many orders of magnitude more violent and we have survived them.
Let's look forward to more benefits from this laboratory, which has already given us the PET scanner, the world-wide-web, the "grid", and much more.