Jimi

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I love physics. At one time in my life, I wanted to be a physicist, so things lke this interest me. The French and Swiss are building an atom smasher righ tnow that has, I believe, a 7-mile radius, and has the power to collide atoms at near-light-speed.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,342854,00.html

This kind of reaches the same conclusion I thought before. I am no nuclear scientist, nor am I Stephen Hawking, but this shit seems to me to be playing God. When will people learn to draw the line? If there is a slight chance that this could destroy the planet, why try it?

The nuclear physicists on board say that the chances are only 1 in 50,000,000 that this could cause catastophe enough to destroy Earth. That's too much of a chance for me. Thoughts?

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"I don't care if they're black, white, purple or green. Awww hold on now. Purple or green? You gotta draw the line somewhere. To hell with purple people. Unless they're suffocating. Then help them."


January 2009, the end of an error.

CD

Atoms like this have been hitting our planet daily for millions of years and we're ok. It's not an issue, but it could go a long way to explaining things physicists have pondered about for many years. In fact, one person has theorized that there are 11 dimensions, and this is supposed to be able to prove or disprove it. I, for one, am curious to hear about the results.

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Sheepe

Everyday, millions of particles with energies far exceeding that capable of being produced by this machine hit our atmosphere. But still, they'll be doing things slightly differently. Personally, I'm all for it, I understand the risk and accept that. Besides, getting destroyed by a black hole is one of the better ways to go in the universe.

-Sheepe

93crawler

I think anything that can further explain the vastness of space, or the complexities of things we just don't quite understand yet are worth exploring. Is this the same machine that will try to recreate the big bang?

Krasch

I say go for it. If it adds to our understanding of the universe and might lead to other technologies, party on.

Note: Even if they manage to approach the energy levels of the Big Bang, said experiments will lack the MASS of the Big Bang and the halflife of any particles they make in the collisions will be the barest fractions of a second. We're in no real danger.

Jimi

If they can prove string theory without killing us all, it'll be well worth it. I just don't like the chances of causing a black hole.

___________________________________________
"I don't care if they're black, white, purple or green. Awww hold on now. Purple or green? You gotta draw the line somewhere. To hell with purple people. Unless they're suffocating. Then help them."


January 2009, the end of an error.

Krasch

IF they manage to make one, and that's a HUGE if, it'd be a micro black hole with a lifetime of nanoseconds....

Don't forget we're talking about ridiculously small amounts of mass here. The Schwartzchild radius of such a micro black hole would be incredibly small, much smaller than an atom.

fmb

But still, it's a black hole. A very small, short lived black hole, BUT IT'S A BLACK HOLE!!

Krasch

A black hole with a Schwartzchild radius (within which the escape velocity is equal to or greater than the speed of light) smaller than a nucelon and a lifetime of a fraction of a second before the expansion of the universe rips it apart...

Cool if they manage to make one, but hardly a danger.

BackdoorJesus

You know, in the 1800's it was said that locomotives posed a danger to humanity because the human body could not withstand traveling over 30-40 miles per hour.

I find that line of thinking somewhat akin to this, and I eriolsy question the scientific credibility of some of these nay-sayers to boot.

So to quote The Damned, "Smash it up, smash it up!"

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Sheepe

They'll probably won't prove string theory, its just a bunch of sillyness... regardless, we should be able to prove /something/

-Sheepe

ddoubleez

This has been done on a smaller scale, and they are just trying to sell ad time, by sexing this up............. If you news has commericals in it, it is not news.......

ImIn06GT

this atom smasher is not big enough to prove string theory...

Jimi

It's HUGE!

___________________________________________
"I don't care if they're black, white, purple or green. Awww hold on now. Purple or green? You gotta draw the line somewhere. To hell with purple people. Unless they're suffocating. Then help them."


January 2009, the end of an error.