Doomsday? Scientists think not

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.

Doomsday fears spark lawsuit – Cosmic Log – msnbc.com

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the LHC, it’s the newest particle collider which is currently being built at CERN in Switzerland. CERN put together a nice little informational webpage on it which can be found here, and you can take a look at Ineractions.org’s info here.

All in all, the consensus presented in the first quoted article is that there is no significant chance of any doomsday particle being created by the LHC. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but it does mean that there’s no reason to believe it would be possible. However, one must be careful when dealing with “possibilities” in the realm of quantum physics – it’s possible for you to walk through a wall, but the probability of you being successful is extremely small.

In the article, theoretical physicists argue with Wagner (a former nuclear safety officer) and Sancho. The article says this about the opinions of Michio Kaku, one such physicist –

That’s pure science fiction, said Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist at the City College of New York. “These black holes don’t live very long, and they have microscopic energy, and so they are harmless,” he told me.

He also notes, on strangelets, that “We see no evidence of this bizarre theory.” Let’s trust the scientists and allow this progress to continue forward, uninterrupted by theories which can easily be disproved. Unless there is a legitimate and arguable scientific controversy (as there is with global warming) as opposed to empty theories which can easily be disproved (such as with 9/11 conspiracy theories), we should not allow the forefront of science to suffer.