There is nothing going on inside the LHC that doesnt happen billions of times a day in the upper atmosphere. This is rather ridiculous.

I don't think anyone in the scientific community is confusing these hacks with scientists.

I like dragons... Where do I sign up?

I know it's a joke, but, "anything can happen in quantum physics," is just flat out wrong. Even in quantum physics there are constraints on what can happen and it's likely that we don't know all of the constraints. The most important one we know about seems to be energy - have enough energy and a reaction will happen, with a given probability; don't have enough and it won't.

That said, the concerns of these people are overblown. There are multiple collisions in the atmosphere every year with higher energy than what the LHC can reach, and we're still here. Multiply that by the billions of years the earth has been here, the fact that Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun and the stars all exist and you've got a pretty tight experimental constraint against physics that leads to runaway phenomena like that. Given that, it's far more profitable to worry about asteroids or comets hitting the earth than that we'll somehow accidentally end the worth with some pac man particle.

Yes, why don't we teach creationism in school because trying to scientifically determine how the world really works is too dangerous!

Give me a break!

Now if you said that it uses a LOT of electricity to run and therefore adversely impacts the environment, well, I will give you that one.. but please, lets stick with reality, not science fiction.

Actually, I don't see the need for reactionist alarm bells here. If we wish to further ourselves as a species, we need to understand our place in the universe and how it works.
If you want to get a backgound in what it is these scientists, and they are indeed scientists are doing, I suggest reading Fritjof Capra's Dao of Physics and Michio Kaku's Hyperspace.
While I agree the idea of possibly creating a blackhole or negating existence entirely, we need not worry, we won't notice the chang at all.
One instance life will be as is "normal", the next we will cease to exists at all.

Don't know about you guys, but I think I'd prefer the quick death by black hole to the slow and agonising death by global warming. No brainer if you ask me ;)

"A group scientists are afraid"? Insert "quacks" instead of scientists.

In the quantum world, there is aslo miniscule chance that you can walk through a solid wall, but you would need trillions upon trillions of years to test that and even then, it may not occur.

The black holes which may be created are infinitesimally small and will last only trillionths of a second.

We do not possess enough energy to create a black hole capable of consuming the planet.

Don't worry too much about the dragons.

If one were suddenly to be created inside the LHC, it would be created in a little pipe some 3 inches thick. This would be much more of a bad thing for the dragon than it would be for us!

That aside, I'm sure that the scientist in question was either being sarcastic, or trying to find out exactly how gullible the reporter in question was.

hah, well if "anything" could happen, then there's just as likely a chance of something good coming out of this as bad. maybe here could be dragons, there could also be cute fluffy animals.

This is very much out of a science fiction novel, and a damn fine one at that: Earth, by David Brin.
Published in 1990, the story centers around the accidental escape of a "singularity" from a gov't lab, that drops into the Earth's core and begins to eat its way out.
The book is really about Earth in 2030, after humanity's sobering up and the adoption of a global, ecological disciplined culture. Its a fascinating, hopeful read for any green-minded earthling. I quote in often in conversation where the tone needs to move beyond the doom-and-gloom.
Check it out!

I do like the positive spin on the article - not having to worry about climate change will be great!

The legal challenge is actually being brought be a self-described "nuclear safety expert" who has a biology degree:
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/27/823924.aspx

Awesome. We should get these people to work on the oil companies.

If the world would end from purcuing scientific greatness, it would be the ultimate redemtion to humanity and a testament of our glory.
I mean, everyone assumed we would die in a nuclear holocaust or in some environmental apocalypse resulting from our greed and ignorance.

Nah, I'd rather just play with sticks and swing in my tyre, thanks

I like dragons... Please? lol
I don't honestly know much of... anything regarding this, other then it's looking like a bunch of scientists built something and has no idea WTF is does? Really? Umm... Galaxy Quest anyone? If that's any indication, then if you turn on the device it will send us all back in time like what? 5-8 seconds to tell everyone not to turn it on? lol Sorry, that's all that could come to mind reading this.

Have you seen this from the Dilbert Oops article?

And who exactly ran the numbers to decide it wasn’t that risky? After all, the whole point of the Large Hadron Collider is to create conditions that are not predictable. If someone already predicted what would happen using nothing but his laptop and Excel, and determined it was safe, I don’t think we’re getting our $8 billion worth.

