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CERN and scientific responsibility on their experiments

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CERN and scientific responsibility on their experiments

llanquihue
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0 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 08/08/08 - 05:08 PM: Subject: CERN and scientific responsibility on their experiments	#1
According to some scientifics, the CERN experiment involves the risk of an accident, accident that can put the earth in danger. This risk is very low but risk anyway. One link to check is http://web.archive.org/web/20070829233215/http://... What would be an acceptable percentaje of risk in order to allow this experiment ? I beliebe that this experiment is so relevant that we should discuss about it here also. Edited by llanquihue on 08/08/08 - 05:15 PM

the PC apeman
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Posted 08/08/08 - 05:39 PM:	#2
I'm sure there's only the slightest of risks that you are a child molester. What is the acceptable degree of bringing up such possibilities?

Paul
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Posted 08/08/08 - 06:00 PM:	#3
llanquihue wrote: According to some scientifics, the CERN experiment involves the risk of an accident, accident that can put the earth in danger. This risk is very low but risk anyway. According to some people who work in completely different fields and have very little knowledge of the experiments there's a risk. According to everyone involved and everyone who's educated enough on particle physics to know what they're talking about, there's no risk: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/Safety-en.html . The things the LHC is doing happen in the universe anyway in enough space and time, and we can directly observe the apparent lack of impact: "Whatever the LHC will do, Nature has already done many times over during the lifetime of the Earth and other astronomical bodies." They've already wasted public funds on extensive studies of concerns which are irrational. Since their studies found no risk (unless you're going to play the everything-has-a-non-zero-probability game, in which quantum tunneling can cause mars to hit the earth and pass through without a scratch too), CERN has no more responsibility to listen to these paranoids than wi-fi makers have to listen to the people who think they're electosensitive but somehow can't reproduce it for scientific tests. People just have an instinctive fear of what they don't understand, which means science. If you want to look at real risk, try getting in your car in the morning. It kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. That's so familiar that people just ignore it though, and prefer to get upset about things that are perfectly safe. Take nuclear power, for another example. It has I believe by far the best safety record of the available ways to generate power (even including designs like Chernobyl which were obviously unsafe and just didn't care), but people are scared of the word nuclear. Edited by Paul on 08/08/08 - 06:28 PM

llanquihue
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Posted 08/08/08 - 08:43 PM:	#4
According to some people who work in completely different fields and have very little knowledge of the experiments there's a risk. According to everyone involved and everyone who's educated enough on particle physics to know what they're talking about, there's no risk: ... It seems that there are also physicists that oppose to LHC experiments : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL2ghqv5mCg

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Posted 08/08/08 - 10:14 PM:	#5
According to legend, there were some people at the Trinity test site thought there was a chance that a nuclear explosion might ignite the atmosphere. Good thing it was a secret. I would like to have seen a comparison with other potential risks. The question is a comparison of risk in regards to potential benefits, if you want to get technical -- but people are terrible with risk. The risk of dying in a car accident is probably much higher than an accident at LHC, but that doesn't prevent people from driving -- and even increasing the risk by dismissing safety constraints like driving while intoxicated, speeding, not wearing a safety belt or just unnecessarily dangerous behavior. The world lived under the threat of global nuclear annihilation for decades, with most people agreeing on the subject of risk, but still supporting the danger as necessary for security. I would say the risk of an accident at LHC is much smaller, and the benefit is higher than what people implicitly commit to everyday.
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perseus
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Posted 08/09/08 - 12:47 PM:	#6
swstephe wrote: The risk of dying in a car accident is probably much higher than an accident at LHC, but that doesn't prevent people from driving. 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. 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
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw

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Posted 08/09/08 - 04:11 PM:	#7
Paul nailed it.

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Posted 08/09/08 - 08:24 PM:	#8
Given that I am completely incompetent to judge, am I allowed my irrational fear of the unknown, or a vote on how my taxes are spent, or is the philosopher scientist now the absolute monarch?
The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

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Posted 08/09/08 - 11:26 PM:	#9
You can blow up your own planet, no problem with me, but this one isn't.
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llanquihue
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Posted 08/10/08 - 05:31 PM:	#10
The question is a comparison of risk in regards to potential benefits, if you want to get technical -- but people are terrible with risk I believe that we have not stoped any investigations before due to risk evaluation, but wouldn't it be worth to do it now ?

