|
|
|
|
|
| | New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...Page 9 of 9 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) |
The individual I was thinking of was Rainer Plaga who is an astrophysicist. He posted his criticismson the web at http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0808/0808.1415v3.pdf but as far as I know, he couldn't get it published in a peer-reviewed journal.
I read through it, but not to the extent of checking that his conclusion follows from his assumptions. Given that he received input from other physicists like t' Hooft and Penrose, it's probably safe to assume that given his assumptions, his concusions are at least plausible. That leaves the question of how plausible his assumptions are, since it's always possible to assume anything consistent with existing data and necessary to arrive at a predetermined conclusion. So, if you assume that he hasn't created a model that obviously has implications that would contradict existing data, that leaves the merits of the model and his assumptions. The model can be found in:
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0110255
Like some other catastrphe scenarios, the model relies on speculation about the energy regime that additional extra spatial dimensions might be relavent - which relies on the assumption that extradimensions exist - which relies on string theory (as it is understood), which is not really an argument for a disaster. I'd say it's more of an irony. The development of every new generation of accelerators has been justified by the new physics that could reasonably be expected to be found. Unfortunately, around the mid 1980s, the only physics anyone really expected to discover was that the standard model correctly predicted the existence of the t and the tau neutrino. (The neutrino oscillations discovered in the late nineties were something the standard model didn't really address beyond their irreleance to the basic model due to the known upper limits on the neutrino masses. Therefore, the standard model was silent on that issue)
The discovery of the t quark and tau neutrino surprised no one. I think it was exciting mainly because there was no experimental data or convincing theoretical model that predited the existence of any new physics since the standard model was assembled. In other words, fundamental physics has been pretty boring in terms of new discoveries, despite all of the effort to find something interesting. The attempt to sell the supercollider was based on hype about supersymmetry (for which there is also no evidence beyond whatever aesthetic appeal it has.) Note that the energy of the supercollider was supposed to be about 20 times greater than the lhc, yet no one voiced any concerns about anything at the time. It got cancelled because the price tag was a tad high.
Meanwhile, string theory was reborn (yet again) in the 1990s by finding a way to negate the reason it was abandoned the last time. All of a sudden there is speculation about black holes with extra dimensions which, as luck would have it, might be produced at energies that are just out of reach of current accelerators. The irony is that some extremely speculative justification for the lhc came back and bit the lhc on the a$$. I give the catastrphe arguments little credence because I give the arguments for creating black holes little credence. If you accept the arguments for black holes based on a model with cherry picked parameters, someone else is free to cherry pick different parameters.
The only physics that one might expect from any argument that is sound, is finding the Higgs. Everything else is a blind crap shoot, which is quote different from the way physics has historically progressed. I can't think of any discovery that has not been motivated by at least some plausibility argument that had a basis in existing physics. | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 5/13/2010 3:46:02 PM |
That's the difference, you see: A genuine suggested scenario of danger. There would only be a difference if I agreed that the suggested scenario was genuine. I don't.
By "genuine", I didn't mean "correct". People can disagree on what is correct. I instead meant "actually suggested". If you want to warn us that trying a new ice-cream flavor could destroy the Earth, then you need to tell us a way in which you think it could do that.
Black holes are known to consume things. Correction - the definition of what black hole means comes from a theory, general relativity. The concept isn't meaningful independent of the theory. The only evidence for their existence is due to measurements that fit what the theory describes.
I just meant that, in observations hypothetically explained by black holes, those hypothetical black holes, in those hypothetical explanations, are often consuming matter when it comes into contact with the black holes.
Sure, no one's saying that the LHC will, with certainty, produce black holes. But the fact that some physicists are enthusiastically hopeful that it will, suggests that we can't feel safe by ruling the possibility out. A good enough possiblilitly to make physicists excited, enthusiastic and hopeful. | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 5/13/2010 4:02:03 PM |
Black holes are known to consume things. Black holes as most of us know them also have high mass which consequently have a high gravity and hold themselves together. a black hole is a region of space from which nothing, including light, can escape. It is the result of the deformation of spacetime caused by a very compact mass Presumably, such a compact mass may occur in the LHC if 2 particles collide and squish themselves into a very small volume (if you can even talk about such things on this scale). It's hard to imagine such a small mass having a huge gravitational field to keep itself together.
