|
How it won't end the world?
The most credible fears about the LHC expressed by doomsday worriers is that it will create extremely small black holes (which would that then grow out of control and destroy the planet and/or solar system). Another possibly is that it will create a new form of matter (that then "infects" all of the existing matter it touches destroying the planet).
The first reason not to worry is that those who fear these things are only paying attention to half of the theories. The same theories that predict these things could be created also predict that they will almost instanteously evaporate before they could possible do any damage. So it is cherry picking to believe the theories enough to worry but not enough to stop worrying.
The second reason to not worry is that the Large Hadron Collider is not doing anything new. The type of particle collisions they are looking to create don't happen on earth normally but that is only because they happen in the upper atmosphere instead. And on the surface of the moon. And on the surface of Mercury. And on the surface of various moons without atmospheres. And in the upper atmospheres of all the other planets. So, we're not creating anything new, we're just creating it where it is easier to observe. Observing particle collisions in the upper atmosphere (the closest place they happen) would be like trying to take detailed statistics on a single shooting star while standing in downtown Los Angeles and wearing sunglasses. So we do it down here where we know the exact location and time of the collission and can surround it with billions of dollars of detectors and computers. But it still isn't anything new. These collissions have been happening here in Earth's atmosphere for billions of years in a volume greater than anything the LHC will ever do and they haven't destroyed the planet yet.
To a degree it is like saying a leaf falling from an tree indoors could cause a concussion and so trees should never be allowed inside. Sure, I could make up a scenario where that happens but it is essentially fiction and the same thing happens (falling leaves) outside all of the time. Being indoors doesn't make it any riskier.
|