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CERN=Doomsday machine
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osiris
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Mar 28, 2008, 09:17 AM
 
Doomsday fears spark lawsuit - Cosmic Log - msnbc.com

There are some fears that the CERN collider will create all sorts of cosmic disasters, like blackholes, magnetic anomolies, etc...
doom and gloom times a zillion.

Any thoughts? Any fears? I think it will have no disastrous results, but some do.
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design219
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Mar 28, 2008, 09:51 AM
 
Don't worry.

Be Happy!
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Mastrap
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Mar 28, 2008, 09:54 AM
 
The guy who's doing the suing has been trying the same stunt in the past. Each and every single one of his actions has ben thrown out of court. In addition to this, CERN is outside of US legislation last time I looked.

Engadget link

If OJ made one thing perfectly clear, it's that the word "reason," at the root of "reasonable doubt" has lost all meaning in the US court system. So what do you think will be the outcome of a new lawsuit claiming that CERN's Large Hadron Collider is a Doomsday machine? The suit filed in Hawaii's US District Court by Luis Sancho and a former nuclear safety officer by the name of Walter Wagner, seeks to put the already delayed LHC launch on hold pending a new safety review. It's worth noting that the same doomsday scenarios of micro black holes and strangelets (think: the Midas Touch of death) have been raised by Wagner previously with the launch of other accelerators -- they've also been summarily dismissed by the scientific community as "beyond reasonable." It's also worth noting that the 27km-long LHC crisscrosses the border between France and Switzerland, not the US. An initial conference on the lawsuit is scheduled for June 16th, a few months before the first collisions are scheduled to begin and well before LHC is capable of its 4 trillion electron-volts maximum power. Peter Higgs, we feel your pain.
     
design219
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Mar 28, 2008, 09:54 AM
 
Actually, this gives me a creepy mental image of some lawyer saving the human race.
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osiris  (op)
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Mar 28, 2008, 09:55 AM
 
Originally Posted by design219 View Post
Actually, this gives me a creepy mental image of some lawyer saving the human race.
That is creepy.
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Chuckit
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Mar 28, 2008, 11:27 AM
 
Eh, somebody pitches a fit every time they hear about a particle accelerator. No black holes so far.
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Rumor
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Mar 28, 2008, 11:34 AM
 
I know someone who is involved with that project. They seem aware of the risk and confident they will avoid them.
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Mar 28, 2008, 12:31 PM
 
Hey, if the human race is going to kill itself off (and lets face it, we probably will), I for one would love it to be in the form of a man-made black hole. What a way to go!
     
Dakar the Fourth
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Mar 28, 2008, 12:37 PM
 
Sounds like a bad sci-fi movie scenario.
     
osiris  (op)
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Mar 28, 2008, 12:56 PM
 
This reminds me of an old Far Side comic where a black hole opens up "by forces not yet fully understood" in a living room and sucks everything into it.

Words can't do justice to this great comic, but I can't find it on the internets.
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Weyland-Yutani
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Mar 28, 2008, 12:58 PM
 
The scientists in their ivory towers thought they were making scientific history and a breakthrough in human knowldege when they created the biggest and most powerful particle accelerator known to man...

Little did they know that activating it would cause a rift in the very fabric of time and space which would allow demons to infiltrate our world...

It is now up to one man to stop these scientists from setting the particle accelerator to ARMAGEDDON!

/hollywood-trailer voice

“Building Better Worlds”
     
Doofy
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Mar 28, 2008, 01:00 PM
 
Originally Posted by Rumor View Post
I know someone who is involved with that project. They seem aware of the risk and confident they will avoid them.
That's the most disconcerting thing I've read about it so far.
Been inclined to wander... off the beaten track.
That's where there's thunder... and the wind shouts back.
     
