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CERN and scientific responsibility on their experiments

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CERN and scientific responsibility on their experiments

swstephe
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Posted 08/10/08 - 10:56 PM:	#11
perseus wrote: You aren't comparing the same thing, you would need to compare the risk of everyone dying in a car accident. Both are minuscule but the consequences are enormous. Perhaps many such minuscule risks add up and will indeed result in the elimination of the human race, whether it be nanotechnology, artificial virus, computer intelligence or whatever. I'm a relativist, so if I die in a car wreck or the earth gets swallowed up by a black hole, its about the same -- but I guess getting swallowed up by a black hole would be faster, more certain of a death, and way cooler. I can be facetious about the possibility of a black hole appearing because it is obviously aimed toward people with a very limited understanding of physics. You say "black hole" and people immediately think of planet-eating stars, (or even literal "holes" in space) ... like they see in the movies. But a planet-eating black-hole is one that already has enough mass to eat planets. Where is all that mass going to come from? If it appears out of nowhere, then we are talking about something outside of the realm of physics and colliders. The risk is that the collider will create a black hole smaller than an atom, which would immediately evaporate because it doesn't have the gravitational force to maintain its "black hole" quality. Even if, (through some additional "magic" process where CERN suddenly got practically infinite power), so that it was able to start collapsing the earth, as soon as CERN was destroyed, everything would bounce back because there was nothing to maintain that state. I think there must have been similar fears for the first reactor. I remember reading some books from the 50's or 60's which thought that colliders would create antimatter which would annihilate all the matter in the earth. We did create antimatter and it did annihilate, but all at microscopic levels. There are definitely very real risks that could result in the elimination of the human race. It is a sign of human bias to fear short-term spectacular destruction, (like black holes and the other things you mention), and completely ignore the much higher risks. The entire world lived under the threat of being wiped out in all-out nuclear war for decades with the majority of humans supporting it. Economic and population growth will inevitably lead to overpopulation. Space throws asteroids and enormous gamma radiation bursts every few million years. perseus wrote: There are two worrying anomalies as I see it. a) Why isn't there evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, and b) why are we here now rather than a million or billion years in the future, since there must be more intelligences born in the future of our planet than the past assuming a continuing race. Both point to a significant possibility of a catastrophe awaiting humans, the first only relates to intelligent civilisations in general Thats just conjecture. Just because we don't have any evidence of what we would consider intelligent extraterrestrial life doesn't mean it isn't out there, or that they all destroyed themselves. Our existence at this time doesn't mean anything. The "law of averages" doesn't work on individuals. The human race expanding exponentially forever or not doesn't affect you being here and now. You should count yourself as very lucky. You get the benefit of all the technology and benefits of the past without the inevitable problems of resource depletion that we are only now entering.
Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.

Wowbagger
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 08/11/08 - 07:33 PM:	#12
Isn't there cosmic rays reaching higher velocities than the particules at the LHC hitting us all the time...?

Paul
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Posted 08/13/08 - 04:47 AM:	#13
llanquihue wrote: It seems that there are also physicists that oppose to LHC experiments : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL2ghqv5mCg You probably don't know what Coast to Coast radio is. It's a late night paranormal and conspiracy theory show. Check their website for their latest info on bigfoot: http://www.coasttocoastam.com/ . Suffice it to say that anyone on it can be assumed to be a lunatic. Physicists, like everyone else, can suffer mental breakdowns and go insane. Public funds should absolutely not be wasted on chasing bigfoot, investigating alien abductions (although, alas, it has already been spent there), finding out if Uri Geller can bend spoons with his mind, evaluating the veracity of readings given by the psyhcic hotline, or anything else that's blatantly fabricated out of irrationality or profit motive. Edited by Paul on 08/13/08 - 04:55 AM

Benkei
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 08/13/08 - 04:56 AM:	#14
Nevertheless, it might be necessary to be clinically insane in order to perceive reality the way it really is. Who knows?
- How are you doing? - I'm doing good. - No, Superman is doing Good, you're doing well. You need to brush up on your grammar.

llanquihue
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Posted 08/13/08 - 12:09 PM:	#15
Thanks for the clarification on this radio program, looking it's website it appears as they like to make a show of anything so obviously not serious.

