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Large Hadron Collider feedback needed

James Blodgett said:
There is a well-developed debate on the collider issue.
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No there isn't. There's real scientists and there's a bunch of cranks crying that the sky is going to fall. Sadly, I think the real scientists have been rather misguided on this issue in feeling that they need to produce some pretence at a risk assessment and actually argue the issue with the cranks. It would have been better for everyone if we'd all just ignored them from the start instead of coming up with a meaningless small probability that just gives people the chance to say "But it's not zero, therefore you're evil and we're all going to die.".
 
James Blodgett said:
Most confidently-asserted safety factors have exceptions.
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Two comments.

One, this was a thread on the LHC. You cited a ten-year-old paper demonstrating the safety of RHIC. These are different things with different parameters.

Second, saying "safety factors have exceptions" ignores---well, many things about safety factors generally and everything about this particular safety factor. If you read the relevant papers on the safety factors (Busza Jaffe and Sandweiss for RHIC, Giddings and Mangano for LHC) you will notice that they do NOT rely on trusting any sort of collider physics predictions. Instead, they rely on the one sort of safety estimate that does not have exceptions: "We have done exactly this experiment a gazillion times already".
 
HansMustermann said:
For a start, if you did create such a micro-black hole from 2 protons, it would inherit the electrical charge of 2 protons.
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Don't they usually smash together more than just 2 protons (not that that makes any difference to the rest of what you say)?

HansMustermann said:
... nothing bad would happen anyway. It would capture two electrons and survive for ever as the world's weirdest helium atom.
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That's awesome!
 
sol invictus said:
The human race as a whole faces major existential threats we are quite certain are real - global warming, diminishing fossil fuel supplies, epidemics. The risk of not turning on the LHC is much, much greater than the risk of turning it on.
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Fossil fuels!? Dear god man, don't you realize that every time you drill a well you might be unleashing the demon horde???
 
temporalillusion said:
Don't they usually smash together more than just 2 protons (not that that makes any difference to the rest of what you say)?
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They shoot whole beams of them, but that's because it's so unlikely that any two will actually collide. Just like outer space, it's basically mostly empty space in there. And these things repel each other too, so they have to be coming pretty head on or it won't count.

What they're trying to do is the equivalent, if you will, of trying to study what happens when two 5.56mm bullets hit head-on in mid air. By shooting from two different points that are about a mile away from each other. If you just shoot one from each side, it's not going to happen. You put some belt-fed SAWs there, if you want to actually find any pair that smacked into each other.

The probability that three or more will collide in a big pile-up is even slimmer.

Not that it matters that much. As you've noticed, you could increase that mass by a billion and you'd still be a billion times short of the universe's resolution. (And even more trillions of trillions of trillions of times shorter than it'll ever bounce to another charged particle.)

To use a messed up metaphor, the whole micro-black-hole claim is a bit like saying that if you draw a pentagram and light black candles and sail "hail satanas" three times, a secret message will appear in this text that will cause insanity in any who read it. Only it will be a billionth of a billionth the width or height of a pixel on the monitor. Surely you can see why it's not going to do much, or why even if I were wrong by a factor of one billion, hey, it's still not going to do much :p
 
Cuddles said:
No there isn't. There's real scientists and there's a bunch of cranks crying that the sky is going to fall. Sadly, I think the real scientists have been rather misguided on this issue in feeling that they need to produce some pretence at a risk assessment and actually argue the issue with the cranks. It would have been better for everyone if we'd all just ignored them from the start instead of coming up with a meaningless small probability that just gives people the chance to say "But it's not zero, therefore you're evil and we're all going to die.".
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Heh. Did you see the guy on the Daily Show who said that the possiblity of a catastrophe was 50%? After all, either it will happen, or it won't happen. Therefore, 50%.

John Oliver's reply was "I don't think probability works like that..."
 
MattusMaximus claims that I and James Tankersley are the same person. Now, that is a charming if nutto conspiracy theory. Fortunately, there is an easy way to demonstrate it wrong, based on something you can all look up on the Internet.
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First, go the American Mensa website. You will have to look it up on Google. I tried to post the URL, but this website has an anti-spam engine that prevents that for newbies to prevent spam that redirects to commercial websites. On the left side of the page, under “quick links,” click on “annual gathering.” Then, near the top of the page, click on “playlist.” You will find a list of presentations by date and time. Scroll down to the following listing:
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Friday, July 3
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
The Intellectual Challenge of Global Risk Reduction
by James Blodgett , James Tankersley , Win Wenger
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There are several risks that, if actualized, could make the human race extinct. The adequacy of our collective methods of dealing with these risks varies from risk to risk. In some cases we are doing what we can. In other cases denial, frustration, and hubris detract from effective response. Clear, creative thinking improves our response and improves our odds. We can contribute to clear thinking. Even a small reduction in a global risk is a substantial contribution. At this presentation we will discuss various risks, contributions we have made, contributions we would like to make, and ways you can help.
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The point is, we are both scheduled to present together. If we/I were the same person, we would need the gift of bi-location, a psi power that should win Randi’s million dollar challenge. Anyone here who happens to be attending the Annual Gathering is welcome to attend this presentation, meet both of us together, and check both of our ID. If you would like to contribute a million dollars to the cause, that would be welcome also.
 
James Blodgett, your refutal of the Cosmic Ray proof is hilariously flawed.

There is a ZERO asymmetry between the particles because of relativity. You have to analyze all this in terms of relativistic frames. When you do that, the conditions are precisely similar.
 
James Blodgett said:
MattusMaximus claims that I and James Tankersley are the same person. Now, that is a charming if nutto conspiracy theory.
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How can it be a "conspiracy theory" to claim two people are the same? If the theory is correct, who would they conspire with?
 
James Blodgett said:
The point is, we are both scheduled to present together. If we/I were the same person, we would need the gift of bi-location
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No, you'd need that if you were presenting in different places. If you're both the same person, being in the same place at the same time really shouldn't present much of a problem.:)
 
James Blodgett said:
There are several risks that, if actualized, could make the human race extinct. The adequacy of our collective methods of dealing with these risks varies from risk to risk. In some cases we are doing what we can. In other cases denial, frustration, and hubris detract from effective response. Clear, creative thinking improves our response and improves our odds. We can contribute to clear thinking. Even a small reduction in a global risk is a substantial contribution. At this presentation we will discuss various risks, contributions we have made, contributions we would like to make, and ways you can help.
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This is nothing but meaningless drivel in the context of the LHC.

Your comments would be equaly applicable to the dangers of the destruction of the earth due to a scheduled demolition to make room for an interstellar bypass.
 
Here's my theory. There are no natural black holes. They all started from aliens with LHCs.

Discuss.


(and by Discuss I mean Ignore)
 
Cuddles said:
No, you'd need that if you were presenting in different places. If you're both the same person, being in the same place at the same time really shouldn't present much of a problem.:)
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Pauli disagrees with you. Unless they have opposite spins. :p
 
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