I have to admit that eventually I just started skimming over your comments. It seems you feel that “the experts” are obligated to provide you with an explanation to alleviate all of your fears. An explanation which you must be able to easily understand at that. I wish you would express your concerns in a succinct manner, but my guess is, you are not capable of doing this because, just like the anti-vaccine crowd (it’s thimerosal! No, wait, it’s other toxins! No, wait, it’s [insert anything {sucrose anyone?} to try and make the case]! nothing the experts can say will allay your fear.

That’s okay, BTW. Can’t win ‘em all or convert 100%, but at a certain point, we can and should say, ’nuff said.

You want easily understood and are told that the chance isn’t 10% or 5% but MUCH MUCH less. And your response is to wonder if we can trust that those numbers are accurate or can be trusted. BA provides you a link to check this info out and you plead that it’s over your head.

Do you see the problem?

And the natural vs artificial experimental occurrence is a false dichotomy. All naturally occurring things are good while the man made stuff is bad? Come on.

You say you jumped out of an airplane? All that carbon spewed out into the atmosphere so you could enjoy a momentary thrill?!?!? And you call yourself an environmentalist. This is sarcasm BTW, to try and get you to see some of the absurdity you are putting forth.

you asked: “….If these ultra-high-energy particles in question are always entering the atmosphere anyway as someone noted – then why do we need the LHC to generate them? Can’t we study them well enough by observation …..”

I would assume that it is far easier to study a particle in a controlled environment where you know nearly exactly where the particle is going to be when it collides, rather than trying to study a particle that enters our atmosphere, where you would not know where or when it would be striking, rendering further observation extremely difficult and making the results virtually useless. Its just too difficult.

The fact you bring that up however, is strong evidence that the LHC is going to be fine when it does collide these particles. If it happens in the atmosphere, and we are all fine, then one can assume the same sort of forces involved at the LHC will be safe for our environment also.

Yes, I’m a bit wordy sometimes – guilty as charged. That’s because I care strongly & is an indication of how much I want to convey my views clearly and in depth. Is that so bad? Is it so frustrating & enraging for you to skim through comments if you don’t choose to read them?

As for filling up Phil Plait’s comments I rather thought he’d appreciate serious discussion even somewhat lengthy discussion. I do try to edit – as you noted I’m not great at that yet. I’m not great at computers either.

As for your surname? Please excuse me for making the asumption that as a married couple you would both adopt the male surname. It is how it has been (& remains) in my culture and is even, I percieve, usually still the case in yours. If that offends you, my apologies, no offence was intended. Call me old-fashioned if you like, but this new-fangled custom of keeping your names separate post-marriage is one that puzzles me & one I find hard to understand.

However, Gia, your posted the link (& thanks for that btw) and you’ve commented on the story – and the fact that your husband is the person in question surely isn’t irrelevant and doesn’t make you an impartial observer but rather a *partial* one.

I assume you love & care about your husband (or is ‘partner’ the word to use now even post marriage? Sorry if I’m not feminist-culture-adept enough.. ) so why reject sharing his name? But that’s a whole other discussion really..What does make me wonder is :

Why not make it clear that you have an emotional (I’d presume) attachment in this topic?

Anyway I will just say one more thing :

If these ultra-high-energy particles in question are always entering the atmosphere anyway as someone noted – then why do we need the LHC to generate them? Can’t we study them well enough by observation and not need to risk turning our planet into a something like a quasar or Active Galactic Nucleus from whence these particles – I gather – arise?

I’ve gone through the comments here and have found:
You wrote approximately 4,400 words
*Everyone* else – about 38 different people- wrote approximately 3,700 words- that’s approximately 100 words each- some posted more, some less.

To me, your commenting in this thread *is* a bit excessive. I merely suggested you start your own blog where you can write all you want rather than filling up Phil’s comments. If, of course, you think writing 40 *times* more than anyone else here is *normal*, than forgive me, but I just think it’s a bit much.

Also, who I may be married to has absolutely no relevance whatsoever on what I think about the excessive amount you have commented here. I was commenting about *your inability to self-edit* not on Brian’s talk or your reaction to it, therefore there was no need to have stated who I sleep with at night before giving my opinion. To suggest otherwise is actually offensive, I’m afraid. It implies that I am not allowed to form my own opinions about things without announcing upfront that I am married. Surely that’s not what you were suggesting, is it?!

Oh. And my surname isn’t Cox.

Please remember I may have been – heck I _was_ angry at you at the time I responded above. Forgive me please for being human and responding whilst feeling hurt and cheesed off.

I try to be a peacemaker & I did get, perhaps, a bit carried away and I’m not proud of myself for that so I hope you’ll accept my apology for that.