I can’t see the management of this project spending $8 billion, realizing it was a huge boner, and then holding a press conference suggesting it be turned into a parking garage. I’ll bet a lot of people in that position would take at least a 5% risk of incinerating the galaxy versus incinerating their own careers. I know I would.

CERNs web site states that we have not been destroyed by effects of cosmic rays and micro black holes will evaporate.

However, cosmic rays travel too fast to be captured by Earths gravity, and Hawking Radiation is disputed and contradicts Einsteins highly successful relativity theory. Collider particles can be captured by Earths gravity, and relativity predicts micro black holes will not decay.

The LHC Safety Assessment Group promised to complete a proof of reasonable safety before the end of 2007, but unfortunately such proof may not be possible.

Alleged in the legal action: Chief Scientific Officer, Mr. Engelen passed an internal memorandum to workers at CERN, asking them, regardless of personal opinion, to affirm in all interviews that there were no risks involved in the experiments, changing the previous assertion of minimal risk.

(Statisticians generally consider minimal risk as 1-10%).

JTankers
LHCConcerns.com

Professor Dr. Otto E. Roessler estimates 50 months Earth accretion time from a single micro black hole captured by Earth's gravity (www.golem.de/0802/57477-4.html, translation at www.lhcconcerns.com/LHCConcerns/Forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=52)

I personally would like to be there when the experiment starts!!!
Valerio Mezzanotti

the whole earth should vote on it .

At least if we do destroy the earth and create a black hole where our planet is we would have finally achieved something relevant on the cosmic scale.

If we don't make the collider physics is stuck.

At the brink of a paradigm shift or major change there is a large amount of fear and apprehension. People are afraid of nano technology, people were afraid of breaking the sound barrier, people are afraid the internet is the downfall of human civilization. A group of afraid people burnt down the greatest repository of information in Alexandria.

At various points in history humans have thought they knew all there was to know, and while new knowledge has aided in terrible destruction the enrichment and benefit of the knowledge has been overwhelming positive.

Humans need a frontier to explore. The pursuit of scientific knowledge is one of the pursuits that unifies humanity.

If we do not use this collider then we won't be able to learn more about nature and the world around us.

We must not fear the unknown.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

The think people seem to miss is that were not discussing destroying life on the planet, were talking about destroying the planet. None of the safety concerns have been absolutely proven wrong. Nuclear weapons and global warming etc. could very well destroy most or all living things, but the planet would probably recover (it usually does). I really dont think were capable of understanding everything there is to know about the universe. I just cant agree with anyone who thinks its a good idea to risk destroying what maybe the only planet in the universe that can support our kind of life. Some things just arent that important. What good is scientific glory if you cant enjoy it. All this research and money could have been put to much better uses. Having some of the greatest minds in the world working on this is a waste. Id rather have no disease and fresh air. But what do I know anyway? Im just a bartender from the suburbs who likes to relax and actually looks forward to having some sort of future.

THIS IS AHKMED STOP THIS MACHINE BECUZ IT WILL BE THE END OF ALL OF US IM TELLING YOU KNO MAY GOD HELP US ALL!

So how about the environmental impact? What are we using to power this thing? Nuclear Power by any chance? What are we doing with the bi product? How much power will this thing suck up? How many times will it be operated? I hope they are using energy efficient light bulbs at least. And here's another question...in the ten years of development why am I only reading about this on non-mainstream news formats? Did I miss the big discussion where Canadians were asked where they would like to see their hundred thousand dollars spent? I mean ground breaking science is a priority in my mind but are there not far greater uses for that kind of capitol?...never mind the eight billion dollars total reported....What else don't we know? Why shouldn't I think this is the creation of a madman. Let's address all the issues...what ever they are.

I think there are no reason to care about end of the world. The maximum what can happen its complite annihilation of France and Switzerland and global Ice Age after it!

For security reason I suggest to the civilians in the location of this machine to leave this place at time of experiment, and the people who do this experiments to warn those people before machine start to go on full power - for them to pray!

And this will never happen, because its stupid as a fact... Live such long time by creating such long history of human race and to reach the final step its destroying of all(except of correcting), for Nova World!??? I think God have a lot of places in his\she's hands to create New Worlds, or you think we dont like them because a lot of p0rn in internet!? OK... For example, the God is hate the p0rno, but why he is create them?

K.O. Have Nice Day, France and Switzerland! ;-)

Yay Dragons.
Does this mean I don't have to pay rent if we're all going to die anyway? Lol