Sure, and I don't claim any knowledge of the quantative or mathematical theory of black holes. But, as I've understood what physicists are saying, When masses are sufficiently close together, even gravity can become strong enough to start a runaway collapse, where volume keeps decreasing without any lower bound other than zero.
But I claim no authority of my own to say that. I'm just guessing how a sufficiently hard collision could start the formation of a black hole, as some physicists have said that it maybe could.
While on this subject, someone said that the gravitational force between masses separated by a proton-radius are just as low if the matter is in a black hole at that distance. But, if a black hole is in contact with a proton, might not the center of mass of the black hole, with the black hole's arbitrarily small size, be considerably closer than that, to the nearer part of the proton? And if a sufficiently hard collison can crush nucleons, then might not a sufficiently strong attracting force rend one? ....Maybe consuming it like someone drinking a soda through a straw?
As I said, I claim no knowledge of the physics of nucleons, nuclei, particles, or of the mathematical theory of black holes.
I'm just guessing about ways that maybe a two-proton-mass black hole could do what some physicists say it maybe could do: Consume matter that it comes into contact with. | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 5/13/2010 5:56:02 PM |
some physicists
Who ARE these people and what are their credentials?
I haven't found many credible expert quantum/theoretical physicist who are saying what you claim.
And of those who do, the experts seem to find their ideas unacceptable enough to persuade a judge that they can be ignored.
Most of the naysayers seem to have a record of attention-seeking and also come from fields somewhat removed from the topic they criticize. | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 5/16/2010 12:16:02 AM | 
That has been pointed out several posts ago. But thank you for bringing the question back to point. I don't know quite how science has been relegated to a position of "suspicion." Maybe folks watching too many movies or something.
Meanwhile, the politicians are having a field day with wreaking havoc. Latest news is that oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico were allowed to drill without proper permits. That's likely to cause more real damage than LHC ever will.
"Drill Baby, Drill" | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 5/17/2010 1:38:45 PM | While on this subject, someone said that the gravitational force between masses separated by a proton-radius are just as low if the matter is in a black hole at that distance.
That is correct.
But, if a black hole is in contact with a proton, might not the center of mass of the black hole, with the black hole's arbitrarily small size, be considerably closer than that, to the nearer part of the proton?
The concept of two objects being in contact with each other is a classical concept from a picgture of objects as rigid spheres. The quantum mechanical picture of what ``contact'' means is very different, because two objects can only ``contact'' each other if they interact via a common force. If two particles do not interact via a common force, then the two particles literally cannot collide.
For example, what is the radius of a proton? The answer depends on whether you are referring to the radius as seen by a charged particle or a strongly interacting neutral particle like a neutron (which interacts via pion exchange) or a weakly interacting particle like a neutrino, which can only interact via the exchange of a W+, Z. What is usually quoted is the rms chrge radius.
The relevant concept here is called a cross section, which gives an intuitve picture in terms how ``big'' the particle is effectively, in terms of the area of a disk, usually in units of barns (10^-24 cm^2) and the strength of the coupling for the force. The ratios of the forces elative to the strong nuclear force are approx: strong force = 1; electromagnetic force = 10^-3; weak force = 10^-7; gravity = 10^-39. Hence, gravity is very weak. Gravity is a factor of 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001 times weaker than the electromagnetic force (if I counted the zeroes right). So, one has to calculate the scatteing cross section to figure out the likelyhood of a ``collision.'' (This is why it's important to slow neutrons down to make an atomic bomb work. The cross section for nutron capture increases at lower energies. i.e., the neutron and nucleus are effectively ``bigger'' and the more likely to ``collide.'')