I do respect you & your husband, but I am uneasy over CERN & I feel upset & hurt at how you’ve responded to thoughts, questions & comments so far. Sure, I am not perfect (& ok maybe I do ramble a bit at times & over-react at others. Mea culpa.) but I do think I have the right to express my views and ask questions of the Bad Astronomer & others.

I do think folks like myself are justifiably nervous over this sort of experimentation similar to that which did lead to the development of the atomic bomb – at least as I see it although I suppose you disagree. I’d like to see a reasoned, full debate on this treating all sides with respect and consideration. I try to be polite and civilised & I do want to hear the alternative views even if I don’t share them. Please return that courtesy. I find it hard to understand why my comments apparently anger you so much – & if you wish to tell me so then I’ll bear that in mind.

Please thank your husband from me for his excellent talk – I too am a fan of Dr Carl Sagan & science esp. observational astronomy. However, also please ask him if he can answer my questions posed on the BA blog & whether he really – & I mean deep-down in his heart really – feels the CERN-LHC is ethical in the risks it may be taking with the entire planet if anything like the worst fears of folks like me come true.

If the Bad Astronomer tells me he doesn’t want my comments then I’ll listen to him & abide by his wishes but for you to do so seems … well a bit presumptous & high-handed really.

I haven’t commented on your blog (Can’t seem to work out how to do so anyway to be honest ..) but I’ll respect your wishes & refrain from asking awkward questions there if you insist.

But as far as Dr Phil Plait’s blog goes, until informed otherwise – by him personally – I intend to participate fully within his rules.

I don’t think I’ve breached his rules here or been a troll – if Ihave then my apologies .. & please feel free point out what I’ve done wrong (other than disagree with you & maybe explain why I disagree a bit lengthily?) so as I know. Is there a word limit to posts here or something? If so its thefirst I’ve heard of such. Or do you (Gia that is NOT the BA) just want to hear only from those who agree with you?
——————————————–
Oh dear, I’m commenting again, yegods, on a public comment-seeking blog & all. Gee (or is that Gia?) how dare I?

Actually Alon, since you ask, no I don’t drive a car.

Instead I cycle & use public transport – & depending what your buses / trains / trams are like & how far you are from your work I’d recomend that for you & others as well. It keeps you fit, is great for the environment & even lets you catch up on reading! (On public transport anyway I do NOT recomend reading & cycling! )
—————————————————–
&, Gia, hey, sorry to be commenting again but hey the bloke did ask!

“Gia … a Minnesotan (short in stature, but loud, very loud) who came to the UK in search of fame and big-haired rock stars and settled for presenting on the telly, writing blogs, being married to Dr Brian Cox and being mum to Alex.”

Married to the same Dr Brian Cox who’s the star of this I take it?

Hmm … Some may well say that makes you biased.
Some may also say you should’ve disclosed that straight-up to everyone.

Now pardon me for participating & for having something to say. Funny thing is that I kind of thought that getting people’s responses and thoughts was the whole point of having these blog-comment thingys.

Incidentally, no I don’t have a blog myself. Maybe I should get one … if & when I do, feel free to drop in & ramble or comment all you like, I’m quite open & welcoming to civilised discussion.

Anyway, I’ll try not to ramble on any further but will just note that you haven’t actually answered any of my questions – & nor has anyone else.

If you (and your hubby) wish to reassure the many people like me who are worried about CERN – & nice talk again BTW Dr Cox, seriously – you might try actually _talking_ to those who are afraid of what you’re doing rather than treating them with disdain, rudeness and contempt.

Polite, tactful, not a hint of sarcasm, completely engaging. If anyone wants to communicate their facts about certain issues of science, then taking notes on how Brian Cox does it would be beneficial. I could listen to that guy speak all day.

Great post BA. Bring on the proton smashing !!

We are so lucky to have people like this in science.

Suggestion: start your own blog instead of filling up Phil’s comments with your long, extended rambling thoughts and what appears to be your stream-of-consciousness inner dialog. That’d be cool. Then anyone who actually wants to read what you have to say has a place to go… and everyone else who comes to BA for intelligent discourse can continue to do so without having to scroll for fricken ages to get past your ill-informed comments or expend vast amounts of energy on rustling up the patience to deal with you in a calm and respectful way.

Thanks!!!

Yours calmly and respectfully (well, as much as I can muster here),

Gia

(BA – please let us edit here! Please!)

CORRECTED VERSION :
—————————————-

Offered # Derek on 30 Apr 2008 at 4:51 pm :

< “Tell you what, Shalom. If the LHC blows up the planet, I’ll buy you a
< beer.”