Deftil
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Posted 08/14/08 - 09:26 PM:	#16
Having listened to actual particle physicists who work with particle accelerators, to say that there is NO risk is somewhat dishonest. To say that most trained and compotent physicists believe there is only a very tiny risk is accurate. In general I'm not concerned with any possible risks, and don't think there's much to worry about. Besides, at this point, so much money has been spent I don't think there's any turning back. But one thing that sticks in my mind is the thought that "if they really already knew what would and wouldn't happen in the experiments, then they wouldn't be spending all this time and money to do them, so they can only say with so much certainty that there is only neglible risk involved."

swstephe
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Posted 08/15/08 - 03:46 AM:	#17
One physics professor (just for entertainment) puts odds on what we'll find when LHC runs: The Higgs Boson: 95%. Supersymmetry: 60%. Large (1mm) Extra Dimensions: 1%. Warped Extra Dimensions: 10%. Black Holes, (that instantly evaporate): 0.1%. Stable Black Holes That Eat Up the Earth, Destroying All Living Organisms in the Process: 10^-25%. Evidence for or against String Theory: 0.5%. Dark Matter: 15%. Dark Energy: 0.1%. Strong Dynamics: 5%. (Quantum Chromodynamics) New Massive Gauge Bosons: 2%. New Quarks or Leptons: 2%. Preons: 1%. Mysterious Missing Energy: 15%. Baryon-Number Violation: 0.2%. Magnetic Monopoles, Strangelets, Q-Balls, Solitons: 1%. Unparticles: 0.5%. Antimatter: 100%. God: 10^-20%. (**More likely than stable black holes) Something that Has Never Been Predicted: 50%. Something that Has Been Predicted, but Not Listed Above: 2%. Absolutely Nothing: 3%. Now think a moment. If they had a device that would allow a person to travel back in time, but there was a slight chance that it would unravel the fabric of space-and-time causing a temporal anomaly that caused the earth to cease to exist -- wouldn't you still want to press that big, red, shiny button rather than just going about your business and never knowing? Dr. Bill S. Preston Esquire, and Dr. Ted Theodore Logan await your reply
Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.

Kurt_Godel
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Posted 08/15/08 - 07:38 AM:	#18
swstephe wrote: Stable Black Holes That Eat Up the Earth, Destroying All Living Organisms in the Process: 10-25% swstephe wrote: Dark Matter: 15% Wow. swstephe wrote: God: 10-20%. (**More likely than stable black holes) I'm curious how he got this number. Is this to say that there exists a clear definition of God, and a falsifiable test to prove his existence? swstephe wrote: Absolutely Nothing: 3% How much did the LHC project cost again?

swstephe
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Posted 08/15/08 - 05:04 PM:	#19
Kurt_Godel wrote: I'm curious how he got this number. Is this to say that there exists a clear definition of God, and a falsifiable test to prove his existence? I would guess he is being facetious ... or maybe he actually worked out Pascal's wager. How much did the LHC project cost again? About 4.8 billion US dollars, a cost shared by 26 nations. Compare that to the 20 billion US dollars that NASA is expected to spend in just one year, for the benefit of just one nation, with comparable success rates. Also, if they get "nothing", this will be the most expensive rap video in human history: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM But if we get a self-sustaining black hole, it will be the most expensive rap video ever. Word up nerds! Edited by swstephe on 08/15/08 - 11:36 PM. Reason: additional humor
Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.

Kurt_Godel
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Posted 08/16/08 - 08:44 AM:	#20
haha, that wasn't half bad. i liked how she got some pretty decent physics into her rhymes, which were not bad for an amateur.

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