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Scientists: Don't worry, new atom collider won't kill us all
$5.8 billion atom-smasher to be switched on in August
By Douglas Birch
Associated Press
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MEYRIN, Switzerland -- The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August. But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists' wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump?

Ridiculous, say scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French initials CERN - some of whom have been working for a generation on the $5.8 billion collider, or LHC.

"Obviously, the world will not end when the LHC switches on," said project leader Lyn Evans.

David Francis, a physicist on the collider's huge ATLAS particle detector, smiled when asked whether he worried about black holes and hypothetical killer particles known as strangelets.

"If I thought that this was going to happen, I would be well away from here," he said.

The collider basically consists of a ring of supercooled magnets 17 miles in circumference attached to huge barrel-shaped detectors. The ring, which straddles the French and Swiss border, is buried 330 feet underground.

The machine, which has been called the largest scientific experiment in history, isn't expected to begin test runs until August, and ramping up to full power could take months. But once it is working, it is expected to produce some startling findings.

Scientists plan to hunt for signs of the invisible "dark matter" and "dark energy" that make up more than 96 percent of the universe, and hope to glimpse the elusive Higgs boson, a so-far undiscovered particle thought to give matter its mass.

The collider could find evidence of extra dimensions, a boon for superstring theory, which holds that quarks, the particles that make up atoms, are infinitesimal vibrating strings.

The theory could resolve many of physics' unanswered questions, but requires about 10 dimensions - far more than the three spatial dimensions our senses experience.

The safety of the collider, which will generate energies seven times higher than its most powerful rival, at Fermilab near Chicago, has been debated for years. The physicist Martin Rees has estimated the chance of an accelerator producing a global catastrophe at one in 50 million - long odds, to be sure, but about the same as winning some lotteries.

By contrast, a CERN team this month issued a report concluding that there is "no conceivable danger" of a cataclysmic event. The report essentially confirmed the findings of a 2003 CERN safety report, and a panel of five prominent scientists not affiliated with CERN, including one Nobel laureate, endorsed its conclusions.

Critics of the LHC filed a lawsuit in a Hawaiian court in March seeking to block its startup, alleging that there was "a significant risk that ... operation of the Collider may have unintended consequences which could ultimately result in the destruction of our planet."

One of the plaintiffs, Walter L. Wagner, a physicist and lawyer, said Wednesday CERN's safety report, released June 20, "has several major flaws," and his views on the risks of using the particle accelerator had not changed.

On Tuesday, U.S. Justice Department lawyers representing the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation filed a motion to dismiss the case.

The two agencies have contributed $531 million to building the collider, and the NSF has agreed to pay $87 million of its annual operating costs. Hundreds of American scientists will participate in the research.

The lawyers called the plaintiffs' allegations "extraordinarily speculative," and said "there is no basis for any conceivable threat" from black holes or other objects the LHC might produce. A hearing on the motion is expected in late July or August.

In rebutting doomsday scenarios, CERN scientists point out that cosmic rays have been bombarding the earth, and triggering collisions similar to those planned for the collider, since the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago.

And so far, Earth has survived.

"The LHC is only going to reproduce what nature does every second, what it has been doing for billions of years," said John Ellis, a British theoretical physicist at CERN.

Critics like Wagner have said the collisions caused by accelerators could be more hazardous than those of cosmic rays.

Both may produce micro black holes, subatomic versions of cosmic black holes - collapsed stars whose gravity fields are so powerful that they can suck in planets and other stars.

But micro black holes produced by cosmic ray collisions would likely be traveling so fast they would pass harmlessly through the earth.

Micro black holes produced by a collider, the skeptics theorize, would move more slowly and might be trapped inside the earth's gravitational field - and eventually threaten the planet.

Ellis said doomsayers assume that the collider will create micro black holes in the first place, which he called unlikely. And even if they appeared, he said, they would instantly evaporate, as predicted by the British physicist Stephen Hawking.

As for strangelets, CERN scientists point out that they have never been proven to exist. They said that even if these particles formed inside the Collider they would quickly break down.

