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Large Hadron Collider feedback needed

BenBurch said:
I am less willing to suffer fools than I used to be, but I ought to try to educate at least the bystanders who will get it even if the fool WILL not.
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I know this is rather late, but I just wanted to offer my encouragement to you and all the others doing the same, too.

As a layperson, I cannot get the physics (maybe one day, after ten years or so of study, I'll try), but what I can pick up is the pattern of argumentation from both sides and all people involved, whereby after a few interchanges, it becomes fairly clear who understands what they are talking about and who is stubbornly sticking to a point for reasons other than reason itself.

From there I may then draw a 'good-enough' conclusion about the fundamental nature of the issue insofar as it may concern me or my affairs.

I'm especially appreciative of these efforts, for that its taken over a decade of un-learning and re-educating myself to reach a semi-respectably critical state of mind. Growing up, I was very stupid and credulous, as were most of the personal influences that surrounded me. I had many foolish and persistent notions that had great emotional/egotistical/social appeal and took a long time to extirpate. Even today, I find some ideas are so cleverly or attractively presented and have such innate appeal to me, that it requires conscious effort simply to take a critical standpoint, prior to any actual analysis.

Each day involves a struggle with my own persistent stupidities and when I am faced with the likes of Mr Blodgett, I am again reminded of how little I know and how easily sophisticated concepts and methodologies may be misused and construed to the detriment of .

So again, I and no doubt many others very much appreciate the efforts.

Cheers.
 
MattusMaximus said:
The highest recorded CM energy in naturally occurring cosmic ray collisions is about 1020 eV, as compared to about 14x1012 eV for the LHC. That is, the LHC collisions are roughly 107 (or 10,000,000) times less energetic.

By comparison, the LHC is a wuss.
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No. Again, it's the Lorentz invariant center of mass energy that matters. Cosmic ray collisions with the earth's atmosphere involve one CR and one stationary molecule. The CM energy of such a collision will be at most somewhere beteween 10 and 100 times that of the LHC.
 
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sol invictus said:
No. Again, it's the Lorentz invariant center of mass energy that matters. Cosmic ray collisions with the earth's atmosphere involve one CR and one stationary molecule. The CM energy of such a collision will be at most somewhere beteween 10 and 100 times that of the LHC.
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But I thought that there were documented incidents of CR energy collisions with the incoming CRs having an energy of up to 1020 eV. Perhaps I'm reading something out of context - what am I missing? Can you provide me with a link to clear this up? Thanks in advance.
 
MattusMaximus said:
But I thought that there were documented incidents of CR energy collisions with the incoming CRs having an energy of up to 1020 eV. Perhaps I'm reading something out of context - what am I missing? Can you provide me with a link to clear this up? Thanks in advance.
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That's true but the fact that the thing being hit is (more or less) stationary means most of the energy in the collision cannot be used to make interesting stuff because momentum needs to be conserved. In the centre of mass frame the particles will have ~ 50 TeV each (apparently, I'm too lazy to calculate it and it depends on whether its protons colliding with protons or something else).
 
Tubbythin said:
That's true but the fact that the thing being hit is (more or less) stationary means most of the energy in the collision cannot be used to make interesting stuff because momentum needs to be conserved. In the centre of mass frame the particles will have ~ 50 TeV each (apparently, I'm too lazy to calculate it and it depends on whether its protons colliding with protons or something else).
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Doh! Got it now. Duh...

Thanks, TT. I should have known that.
 
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United Nations complaint

I was one of a team of six people, and more signatories, who wrote a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee saying that the Large Hadron Collider violates our right to life (which is infringed if put in jeopardy; we contend that this is stochastic, not certain.)

I would be interested in a serious critique of the physics in that complaint, which starts on page 17. I doubt that regulars here are capable of serious critique, but it will be interesting to see where you dump the garbage. :)

The complaint is available here:

http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/un-communication-lhc-cern-concerned-international.pdf

In addition to the physics, there is a good section by Dr. Mark Leggett saying that CERN’s risk assessment process met only 20% of best practices criteria for a good risk assessment.
 
James Blodgett said:
I was one of a team of six people, and more signatories, who wrote a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee saying that the Large Hadron Collider violates our right to life (which is infringed if put in jeopardy; we contend that this is stochastic, not certain.)