Okay, you’re on, thanks …

… Only if the planet is destroyed – a beer from where?

***

Derek did go on to both reassure me & accuse me of committing a logical fallacy. Oh well it beats being called a troll I ‘spose & I guess I’ll just have to disagree politely.

I hope I’m wrong to be so anxious about the LHC,
I do think the chances are very small of CERN creating the End of Everything instead of evidnce of the Theory of Everything but .. well y’know what I fear…

****

Responded # Sean on 02 May 2008 at 2:23 am :

< Salaam=Shalom=Peace:
< Coal-burning power plants are far worse for the environment that
< nuclear ones. Don’t fall for the “ZOMG ATOMS WILL KILL US ALL!”
< nonsense.

< Caring for the environment doesn’t mean throwing your hands up in
< the air and running around screaming every time someone mentions
< atoms or sub-atomic particles.

(Hmm. I really must work out how to get those quote blocks, italics, etc ..here ..)

First : thanks & congratulations! I think you are the first person to actually get my tag right so far!

Second : Don’t worry, I don’t throw up my hands & run around screaming every time someone mentions atoms or sub-atomic particles.

Third : But I gotta say I don’t think nuclear power – esp. nuclear fission is the answer to our environmental woes either .. If nothing else, uranium / plutonium are in shorter supply than oil and non-renewable anyway. Plus there’s all the issues over nuclear wastes, possible nuclera warfare spin-offs, potential for more Chernobyls, ad nauseam .. Nuclera fusion, well, maybe, just maybe but I’d reallyprefer more alterantive nergy incl. solar& perhaps microwaves from space as well as OCean Thermoclime Energy generators … There’s lots of better things than oil and coal – & nuclear. Its a pity, we don’t put more money & effort into developing them.

Okay, you’re on, thanks …

… Only if the planet is destroyed – a beer from where?

I don’t think they’ve necssarily _ignored_ the problem – just fear they’ve been perhaps a bit too dismissive of the remote possibilities of things going catastrophically wrong & too over-confident they know and can deal with things if they do.

I don’t think the scientist at Three-Mile Island or Chernobyl thought they’d ignored problems either …

< In point of fact, it has been studied over and over again, by top
< scientists in the field. In fact, Lisa Randall co-authored a paper about

Thanks again. I did check it out :

“Black Holes and Quantum Gravity at the LHC
Authors: Patrick Meade, Lisa Randall
(Submitted on 22 Aug 2007)

Abstract: We argue that the highly studied black hole signatures based on thermal multiparticle final states are very unlikely and only occur in a very limited parameter regime if at all. However, we show that if the higher-dimensional quantum gravity scale is low, it should be possible to study quantum gravity in the context of higher dimensions through detailed compositeness-type searches.”

but .. I’m afraid to say it may as well be in Chinese (which langauge I don’t understand) for all the sense it makes to me.

I’m sure the scientists involved *believe* that there’s minimal risk and danger. I’m sure they *think* they’re right and, yes, I very much doubt any of them are suicidal.. (Well okay perhaps one or two of them may be for all I know!? )

But still the engineers who built the ‘Titanic’ were equally sure that ship was unsinkable too weren’t they …

So again what if something totally unexpected happens? What if all the theories are wrong or haven’t taken into account some unpredictable, unforseen factor that we can’t expect because we don’t know enough about this level of supercolliding physics yet .. What then?

I’ve asked these questions before BA :

1) Just because we can split the atom, is it really such a good idea to try to split the neutrino? The quark? The Higgs boson?

2) “Well .. I’m not anti-science & technology, I’m really not, but we’re talking energies and particle physics (lets not forget the A-bomb please – ever!) & science generally here that is _so_ unknown & _so_ uncertain that we literally do NOT know what we’re doing aren’t we …?

3) .. & well, doing that with high-explosives is more than bad enough .. isn’t it? Doing that with nuclear reactions (Eg. the first A-bomb test at Alamagoro (spelling?) was crazy enough .. wasn’t it? Do we really have to up the stakes until we *do* destory ourselves?

4) At what energies, at what point, do we say :

“Hey, lets just think about this a moment – maybe we’d be better off NOT to press that big red button, NOT to ignite this possible bomb … Not to open this Pandora’s box, NOT to play with this dynamite?”

5) Isn’t there a level of doing this sort of thing where going any deeper or higher energy becomes just too dangerous to risk – at least on this one pale blue dot?”

Sorry but I really don’t feel or think I’ve actually _had_ those questions answered yet.

Please Dr Phil Plait (& anyone else who wants to try) can you answer those 5 above questions of mine?
Phil Plait?
Anyone?

Caring for the environment doesn’t mean throwing your hands up in the air and running around screaming every time someone mentions atoms or sub-atomic particles.