When the LHC is finally at full power, two beams of protons will race around the huge ring 11,000 times a second in opposite directions. They will travel in two tubes about the width of fire hoses, speeding through a vacuum that is colder and emptier than outer space.

Their trajectory will be curved by supercooled magnets - to guide the beams around the rings and prevent the packets of protons from cutting through the surrounding magnets like a blowtorch.

The paths of these beams will cross, and a few of the protons in them will collide, at a series of cylindrical detectors along the ring. The two largest detectors are essentially huge digital cameras, each weighing thousands of tons, capable of taking millions of snapshots a second.

Each year the detectors will generate 15 petabytes of data, the equivalent of a stack of CDs 12 miles tall. The data will require a high speed global network of computers for analysis.

Wagner and others filed a lawsuit to halt operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or RHIC, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state in 1999. The courts dismissed the suit.

The leafy campus of CERN, a short drive from the shores of Lake Geneva, hardly seems like ground zero for doomsday. And locals don't seem overly concerned. Thousands attended an open house here this spring.

"There is a huge army of scientists who know what they are talking about and are sleeping quite soundly as far as concerns the LHC," said project leader Evans.

Take a look
The last element, weighing 100 tons, of the ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) experiment is lowered into the cave at the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN in Meyrin, near Geneva, Switzerland, in February. (AP Photo/Keystone, Martial Trezzini, FILE)
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Reader comments on this story - 22 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

bairfanx wrote on Jul 5, 2008 8:55 PM:

" Finally, to address the topic, and why we can't just observe the cosmic ray interactions that are occurring every day: there is no way to control them. The problem is that you don't know your initial conditions. In science, experiments must be repeatable, which these cosmic rays are not.

As to the black holes, I'm going to assume that no one who's posted on here has read a physics text before. Gravity is the weakest of the 4( or 3...) fundamental forces. Orders of magnitude weaker than the electromagnetic force. The force of gravity is proportional to the mass of the objects exerting the force. A black hole of the size theorized would be far too small to do anything but evaporate.

You'll ask how I'm sure, and the answer is that I trust physics. There's a finite probability that I could phase through the chair I'm sitting in right now, but I sit in it anyway, unafraid. Sit in your chair, and be unafraid of the knowledge and progress the LHC will lead to. "

bairfanx wrote on Jul 5, 2008 8:48 PM:

" to infonut: asking "should we," while appropriate, does not have a correct answer. People who believe in equality say we should allow gay marriage. People who believe in archaic tradition do not.

to easy: yes, it's true, but they were pretty confident it would not happen. we also were unsure of whether Hitler had developed the technology yet, and that was the primary reason for the risk.

Pseudo-intellectual: with these experiments, you cannot EVER know what exactly will happen. Nuclear reactions and decays are statistical processes. After a great many experiments, a trend can be seen, and future experiments will almost always follow that trend. As to your comment about Armageddon, that is not the fault of science, but the fault of humanity. You'd be hard pressed to find a scientist who favors wars and violence. Most of the Manhattan Project advised Truman AGAINST using the bomb. Blame humanity for their idiocy, don't blame science. "

jipsi wrote on Jun 29, 2008 11:39 PM:

" to old biker:

I DID miss his (easy's) self-correction post. I apologize. I glanced over it as I was posting mine and assumed, incorrectly, that someone ELSE had responded with a correction. After I'd posted my second, I saw my gaff and felt badly, but decided my post might help elaborate why 'easy' felt he should correct himself.

I hope the benefits of my post outweighed the bad.
And, 'easy', my humblest of apologies for not seeing your correction in time.

One thing I should share...
I am hampered by severe spinal stenosis and arthritic fibromyalgia, so am a - s . l . o . w - typist (no feeling in mid-to-tip of my fingers AND I'm a friggin' perfectionist, a double curse). A lot of my posts are written offline and don't get to the send box for HOURS. This can be a problem, I suppose, when I'm READING the news at 4pm, and my response doesn't actually get DONE until midnight. I'll try to REread things later, from now on, but I might NEVER getting any comments out if I had to keep editing and rewrting...