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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.
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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

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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?
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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.

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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."

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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
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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?

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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
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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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Posted 09/10/08 - 03:28 AM:	#21
Earler critics of smaller particle smashers pointed out that there was a chance they could produce a kind of "frozen" matter which would "freeze solid" everything on earth. Astronomers pointed out that no one had ever observed such a thing anywhere in the universe despite the fact that much heigher energies are commonplace. A guy I know who worked at Fermi lab loves to tell a story about a small town mayor from several hundred miles away who complained to him that his machine was pointed right at them. The residual radiation that comes out of the accelerator is less than that of a TV. The media has been hyping this saying that the LHC will reproduce the energies of the big bang. The truth is, it would require an acclerator the size of the solar system to do that.

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Posted 09/10/08 - 03:48 AM:	#22
The media has been hyping this saying that the LHC will reproduce the energies of the big bang. The truth is, it would require an acclerator the size of the solar system to do that. cool. When do we start building? Since all the other planets are devoid of life we can use the materials from that. Who needs a planet you can't fucking see with the naked eye anyways (ok, Mars and Venus are still in)? Heck even if they do sustain life, who cares, really? As if we care about life on this planet. I think it would be consistent with our current track record to at least make a big mess of our solar system. That said, if we do make a self-sustaining blackhole I would appreciate it if it would eat the whole solar system. Just to make a point, saying, "don't fuck with us humans, because we will fuck ourselves and take you down with us". Which is also consistent with our track record.
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Posted 09/10/08 - 02:45 PM:	#23
swstephe, you said "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". The yanks and the ruskies still each have approx. 10,000 thermonuclear weapons, most of which are 'ready to roll' within seconds. If you're not worried about that you should be. The Chernobyl disaster was one of the key elements in ending the old Cold war (the silly bastards suddenly realised how appalling radiation can be). Chernobyl No.4 reactor is still a major problem (and is costing billions of dollars to contain) - if it goes critical again it'll make the first time round look like a tea party. In light of such things, a bunch of physicists mucking around with particals (and, as Paul pointed out, these physicists are only imitating what occurs in nature all the time) is really not much to worry about. What I'd find worrying is if the people at CERN do actually discover new stuff about the fundamental nature of the universe.
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Posted 09/10/08 - 08:57 PM:	#24
Budapest wrote: The yanks and the ruskies still each have approx. 10,000 thermonuclear weapons, most of which are 'ready to roll' within seconds. If you're not worried about that you should be. I agree completely. I used to have a list of failures in risk assessment that people make. We fear spectacular disasters, (plane crashes and man-made stable black holes), even though we are of more likely disasters, (car wrecks and use of nuclear weapons). The odds of a real black hole wandering through our solar system or an asteroid impacting the earth is much higher than the odds I stated previously. Nuclear weapons still aimed at cold war opponents is a far greater risk to humanity than CERN. Budapest wrote: The Chernobyl disaster was one of the key elements in ending the old Cold war (the silly bastards suddenly realised how appalling radiation can be). Chernobyl No.4 reactor is still a major problem (and is costing billions of dollars to contain) - if it goes critical again it'll make the first time round look like a tea party. There you go with unbalanced risk assessment again. If Chernobyl demonstrated an inherent risk in nuclear energy, then nuclear energy should have been abandoned. The collapse of the Soviet Union didn't have much to do with nuclear energy, but was probably more due to economic and political issues. At least Chernobyl was built with safety features, and the events that happened there helped make nuclear safety more skilled for future nuclear plant development. Maybe Ukraine learned a lesson. It and a neighboring country are the first two countries to ban nuclear weapons. We should be more worried about all the other countries who ignore the ban and formally declared the intent to use them.
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Posted 09/11/08 - 12:13 AM:	#25
I don't think anyone's yet mentioned equity and fairness in risk. If you run me over in your car and it's my fault (I carelessly step out in the road), then I've got no reason to resent you for it. If you give me cancer as a result your obscure scientific experiments then I've got every reason to object. But a car accident that's my fault is far more likely than risks to my health from scientific experiments. The difference is that in the former case it's a risk I've taken on my myself. In the latter it's reckless risk-taking by someone else with my life. So it's not just the degree of risk that's a potential issue. It's also the distribution of risks and benefits and the fairness of imposing risks on others. Having said that, the CERN risks are negligible, as far as I know.

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