On Mar 30, 1:40=A0pm, "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> "David E. Powell" <David_Powell3...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
messagenews:4199c96f=
-2a06-4724-8ca1-3b0ae54319be@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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> >http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23844529/?GT1=3D43001
>
> > Doomsday fears spark lawsuit over collider
> > Critics worry about mini-black holes, strangelets; experts reject
> > claims
> > A hardhat worker is dwarfed by the inner workings of the Large Hadron
> > Collider's ATLAS detector, deep beneath the French-Swiss border.
> > View related photos
> > EIROforum / CERN
>
> > FREE VIDEO
>
> > Secrets of the universe
> > March 1, 2007: Scientists are edging closer to launching an experiment
> > designed to uncover the origins of the universe, known as the Large
> > Hadron Collider.
> > NBC News Web Extra
>
> > =A0Related stories =A0 =A0 What's this?
> > Smash! The search for 'sparticles'
>
> > By Alan Boyle
> > Science editor
> > MSNBC
> > updated 11:23 a.m. ET, Fri., March. 28, 2008
>
> > Alan Boyle
> > Science editor
>
> >
------------------------------------------------------------------------=
---=AD-----
>
> > * Profile
> > * E-mail
>
> > The builders of the world's biggest particle collider are being sued
> > in federal court over fears that the experiment might create globe-
> > gobbling black holes or never-before-seen strains of matter that would
> > destroy the planet.
>
> > Representatives at Fermilab in Illinois and at Europe's CERN
> > laboratory, two of the defendants in the case, say there's no chance
> > that the Large Hadron Collider would cause such cosmic catastrophes.
> > Nevertheless, they're bracing to defend themselves in the courtroom as
> > well as the court of public opinion.
>
> > The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, is due for startup later this year
> > at CERN's headquarters on the French-Swiss border. It's expected to
> > tackle some of the deepest questions in science: Is the foundation of
> > modern physics right or wrong? What existed during the very first
> > moment of the universe's existence? Why do some particles have mass
> > while others don't? What is the nature of dark matter? Are there extra
> > dimensions of space out there that we haven't yet detected?
>
> > Some folks outside the scientific mainstream have asked darker
> > questions as well: Could the collider create mini-black holes that
> > last long enough and get big enough to turn into a matter-sucking
> > maelstrom? Could exotic particles known as magnetic monopoles throw
> > atomic nuclei out of whack? Could quarks recombine into "strangelets"
> > that would turn the whole Earth into one big lump of exotic matter?
>
> > Former nuclear safety officer Walter Wagner has been raising such
> > questions for years - first about an earlier-generation "big bang
> > machine" known as the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider, and more
> > recently about the LHC.
>
> > Last Friday, Wagner and another critic of the LHC's safety measures,
> > Luis Sancho, filed a lawsuit in Hawaii's U.S. District Court. The suit
> > calls on the U.S. Department of Energy, Fermilab, the National Science
> > Foundation and CERN to ease up on their LHC preparations for several
> > months while the collider's safety was re*****sed.
>
> > "We're going to need a minimum of four months to review whatever
> > they're putting out," Wagner told me on Monday. The suit seeks a
> > tem****ary restraining order that would put the LHC on hold, pending
> > the release and review of an updated CERN safety *****sment. It also
> > calls on the U.S. government to do a full environmental review
> > addressing the LHC project, including the debate over the doomsday
> > scenario.
>
> > On Monday, District Judge Helen Gillmor assigned the case to a
> > magistrate judge, Kevin S.C. Chang, for an initial conference on June
> > 16. Wagner said he planned to ask for a more immediate hearing on the
> > request for a restraining order - that is, once he has served the
> > federal government with the court papers.
>
> > The case is currently being handled by the U.S. attorney's office in
> > Hawaii, where Wagner and Sancho both live,`but that may not
> > necessarily be where the legal proceedings end up. The Justice
> > Department's Environmental and Natural Resources Division, based in
> > Wa****ngton, is also being brought in on the case, assistant U.S.
> > attorney Derrick Watson told me in an e-mail Wednesday.
>
> > In Wa****ngton, Justice Department spokesman Andrew Ames noted that the
> > court papers had not yet been received. "We don't have any comment,"
> > he told me Thursday. "We'll comment in court when it's appropriate."
>
> > Debating doomsday
> > The defense attorneys would likely dwell on the regulatory and
> > procedural questions rather than the worries over a cosmic
> > catastrophe. Those worries have been around for years, and most
> > physicists have scoffed at them for almost as long. The doomsday
> > scenarios raised by Sancho and Wagner include:
>
> > Runaway black holes: Some physicists say the LHC could create
> > microscopic black holes that would hang around for just a tiny
> > fraction of a second and then decay. Sancho and Wagner worry that
> > millions of black holes might somehow persist and coalesce into a
> > compact gravitational mass that would draw in other matter and grow
> > bigger. That's pure science fiction, said Michio Kaku, a theoretical
> > physicist at the City College of New York. "These black holes don't
> > live very long, and they have microscopic energy, and so they are
> > harmless," he told me.
