Re: Nine more days...

Isla <thistle123@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Lachlan - KotU" <hamfish(nospam)@gmail.com> wrote:
"CJ Dunnaway" <cj_dunnaway-n...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote :

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a 17-mile-long heavy particle
accelerator being built near Geneva (CERN). Once it's up and running, its
designers believe it will take particle physics to a new level. Its
critics think it may create a black hole that will swallow the universe.

The button will be pushed sometime on Wednesday, Sept. 10. You can watch
it all happen atwww.cern.ch/lhc-first-beam

However briefly.

Well, given that there are black holes at the centre of every galaxy
(supposedly), I think the universe will be ok. Earth, on the other
hand.......

This is sounding a wee bit scary..I don't think i want to be swallowed
up by some black hole...

The LHC might well create lots of black holes - but they'll be tiny ones
that evaporate before they leave the rather narrow pipe containing the
particle beams. Yes, black holes do evaporate: they all give off
Hawking radiation (so they're not black holes as understood a decade ago
- the description has been changed, but the name's been kept the same).
Microscopic black holes of the type that the LHC will make haven't a lot
of choice but to evaporate away almost instantly. Big ones take untold
aeons to vanish (I dunno if anyone's worked out if big ones are likely
to vanish before the predicted end of the universe), in part because
they keep feeding themselves with fresh matter.

Regardless of that, these black holes cannot be a significant problem
because the collisions that the LHC is going to create - same energy and
more - are happening all the time between naturally occurring cosmic
rays, and they don't seem to have done any harm to the fabric of the
universe or the existence of this solar system yet.

The fact that the LHC is going to do nothing more than produce naturally
occurring collisions in a lab means that it's certain it can't cause any
cosmically significant problems.

It's capable of blowing itself up, mind you - but that's only because
the energy in the particles concerned is *enormous*, and if the beams
should happen to go out of control and slam into the pipe enclosing the
vacuum, they'd overheat the superconducting magnets, and then there'd be
this enormous bang caused by boiling liquid helium and all the energy in
the beam and magnetic coils being liberated quickly. That section of
the LHC would be damaged beyond repair, and it'd look like a bomb had
hit it.

The LHC's designers have been very careful to ensure that this does not
happen, putting in all sorts of safeguards including a safe place to
dump the beams if they have to. The people who are operating the LHC
are very well aware of the risks and a staggering amount of work has
gone into the control and monitoring systems to ensure that the beams
never ever blow up the machinery.

this is definitely much worse than the sock-
eating phenomenon. Help!! Where can I hide? :)

It's spring time in Australia and NZ - the other side of the world
sounds good to me. They begin LHC beam commissioning on Wednesday -
you've still got a few days to find a flight out ;-)

Rowland.

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