< … .. But my powers of critical thinking lead to one question:
<How the heck would the scientists have got the funding for such a
< project if there was a plausible chance that the thing would destroy the < earth and all life on it?

Given the amounts spent on research for better (or should that be *worse*?) WMD’s like A-bombs, H-bombs, bioweapons, space-lasers, Reagun / Bush the Mads “Star Wars” shield fantasy, nuke bunker busters, ad nauseam ..

I think the sad answer to that one is :

All too durn easily.

Personally, I’d rather the funding on CERN-LHC (& all the funding on the Iraq war) went to NASA & JPL instead …

Never forget the people running the US at present; the Jewish fundamentalist, pro-Israeli Neo-Con pack of war-mongering fools are genuinely evil people.

<I think the concerns that Salaam has shown here are precisely what you < get when you really haven’t a clue what is going on, so let the media be < the sole source of information. I don’t have a clue what is going on either, really.
<
< But my powers of critical thinking lead to one question:
<How the heck would the scientists have got the funding for such a
< project if there was a plausible chance that the thing would destroy the < earth and all life on it?

Given the amounts spent on research for better (or should that be *worse*?) WMD’s like A-bombs, H-bombs, bioweapons, space-lasers, ‘Starwars, nuke bunker busters, ad nauseam ..

I think the sad answer to that one is : All too durn easily.

Persoanlly I’d rather the funding on CERN-LHC & all thefunding on Iraqw went to NASA & JPL instead …

<Do you suppose there would be as much controversy if the Higgs
< particle had a different nickname?

Whatever they called it or nicknamed it, it’d still be what it is.

Still if it helps, shall I propose an alterantive name?

Let’s see now how does the :

“Leave-it-alone-or-we’re-all-goanna-DIE!!!” particle

sound to you?

Any better?

I might’ve over-reacted a bit too.

BA thanks for the link.

Look, I really don’t expect that the LHC / CERN will destroy the planet.

Most likely the scientists are right & like most (if not all) medical doctors _do_ know what they’re doing …

But … it is just that very slight chance that they don’t , that they haven’t thought of everything, & that something they’re not seeing or thinking about goes horribly wrong .. That’s all.

Okay, _almost_ all. There’s also my personal distrust & suspicion of experimental physicists, particularly nuclear / particle physicists based on past history reading & the whole A-bomb story. I’ve visited Hiroshima. I grew up in the Cold War times when there was the very real threat of nuclear armageddon. I can’t help but think how much better it would have been if we’d never split the atom & never invented nuclear bombs.

Brain Cox seems like a nice bloke, another Carl Sagan figure sure .. but the community he’s coming from has a history that isn’t all that good for Humanity. X-rays &stuff fine THX. Nukes though not-so-much.

I’m a passionate amateur astronomer but also a passionate environmentalist.

I have seen & read a bit about this. Saw for example a TV science show called ‘Catalyst’ (ABC-TV, in Oz) discussing CERN that was very fascinating, very pro-science but that also noted the uncertainty of the result the “yeah-we-really-don’t -quite-know-what-the-results-will-be” aspect.

Now when we’re talking about something nicknamed “the God particle” (for good reasons), a particle fundamental to the structure of the cosmos that creates phsyics as we know it and helps glue everything together at the most fundamental level … Is it really _that_ silly to be worried that maybe, just maybe, we should really think hard before messing about with it?

Is anyone but me thinking that splitting the atom has created some pretty
nasty consequences well splitting other particles may also have some pretty negative implications too?

Should we split the electron? The neutrino? The quark? The Higgs boson? The tachyon?

I’m all for observing these things happen in the centres of AGN, Seyfert galaxies, quasars & the like. Turning our home into an AGN or black hole or Starnmge-matter star however … well has some drawbacks! Observational physics fine – let the cosmos provide! But invasive, “let’s blow things up & smash ‘em together to see what happens” type physics .. Well let’s think twice or even three or four or a hundred times before we act!

Where do we stop & is there not a point where scientists have to
consider the ethical, social and cultural implications outweigh the desire to experiment?

At least as a thought-experiment I’d like folks here to consider : Isn’t there a level of doing this sort of thing where going any deeper or higher energy becomes just too dangerous to risk – at least onthis one pale blue dot?

BA?
Anyone else?

(Besides I’d love to see the LHC built on Pluto – wouldn’t that be just cool! Apart from anything else doesn’t saving LHC type science for other less ecologically vulnerable & human-survival-necssary planets help
make an excellent case for further human space exploration? Eh? )

————–

I’m no troll. At least I think I’m not .. but then I ‘spose if I _was_ a
troll would I know it? Do they?