Since the gravitational field depends on the mass, the quantity of interest would be the effective ``matter radius.'' Calculations from a couple of papers put the capture cross section for a black hole moving slowly through matter in the same ballpark as the cross section of neutrinos that regularly pass through the earth without ever undergoing a collision (somewhere arond 10^-36 cm^2 or a trillionth of a barn). That means there is a lot of empty space and collisions are not going to happen very often.
A good enough possiblilitly to make physicists excited, enthusiastic and hopeful.
I'd say that is stretching it a bit. I'd call it wishful thinking. Particle physics has been extremely boring for the last quarter century. It really does suck to have a model like the standard model which no one believed would work so well that every attempt to find even the slightest indication that it was wrong, would fail for this long. In 25 years (actually a few years longer), there has not been a single experiment that indicates any evidence for new physics.
| |
|
| |
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 5/19/2010 10:41:41 PM |
Why is that different? If you've never done it before, how do you know that it won't cause the end of the world?
Oh come on, Abelian, it's a question of scale and you know it.
Then I guess you should never do anything you haven't done before, since you can't possibly know what might happen.
Again, scale. Me jumping off a bridge doesn't potentially imperil the entire planet. We'd still be living in caves if no one risked anything, but it's about the scale of the risk. Science has too much of a history of groupthink for me to trust a handful of guys playing around with the building blocks of the universe saying, 'Relax, don't sweat it. What's the worst that go wrong?' when they don't fully know themselves. On this sort of scale moving forward very slowly and very cautiously is warranted. By your rationale you're saying lets hand out refined plutonium to anyone who wants it because we can't possibly know what might happen. | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 5/22/2010 12:04:07 PM | I have to agree with this. I'm all for science and new discoveries, but our thirst for knowledge has outgrown the primitive, short-sighted, selfish, and destructive tendencies of our species.
In order for us to be foolhardy in regards to theoretical physics, we should first have the means to transport ourselves the hell out of this galaxy and the ability to terraform other planets just in case something bad happens. But in order for us to be technologically advanced in such a way, more (potentially lethal) experiments and data need to be collected and metabolized.
It's always about the catch 22 isn't it. | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 5/24/2010 10:51:09 AM |
Again, scale. Me jumping off a bridge doesn't potentially imperil the entire planet.
The only difference here is that the disaster scenarios for the lhc are crafted from more sophisticated arguments. Sophistication doesn't make them more valid.
We'd still be living in caves if no one risked anything, but it's about the scale of the risk.
Do you know anything about the physics involved? If not, what is your basis for your opinion, especially given that the consensus among physicists is that there is no credible argument for a disaster?
Science has too much of a history of groupthink for me to trust a handful of guys playing around with the building blocks of the universe saying, 'Relax, don't sweat it. What's the worst that go wrong?' when they don't fully know themselves.
Could you please point out a few key examples of the above?
By your rationale you're saying lets hand out refined plutonium to anyone who wants it because we can't possibly know what might happen.
On the contrary, I know all sorts of things that not only can happen, but have a good chance of happening. Not many of those things are positive and any of those positive things would be better served by not simply handing Pu over to some random group of people. | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 6/24/2010 10:39:24 AM |
Do you know anything about the physics involved? If not, what is your basis for your opinion, especially given that the consensus among physicists is that there is no credible argument for a disaster?
Not really a consensus. Maybe a good majority of the ones expressing an opinion. So, bet the Earth because of a majority?
I'm sure that it's noble and commendable to want more scientific knowledge. But when you put that ahead of the safety of the Earth, then that's the Frankenstein Complex. That's right--mad scientists.
I don't know the physics involved, the mathematical theory of black holes' unobserved alleged evaporation, or of their interaction with other matter. But people who do know those subjects are concerned. Contrary to what we hear from LHC boosters, there's scientific opinion on both sides | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 6/24/2010 10:45:39 AM |
If two particles do not interact via a common force, then the two particles literally cannot collide.
