Is the Atom Smasher Safe?

Stop the scientists before they destroy us all!

 

Physicists hope its incredible energies will form briefly-lived new particles that could shed light on the origins of the universe, among other marvels.

The plaintiffs’ concerns? That the LHC could accidentally create strange new particles that would instantly transform any matter they touched, engulfing the Earth, or, even worse, make a rapidly expanding black hole that could consume the entire planet.

“[T]he compression of the two atoms colliding together at nearly light speed will cause an irreversible implosion, forming a miniature version of a giant black hole,” reads the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Honolulu.

National Geographic put out a new Video today explaining why these fears are unfounded

 According to Princeton University an Atom Smasher also called a Particle Accelerator is defined as  accelerator, particle accelerator, atom smasher (a scientific instrument that increases the kinetic energy of charged particles) In a five part series a website called How Stuff works explains

Is the Atom Smasher Safe? Those who want to start is say it is  CERN’s summary document  the full report. The report was reviewed by outside experts, here is their  separate report

CERN discussed the safety report in a news release today, issued after this week’s meeting of the CERN Council. Here’s the text:

World’s Largest Atom Smasher Audioholics Survival Tips

The world’s largest atom smasher comes online this August in Switzerland.  Some critics fear it could create a black hole that would envelop the Earth while others fear it will turn our planet into Dr. Evil’s infamous “liquid hot magma”.

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, is expected to begin test runs in August, but ramping up to full power could take longer than my Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player to boot up and begin playing a disc. However once it is working, it is expected to produce some startling findings.

The purpose of this device is to detect dark matter and dark energy which scientists speculate constitutes more than 96% of the Universe.  The collider could detect 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.

Perhaps it will also help reveal the alleged immeasurable benefits of exotic cables that have eluded audio engineers and their test equipment for decades.  “This atom smasher may once and for all prove the stand jumping theory so many exotic cable vendors enjoy promoting their products solve.  It may also put us in touch with the spirit of Elvis which is rumored to be trapped deep in a cavern on Mars.” Says Gene DellaSala, President of Audioholics.  “We just aren’t sure what will happen when they fire this thing up.” Says Gene.

As a result, we have put together a top 10 survival tips to ensure you’re safe and sound when the switch is flipped this August:

10.  Don’t use any wireless devices including your cell phone, remote controls, etc for the entire day.

9.  Restrict all liquid containers you are traveling with to 4 ounces or less per FAA guidelines because this allegedly makes us all safer.

8.  Run a 60Hz continuous tone through your theater system at full power, all channels driven, for 60 seconds to counter the EMF forces generated by the inrush current of the atom smasher when it’s initially powered up.

7.  Upgrade all of your speaker cables to “strand jumping” resistant type.

6.  Use cable elevators to avoid any electron misfires during the intense EMF surge pulses.

5.  Make sure all of your cables are cryogenically frozen ASAP.  Check the expiration date on your cables as you may need to re-freeze them if it’s been awhile. 

Report rules out subatomic doomsday

Europe’s CERN particle-physics lab has issued its long-awaited report on safety issues surrounding the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s biggest and most expensive atom-smasher. Some have feared that when the collider reaches full power, sometime next year, it might create microscopic black holes or other exotic phenomena that could endanger Earth. The new report, like earlier safety studies, rules out the possibility of global danger.

Critics of the collider are pursuing a federal lawsuit challenging the safety claims – and they’re likely to continue the doomsday debate even in the wake of this report.

The report’s argument follows the basic line used in past reports: Even the most energetic collisions planned for the LHC are far less powerful than cosmic-ray collisions that have been going on for billions of years.

“Nature has already generated on Earth as many collisions as about a million LHC experiments – and the planet still exists,” CERN said in its lay-language summary of the report. “Astronomers observe an enormous number of larger astronomical bodies throughout the universe, all of which are also struck by cosmic rays. The universe as a whole conducts more than 10 million million LHC-like experiments per second. The possibility of any dangerous consequences contradicts what astronomers see – stars and galaxies still exist.”

The report also delves into the theoretical implications even if it turns out that microscopic black holes may hang around longer than most scientists think, and still ends up ruling out the catastrophic risk. In the stable-black-hole scenario, physicists do not expect the black holes to gobble up matter and grow to a monster size. Instead, they would interact – or not interact – with the particles they came across.

Tags: Europe | World | August | catastrophe | Large | safe | HOLE | black | PHYSICISTS | ATOM | collider | Say | Hadron | Smasher