Scientific Progress Goes Poit?

[aemccurry]

So despite all the hubbub and stuff, the Large Hadron Collider has been fired up, albeit not yet at full power. And amazingly, the universe hasn't imploded. Now I freely admit that I don't remember much of Physics beyond basic high school level, so I dismissed the people who wanted it to never work as extremists

Comments

[slothman]

It’s possible that it could create a very small black hole, but we’d only know about it by seeing it evaporate in a puff of Hawking radiation. I doubt we could manage to keep one around long enough to force-feed it matter and start using it as a source of power.

[cmccurry]

And look there! Yet another running gag goes sprinting across my monitor. Well done!

[elissa_carey]

Haha, I was about to comment about that. Real Scientists! Hee.

Anyway... the kind of energy generated by the hadrons colliding in the LHC is several orders of magnitudes smaller than that generated by the same kinds of hadron collisions that happen every day in nature. The only difference is that the LHC is smashing these under observable and trackable conditions. We don't typically see or feel any black holes in our daily living (except, of course, those generated by people with vacuums where their brains should be), so those potential black holes generated by the LHC are even less "dangerous."