Peace... "

dubito, ergo cogito wrote on Jun 29, 2008 11:08 PM:

" You know how cats are, poop in a box they're standing in and then lick their paws. "

old biker wrote on Jun 29, 2008 5:42 PM:

" Not to nit-pick, but...jipsi do you read all the posts before you decide to high horse your way onto the site? Perhaps you missed a self correction by easy a mere 99 minutes after his first post. I guess it's a mute point at this juncture.
Cats, do you have ANY other song to sing? "

woodyzhouse wrote on Jun 29, 2008 4:56 PM:

" 5.8 billion for something that may kill us!! I say leave the earth the way it is, spend
the money instead on aids, cancer, or diabetes research! "

pseudo-intellectual wrote on Jun 29, 2008 1:53 PM:

" wanderwls, you make a very perceptive point! Wherever big bucks are involved you have to question the judgment of people, even brilliant ones (or ESPECIALLY brilliant ones). Money makes the world go 'round; without it, a lot of scientists would be out of work. Is it any wonder why they favor research of this kind (it might also explain why they go along with the idea humans caused global warming- it may cost trillions to reverse global warming, and much of that would go to scientific research)? Follow the money, as usual... even if it leads to doomsday. "

pseudo-intellectual wrote on Jun 29, 2008 1:48 PM:

" I'm amazed that more folks haven't responded to this story. It may be possible the average Pantagraph reader isn't even interested in advanced science topics (another indicator of a failed educational system, perhaps- perverted sex and drug stories get far more attention here). However, this is an important story. If you can believe some scientists, we humans are, somehow, responsible for global warming. We (actually scientists) created the atomic bomb, which not only can destroy whole cities in a single flash of light but could result in our extinction. Now a group of scientists fiercely deny that they and their mega-billion bleeding-edge research project cannot possibly backfire. Has Steven Hawking ever been wrong? What if he is wrong this time? "

wanderwls wrote on Jun 29, 2008 9:17 AM:

" Do we know who paid for this thing? Bet it cost a few dollars. "

Crybaby wrote on Jun 29, 2008 7:25 AM:

" Hey, I wouldn't mind 'glimpsing' the elusive Higgs bison . I mean boson. Hopefully, since according to the article it remains 'undiscovered', let's hope there's someone around who'll know it when they see it. It must be a little like pornography. It can't be defined. But, ‘we know it when we see it’. And the evidence for its existence won't remain inferential. (Especially if we're all swallowed up.) Like most of this interesting stuff. Besides, it'll give a black hole load of Physicists a job. Debating G-string Theory. And keep them off the streets. Where they can do some real damage. Like building a super sized donut ABOVE ground. Where they'd only fight about where to put the hole. Or, how many donut holes can fit in McLean County. Yes, it'll be nice to glimpse the Higgs bison. I mean boson. I hope it’ll be as useful as teflon tape. Or WD-40. At least we got that much outta' our Space Program. (Not to mention some pretty hot Astrowomen.) Wanna’ see a ‘black hole’? Forget Switzerland. Just go to one of a thousand Republican websites. But, like with a ‘black hole’, good luck getting back. "

jipsi wrote on Jun 29, 2008 6:15 AM:

" Now, on to the TOPIC itself...
I'm all for science. If someone had not sailed off into the unknown (and off the end of the Earth, as many had warned), civilization would not be now as we know it. Same for discovering Penicillin, pasteurizing milk, the cure for Polio, etc. Every step forward involves tremendous risk.
HOWEVER, this LHC (Large Hadron Collider) project could well be the BIG BANG it's trying to recreate... how on EARTH (pun intended) can our little planet host such a HUGE, UNIVERSE-CHANGING event and not be, at best, altered, and at worst, decimated, in the process?
This is like the professor closing himself up in the bathroom stall to test an Atom Bomb and thinking he can keep it 'contained'.
In short, this sounds like a mess waiting to happen...
At the very least, the 'bang' could set something into motion that scientists - and humanity - will not be able to stop, let alone 'contain'...
I don't even believe performing an experiment like this ON THE MOON would be safe or without dire consequence... "