Rumor
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Mar 28, 2008, 01:07 PM
 
Would you rather them be unsure of themselves?
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Dakar the Fourth
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Mar 28, 2008, 01:09 PM
 
Or think they were infallible (aka God complex)?
     
osiris  (op)
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Mar 28, 2008, 01:11 PM
 
Likely the God complex. Being confident is not actually knowing something, but judgement apparently prevails.
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BlueSky
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Mar 28, 2008, 01:30 PM
 
When they set off the first atomic bomb they weren't 100% confident that they wouldn't incinerate the atmosphere.
     
reader50
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Mar 28, 2008, 01:35 PM
 
Wagner has been suing other accelerators. The lawsuits fail for common-sense reasons.

From a relevant Wikipedia entry about the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider:
However, the fact that objects of the Solar System (e.g., the Moon) have been bombarded with cosmic particles of significantly higher energies than that of RHIC for billions of years, without any harm to the Solar System, were among the most striking arguments that these hypotheses were unfounded.
     
design219
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Mar 28, 2008, 01:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani View Post

It is now up to one man to stop these scientists from setting the particle accelerator to ARMAGEDDON!

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law™
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Doofy
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Mar 28, 2008, 01:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by Rumor View Post
Would you rather them be unsure of themselves?
I'd rather they be confident that there's nothing to avoid.
Been inclined to wander... off the beaten track.
That's where there's thunder... and the wind shouts back.
     
Dakar the Fourth
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Mar 28, 2008, 01:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by design219 View Post
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law™
OOOOOOOoooooooooOOOOO OOOOOOOO

Mindtaker.
     
Chuckit
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Mar 28, 2008, 02:55 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
I'd rather they be confident that there's nothing to avoid.
Eh, there's danger in everything. Even something as benign as a movie theater has some inherent risks that you want to avoid.
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Doofy
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Mar 28, 2008, 03:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by Chuckit View Post
Eh
OK, what's with that? You practising to be Canuckistani or something?

Originally Posted by Chuckit View Post
there's danger in everything. Even something as benign as a movie theater has some inherent risks that you want to avoid.
Getting used gum on seat of pants = not too big a problem.

Creating a black hole which sucks half the solar system into it = slightly more problematic.
Been inclined to wander... off the beaten track.
That's where there's thunder... and the wind shouts back.
     
brassplayersrock²
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Mar 28, 2008, 03:46 PM
 
Originally Posted by osiris View Post
This reminds me of an old Far Side comic where a black hole opens up "by forces not yet fully understood" in a living room and sucks everything into it.

Words can't do justice to this great comic, but I can't find it on the internets.

     
turtle777
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Mar 28, 2008, 04:22 PM
 
Oh come on, the US has already created black holes. They are all around us.

The last one at work caused the credit crisis, it ate all the money from the mortgages.

But, nothing to worry, the economy is fine, the black hole is under control

-t
     
osiris  (op)
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Mar 28, 2008, 04:23 PM
 
Originally Posted by brassplayersrock² View Post
++
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d4nth3m4n
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Mar 28, 2008, 05:10 PM
 
didn't the plot of dan brown's angels and demons revolve around CERN making anti-matter or something?
     
tie
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Mar 28, 2008, 05:34 PM
 
double post
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It will depart at 20 minutes to 5.
     
Wiskedjak
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Mar 28, 2008, 09:48 PM
 
I firmly believe there is an almost infinitely remote possibility that they will destroy at least out planet when they turn it on.
     
OwlBoy
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Mar 30, 2008, 03:43 PM
 
I fear the unknown.

 
     
Chuckit
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Mar 30, 2008, 05:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
OK, what's with that? You practising to be Canuckistani or something?
That's pronounced "'ay," as in "roll in the hay," and it goes at the end of a sentence. This is a genuine American "eh," meaning "I don't know."

Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
Getting used gum on seat of pants = not too big a problem.

Creating a black hole which sucks half the solar system into it = slightly more problematic.
But the idea of "risk" in the sense that physics kooks discuss is quite different from the idea of "risk" that you and I normally talk about. I've heard scientists discuss the "risk" that the earth could just blink out of existence completely regardless of anything these people do, but most people don't fret about it too much because it isn't going to happen.
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