I would be interested in a serious critique of the physics in that complaint, which starts on page 17. I doubt that regulars here are capable of serious critique, but it will be interesting to see where you dump the garbage. :)

The complaint is available here:

http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/...nication-lhc-cern-concerned-international.pdf

In addition to the physics, there is a good section by Dr. Mark Leggett saying that CERN’s risk assessment process met only 20% of best practices criteria for a good risk assessment.
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Most of the speculative science in that PDF seems to have been addressed already in this thread. I suggest that you read it.

The basic point in your complaint seems to be: If what we currently know about physics is wrong then there is a unknown, incalculable chance that the LHC will destroy the Earth.
What you have not mentioned is that the same applies to the Tevatron and we are still here!
 
James Blodgett said:
I was one of a team of six people, and more signatories, who wrote a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee saying that the Large Hadron Collider violates our right to life (which is infringed if put in jeopardy; we contend that this is stochastic, not certain.)

I would be interested in a serious critique of the physics in that complaint, which starts on page 17. I doubt that regulars here are capable of serious critique, but it will be interesting to see where you dump the garbage. :)

The complaint is available here:

http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/un-communication-lhc-cern-concerned-international.pdf

In addition to the physics, there is a good section by Dr. Mark Leggett saying that CERN’s risk assessment process met only 20% of best practices criteria for a good risk assessment.
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Do you guys know of the Tevatron? Do you guys also know that it runs at almost 2 TeV? The report said that in your theories the stuff could happend at 1 TeV. Well, nothing happend, right?

Also you are giving CERN qritique for using theories. Well atleast their theories are based real facts and real observations and work on other accelerators. What are your based on? I dont see a singel fact.

The report is basicly saying that the most brilliant men and women in pysiche dont know anything about pysichs.

I mean are any of you real physicists? No offense. But you really need to understand everything about it to have a say about it. I have a friend who have studied pysiche for 3 whole years and most of this stuff he cant even make any sense of because its way out of his league. And as you said earlier you have not even studied it.

Also, as your report asked for Cern is not going to maximum energy at first, they are starting at low energies and getting higher.
 
Now we have 'stochastic'='argument of the gaps'. James, people have discussed why the theoretical concepts you use are not applied correctly.

"Black holes": discussed at length in this thread.

"Safety concerns of scientists with a prior track record of publication
authors in peer-reviewed physics journals" : now that is funny because it does not discuss teh actual theories and why they might be right or wrong , more bad black hole stuff

"Erosion of black hole safety considerations": more of the same

Now it just goes on and on, what is funny is that it does not discuss the merits of the argument, it is cherry picking of papers that they like.

ETA:It gets worse with the strangelets...

Off the deep end on page 34
An established theory [48] postulates some form of phase transition in the energy
level of space itself could be possible due to the high energy density created by a
collider. This would have catastrophic implications and would involve a process
known as 'quantum tunnelling' that would establish a sudden local expansion of the
new space itself [49] through a transition of the fabric of space to a lower-energy
vacuum state.
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As though supernovas would not do that...


Magnetic monopole destruction! pg 35
 
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Reality Check said:
The basic point in your complaint seems to be: If what we currently know about physics is wrong then there is a unknown, incalculable chance that the LHC will destroy the Earth.
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As has already been pointed out there is an unknown incalculable chance that not starting the LHC will destroy the Earth too.

ETA: I like the fact that when you open the document the title in the bar of the browser starts "un-communication". Its just liking its warning us all that the contents are unscientific and uninformative.
 
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James Blodgett said:
I was one of a team of six people, and more signatories, who wrote a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee saying that the Large Hadron Collider violates our right to life (which is infringed if put in jeopardy; we contend that this is stochastic, not certain.)

I would be interested in a serious critique of the physics in that complaint, which starts on page 17. I doubt that regulars here are capable of serious critique, but it will be interesting to see where you dump the garbage. :)

The complaint is available here:

http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/un-communication-lhc-cern-concerned-international.pdf

In addition to the physics, there is a good section by Dr. Mark Leggett saying that CERN’s risk assessment process met only 20% of best practices criteria for a good risk assessment.
Click to expand...

Statement 1 on the first page of the introduction is false. There is no point in continuing past that.
 
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I read the report and i cant find any quotes from any physicists and i really dont think that you have a say about this if your not because then you simply cant understand it.

Also, Why is the Tevatron ignored in this discussion? Is not Proton antiproton collisions relevant in this discussion? Is it just Proton to proton collisions that the fear mongers fear?
 
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