Tom Terrific wrote on Jun 29, 2008 6:02 AM:

" Ahh. BN_Republican, you and your humor have been missed. Welcome back. As for the Cats, I think it was made clear earlier that BN_Republican is making fun of conservative/republicans so to take the post seriously tells how short your attention span is. "

jipsi wrote on Jun 28, 2008 11:57 PM:

" Not to nit-pick, but...
It seems a lot of people have lately been using the phrase "MUTE point" without fully understanding the phrase, or the correct spelling/pronunciation.
It's MOOT point.
Spelling AND pronunciation is “moot”, like adding T to the end of what a cow would say.
NOT “Mute”, pronounced “mee-yoot” (as in remaining silent).
A "moot point" is one that need not be decided, due to a change of circumstances.
"Moot Point" - definition: "An issue regarded as potentially debatable, but no longer practically applicable."

Just an important (to me and MANY others) info-moment.

Please don't say (or write) "mute" point anymore, people, PLEASE... (and tell your friends and co-workers). "

The Cats wrote on Jun 28, 2008 9:43 PM:

" To "BN_Republican...why should disbelief in mythology have any effect on us at all? Do you believe in Greek mythology...thought so. BTW you are consistently spouting your code of living as though the content of your bible was fact...how silly. Have you stoned anyone to death lately for eating pork? Is you wife submissive to you? If she violates that code have you stoned her? If you truly believe your bible then why are you not protesting the war? Thou shall not kill is one of the building blocks of your philosophy is it not? "

cats55ire wrote on Jun 28, 2008 9:26 PM:

" OK-so we've worked all day in the garage, cleaning house, just now sitting down to glance through the Internet Pantagraph articles and I read this . . .

WHAT A HORRIBLE THOUGHT TO END SUCH A LOVELY DAY!!!!!

(I know it's news, but still . . . ) Sweet dreams, everyone! "

wilderness1989 wrote on Jun 28, 2008 5:51 PM:

" Scientists worried about the same destruction when the first A-Bomb was detonated. The A-Bomb will probably destroy the world but just not a quickly as predicted in the 1940's. "

easy wrote on Jun 28, 2008 5:41 PM:

" Uhhh sorry that should read "moot" not "mute". I doubt a bomb going off would make no noise. "

pseudo-intellectual wrote on Jun 28, 2008 5:22 PM:

" Forget everything you just read. The fact is these scientists don't know exactly what will happen (if they did there would be no need for the experiements). Ok. So there are similar collisions taking place all around us- why not study those events, instead of using manmade technology that might possibly, however remote the chance, generate something inconceivably dangerous? The results of this experiment will be mainly of interest to scientists whose egos are already bloated. In other words, there is not much chance any of us ordinary mortals will benefit from discoveries of new dimensions or enhanced string theory. Folks, this is the kind of scientific recklessness that gave us the still very real possibility of nuclear Armageddon. "

Controller wrote on Jun 28, 2008 4:40 PM:

" Thanks for the laugh BN_Republican!! "

easy wrote on Jun 28, 2008 4:02 PM:

" I don't know if this is true or not but I heard that when scientists were ready to detonate the first atom bomb they weren't sure if the earth's atmosphere would ignite or not...they did it anyway. I guess if it did (ignite) it would have been mute as no one would be left to say "I told you so". And this as a parting thought. The story says "chance of an accelerator producing a global catastrophe at one in 50 million - long odds, to be sure, but about the same as winning some lotteries." People do win those don't they? Ahh guys in lab coats. "

infonut wrote on Jun 28, 2008 2:58 PM:

" Scientists have got to ask themselves "Can we?" and start asking "Should We?" I think if the second question would have been asked the world would be a better place.....hope to read this in September...if not then the machine worked beyond all spectations and we are now dead. "

BN_Republican wrote on Jun 28, 2008 2:53 PM:

" The collider may not kill us, but forsaking Your Almighty God in favor of science is a sure path away from Him. "
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