>
> > Strangelets: Sma****ng protons together at high enough energies could
> > create new combinations of quarks, the particles that protons are made
> > of. Sancho and Wagner worry that a nasty combination known as a
> > stable, negatively charged strangelet could theoretically turn
> > everything it touches into strangelets as well. Kaku compared this to
> > the ancient myth of the Midas touch. "We see no evidence of this
> > bizarre theory," he said. "Once in a while, we trot it out to scare
> > the pants off people. But it's not serious."
>
> > Magnetic monopoles: One theory suggests that high-energy particle
> > collisions might give rise to massive particles that have only one
> > magnetic pole - only north, or only south, but not the north-south
> > magnetism that dominates nature. Sancho and Wagner worry that such
> > particles could be created in the LHC and start a runaway reaction
> > that converts atoms into other forms of matter. But physicists have
> > seen no evidence of such reactions, which should have occurred already
> > as the result of more energetic cosmic-ray collisions in Earth's upper
> > atmosphere.
> > The cosmic-ray argument has been applied to the black-hole and
> > strangelet scenarios as well. If such dangerous things can be created,
> > why haven't they already eaten up Earth, along with other planets,
> > stars or whole galaxies in the billions of years since the universe
> > arose? To answer that question, Sancho and Wagner pose a
> > counterargument: Perhaps cosmic-ray collisions really are creating
> > tiny black holes or strangelets, but those little bits of doomsday zip
> > by too fast to cause any trouble. In the LHC, they say, the bad stuff
> > could hang around long enough to be captured by Earth's gravity and
> > set off a catastrophe.
>
> > In response, particle physicists are developing counter-
> > counterarguments - =A0based on their theoretical work as well as data
> > from astronomical observations and experiments at the Relativistic
> > Heavy-Ion Collider. For instance, the physicists would say that enough
> > of the doomsday particles still should have been captured by neutron
> > stars or cosmic gas clouds to have an impact. No such impact has ever
> > been seen. Therefore, no doomsday.
>
> > CERN spokesman James Gillies told me that a 2003 *****sment of the
> > doomsday scenarios was being updated with the new information. Release
> > of that updated re****t - the one that Sancho and Wagner apparently
> > have been waiting for - is "imminent," Gillies told me.
>
> > Questions about the doomsday scenarios may well come up at CERN on
> > April 6, during a public open house at the LHC. Some researchers have
> > gotten the word to be prepared to talk about microscopic black holes
> > and strangelets if asked.
>
> > Reality check
> > Saying something is absolutely impossible doesn't always come easy.
> > Some scientists find it difficult to state categorically that
such-and-
> > such a theoretical catastrophe has no chance of happening, and
> > Fermilab spokeswoman Judy Jackson told me that the doomsayers have
> > "cynically distorted" that natural reluctance to rule out even the
> > most outlandish theoretical possibilities.
>
> > The doomsaying can continue as long as scientists hold out even a tiny
> > sliver of uncertainty. Jackson cited the example of Paul Dixon, a
> > psychology professor at the University of Hawaii at Hilo who has been
> > saying for more than a decade that experiments at Fermilab's Tevatron
> > accelerator are in danger of touching off an artificial supernova.
> > Dixon is still going strong: He submitted an affidavit in sup****t of
> > the LHC lawsuit filed by Sancho and Wagner.
>
> > The current lawsuit could well be decided not by scientific arguments
> > but rather by narrower regulatory issues. On that point, Jackson said
> > that Fermilab has followed U.S. environmental regulations, just as
> > CERN has followed European regulations. "Of course there are plenty of
> > environmental laws and regulations, and they have all been followed to
> > the letter," she said.
>
> > However, Jackson said CERN shouldn't be held to U.S. requirements when
> > it comes to operating the LHC - even if the collider happens to be
> > using magnets built by Fermilab. "Just because we built them doesn't
> > mean we have any say over French environmental regulations," she said.
>
> > For his part, Wagner said he hoped Fermilab and the other defendants
> > in the lawsuit would take another look at the doomsday scenarios - and
> > speculated that a restraining order might not even be necessary. He
> > noted that the startup schedule for the LHC has been repeatedly
> > delayed, which would give more time for further safety *****sments.
> > (CERN's schedule currently calls for first
>
> ...
>
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Isn't this the same thread that said the A/H bombs would "Ignite the
Atmosphere!..."?
TBerk
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