We’ve been over and over the fact that the chances the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle acclerator, will destroy the Earth are infinitesimal at best. But the doomsday crowd is still nervous, and growing more so as the official launch date—this coming Wednesday—draws near. In fact, The Telegraph reports, top physicists affiliated with the LHC have been receiving numerous nasty letters and even death threats from paranoid people.
Some call the public relations office with tearful requests to stop the project, CERN officials say, or send emails asking the scientists to reassure them that the world won’t come to an end next week. One of the angrier letter-writers says, “You are evil and dangerous and you are going to destroy the world.”
The scientists produced their last, best effort to reassure the people of Earth today in a full safety assessment report. It concludes that every day, cosmic rays in space produce collisions that are more powerful than the LHC could ever hope to match. If these powerful collisions could create the world-destroying hypothetical black holes everyone is so worried about, the study concludes, the Earth would’ve already been obliterated, and we wouldn’t be sitting here worrying about this.
Physicist Brian Cox of Manchester University puts it more caustically: “Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a tw*t.”
Image: CERN
September 5th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I thought those people are waiting for the world to end anyway? Wouldnt they be happy that some crazy scientists might blow up the world? Then they can say they were right.
It will be nice to prove them wrong once again.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Hello, am i still here?
September 5th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Maybe if those people pray really hard the world wont come to an end because of all this. They then will have a reason to thank their diety for that miracle.
September 5th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
I am not a scientist, having studied physics in school certainly does not make me at all knowledgeable to make an assessment of all this… however, one thing I do know, Mother Nature doesn’t take kindly to people who fool around with basic laws. Everything has opposites (i.e. plus / minus; positive / negative; etc) my basic concern about all this activity is the vibrations set up in the bowels of Mother Earth, those vibrations generated by opposing particles spinning around have to go somewhere. As I see it the vibrations are going to go down, around, up and all over the place, now deep in the bowels of the Earth, vibrations have to go somewhere as they build up energy (like tossing a pebble in a pond) and what happens? Well, ice melts, volcano’s erupt, tidal waves soar, hurricanes blow and so on. Cause and effect. But what do I know….
September 5th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
People get scared at what they don’t know, they cling to the kernel of truth they can realize.
September 6th, 2008 at 1:49 am
Well, Eliz, clearly you don’t know much, just like most of the other people making ludicrous claims, guesses and statements . And clearly you don’t remember much of even high school physics. It would be both beneficial and interesting if you took the time to learn some actual science.
September 6th, 2008 at 8:12 am
My theory is that the LHC is Dr Evil holding the world to RANSOM! http://tinyurl.com/6kfezl
September 6th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
“the chances the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle acclerator, will destroy the Earth are infinitesimal at best.” (my emphasis)
At best!?
Any chance that the LHC could produce some kind of time warp thingy where we find ourselves time and space with dinosaurs? Because that would ROCK!
September 6th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
You guys need preview. LIVING IN THE SAME time and space etc.
September 7th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
RE:
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Letter to LHC Scientists: ?You Are Evil and Dangerous?
————————-
NEW LETTER TO SENATOR BARACK OBAMA
Laval, Canada, August 28, 2008
SENATOR OBAMA,
?It is in adversity?, I was going to say in ?darkness?, that one recognizes true friends.
Energy of the Sixties tested, confronted by Todays?s Energy crisis, what does Science hold for us in this field at the crossroad of the third millennium?
Each of us should express solidarity, according to his means.
My contribution, apparently futuristic, refers, Senator Obama, to an inexhaustible source of energy, which one should tame now.
In a book with limited publication, translated in English for the needs of the cause, entitled ?BILL A RI And There Was Light?, addressed during his last American election campaign to President Bill Clinton who acknowledged having received it, I dared to tackle this subject.
It?s like to say to you, Senator Obama, that in the exceptional circumstances in which we live today - in the point of view of energy - no exploration in the mid or long term, by the american expertise , of an additional source of energy, at the same time safe and profitable, should not be ruled out.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:36 am
The world has been full of nay-sayers.
Railroads - “One cannot travel faster than a walking man. Any faster will suck the air out of a man’s lungs”
Underground trains - “The prospect of diving down into the Stxyian depths, knowing the weight of earth above one will surely drive one insane”
Sadly if we had listened to these individuals then humankind would never have left the tree’s for fear of the grasslands.
And as for the LHC - the universe on a daily basis produces far more spectacluar events that we could ever hope to achieve in out backyards. However - it might give us a glimpse of the wonder of how the universe is made.
Just my views
Dave.
September 8th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
[…] like most predictions of the end of the world. It turns out people have been sending actual death threats to LHC […]
September 8th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
wow this black hole theory has really taken the world by storm, lets hope they all die during this experiment, because the money they wasted, could of been spent on something the people need, everyone has a black hole, its called a arse hole,
September 10th, 2008 at 6:15 am
my biggest poblem is that they say sunbeams and what not cause the same effect except for the fact that sun beams can’t get caught by earths gravitation and pass straight through now what about being 330 feet underground? Something tells me the same rules don’t apply, just a thought. Oh and yes we are still here because it was a test run today not fully powered up won’t be until october
September 10th, 2008 at 10:07 am
@kay it’s not “sunbeams” it’s highly charged particles **from** the sun that are rammed into the earths atmosphere (ever seen the northern lights?) at much higher rates, everyday, all day, at energy levels much higher than what LHC is capable of, if LHC is capable of producing dangerous strange particles or blackholes our own atmosphere would’ve done this long, long ago. Jesus tap dancing Christ where do you people get your information??
September 10th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
lets all make a bet, if the world is destroyed, and we all find ourselves in line at the pearly white gates, all you believers win, ill step out of line, hop off the cloud, and have a few minutes of fun freefall until i burn forever in hell.
If, on the other hand, you god fearers are wrong. You must accept that your religion has blinded you from rationally understanding the world around you. You must stop claiming that the world will end at every possible chance you get. You will accept that science is the true search for knowledge.
Im not saying you have to be athiest, im saying you have to start putting your faith in science.
September 10th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
What is the use of this big project that is so expensive?? The money could be used to make the world a better place by helping people that are hungry and poor. This is a big waste of money.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:09 am
@Eliz: you obviously have no idea what the hell you are talking about. If you’re too dumb to even understand the very basics of physics (and you obviously are) it’s best to keep your mouth shut.
September 14th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
If CERN scientists know that what they are doing is safety it means they know the expected results.
If they know the results of their experiment why they are spending billions of dollars on it?
The truth is they have no idea about what it will happened inside of collider this time.
They even can not be coherent in the immediate and later applications of what they can find.
And after all any powerful invention fell in the hands of army and it was used as a weapon first.
Some scientist didn’t learn anything from recent history and they may be proved to have knowledge but not logic.