Doomsday Machine Makers Get Sued

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"The builders of the world's biggest particle collider are being sued in federal court over fears that the experiment might create globe-gobbling black holes or never-before-seen strains of matter that would destroy the planet.

Representatives at Fermilab in Illinois and at Europe's CERN laboratory, two of the defendants in the case, say there's no chance that the Large Hadron Collider would cause such cosmic catastrophes. Nevertheless, they're bracing to defend themselves in the courtroom as well as the court of public opinion.

The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, is due for startup later this year at CERN's headquarters on the French-Swiss border. It's expected to tackle some of the deepest questions in science: Is the foundation of modern physics right or wrong? What existed during the very first moment of the universe's existence? Why do some particles have mass while others don't? What is the nature of dark matter? Are there extra dimensions of space out there that we haven't yet detected?

Some folks outside the scientific mainstream have asked darker questions as well: Could the collider create mini-black holes that last long enough and get big enough to turn into a matter-sucking maelstrom? Could exotic particles known as magnetic monopoles throw atomic nuclei out of whack? Could quarks recombine into "strangelets" that would turn the whole Earth into one big lump of exotic matter?"

By Alan Boyle
Science editor
MSNBC

MSNBC News

Maybe Dan Brown forseen these events in Angels and Demons?

whoa

Or, more likely...

Yeah, totally DeaconBlues.

Wouldn't it be nice with all the technological advances that the super-scientists at CERN produce me a machine to instantly molecularize par nul a real Butterball turkey at my waking disposal to cure world hunger?

Those fears sound like they're more informed by science fiction than by science. It's a shame they're getting in the way of physics research. Not that I'm an expert, but I tend to trust the physicists more than the critics in this case.

Yeah, it sounds really frivolous. The first thing I thought of when I saw this was "you've gotta be kidding me..."

I think it'll be fine. People are just dumb.

I bet it cost millions and millions and millions to make and will cost yet more millions to run... I wish the science community would pump its money into something useful like a cure for aids, rather than frivolous tat like this.

one function of a black hole is mass (not the state north of Connecticut... How much could they actually make?

Actually, antimatter has been made in much the same way. Almost a dozen or more atoms of it. Even transported by commercial jet (this was a few years back). haven't heard about any problems with that...

Something to do with the Higgs Boson particle, might be why there hasn't been any contact with any other civilizations in in the galaxy, having discovered the particle and destroying themselves in the process

This sounds like a SciFi Channel Original Movie, of which TV Guide once said they "were written on a bender and filmed in Bulgaria". "Oh no, the Medusa Project is turning the earth into one big lump of exotic matter! We must stop the matter ball before it reaches Seattle!"

OTOH, "strangelet" sounds like a good name for aspies if "aspie" ever gets too loaded.

It'd cook a mean bag of popcorn for the next big sci-fi blockbuster.

That made me LOL Deacon Blues, I even sent it to an acquaintance of mine, thanks.
Also, I saw an interview w/ Simon LeVay, A Neuroscientist who just wrote a new book "When Science Goes Wrong" and he mentioned the black hole/anti-matter issue also.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index ... imon-levay

Forewarning, its The Daily Show, so its also "amusing". The comment begins at about the 4 minute mark in the interview.

Pretty sure that this was part of the plotline in a Joe Haldeman novel.

(Possibly part of the Forever War sequence.)

Might be thinking of a different thing entirely, but its definitely an old sci-fi standard.

I feel smarter by just reading this thread ^___^

I'm not worried.
Miniture black holes? There's no technology on Earth that can compress enough matter to even make a micro black hole. The most they could ever get is a highly radioactive and unstable heavy element that will only exist momentarily.

Destructive mono-poles? If such things exist, then they probably already exist here in some minute trace amounts. Well we're still here aren't we?

Don't know about stranglets and exotic matter... guess I'll have to look those ones up. But still not worried.

Deacon Blues, just wanted to Thank You for that site. Ive been all over it and just ordered a shirt that cracked me up which reads.
"Science. It works, b*****s"
Harsh but hilarious to my somewhat distorted sense of humor.