I don't know modern physics, but I thought that gravitation was a common force between a black hole and a nucleon.
Calculations from a couple of papers put the capture cross section for a black hole moving slowly through matter in the same ballpark as the cross section of neutrinos that regularly pass through the earth without ever undergoing a collision (somewhere arond 10^-36 cm^2 or a trillionth of a barn). That means there is a lot of empty space and collisions are not going to happen very often.
Ok, let's bet the Earth on "a couple of papers" :-) | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 6/24/2010 12:09:53 PM |
I don't know modern physics, but I thought that gravitation was a common force between a black hole and a nucleon.
Sure, but before one can talk about how forces relate to interactions between particles in any sort of intuitive way, you first have to get away from thinking in terms of what appears self-evident from a classical perspective. (Actually, the classical picture of a collsion totally falls apart if you try to make it work rigoriusly, so what seems self-evident is actually on so at a superficial level.)
That being said, particle interactions can be broken down into three quantities. One is the coupling constant for the interaction. Another is what is called the matrix elements between the initial and final states that result from the interaction. The last is the phase space (which for this purpose we'll call the enerfy availavle to the final state). The strong interaction between nuclei has a strength of about 1 (but very short range) . The electromagnetic interaction between charges is about 10000 times smaller. The gravitational interaction is even smaller, about a factor of 10^-39. So right away, you can conclude that gravitational collisions don't contribute a lot to the interactions taking place at the atomic level. In other words, the chances of any collision taking place through the gravitational effects is very small, regardless of anything else you assume. It will take a while for a TeV mass black hole to get close enough to another particle to accrete it.
Second, the matrix elements are just expressions of conservation laws. Those aren't going to matter much here, except to the extent that you want to know the rate of Hawking radiation, since photons carry angular momentum and that has to be conserved when a photon is emitted. The phase space factor would be relevant in telling you whether absorption or scattering was more likely by virue of the incident momenta an engergies. Since we're assuming the particles are moving relatively slowly, it's not relevant either.
From a more complete treatment of hat I've outlined above, the papers I've referenced calculate the accretion rates.
Ok, let's bet the Earth on "a couple of papers" :-)
Everytime you ingest a pill, you're betting your life on research that depends on statistics at levels that are a million times more lax than the average statsitical analysis done for any result in physics to be considered credible. If you don't believe global warming is happening, you're betting the Earth on a coin toss at best. But, before even appealing to that argument, I'd first have to believe that at least one doomsday scenario for black hole production was based on anything more than creating a scenario to fit a predetermined result. | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 6/24/2010 9:42:39 PM | I think that the gist of what folks are saying is based, not on precise knowledge of science, and the science of probability, but the "grey area" that exists among scientists, politicians, and the private sector. The LHC is much more reliant on scientific probability, as are other "hard" experiments done in the past -- with nuclear energy, cloning, quantum physics.
I don't blame folks much for being leery. Look at what's happened with the "science" behind deep sea oil rigs. But, the difference in outcomes exists because of the intervention of politics and profit in scientific projects. In the case of the LHC, yes, there is politics involved -- that's what led to the project being moved away from Waco, TX. That's about the extent of it.
We have much more to worry about from the private sector, politics, and, sometimes, religion, than we do about science. What was Bhopal, Three Mile Island, the BP Oil Spill, Exxon Valdez spill, about? Was Science the main causal factor? Or was it the need to stretch beyond science to quick profit?
You decide. And then decide who the culprits were. And, who to worry about the most. | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 6/24/2010 10:18:09 PM |
I think that the gist of what folks are saying is based, not on precise knowledge of science, and the science of probability, but the "grey area" that exists among scientists, politicians, and the private sector. The LHC is much more reliant on scientific probability, as are other "hard" experiments done in the past -- with nuclear energy, cloning, quantum physics.
Some people think the Earth is flat. It's founder was a member of the Royal Atronomical Society and the Royal Geographic Society. Does that give his arguments any credence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society
Look at what's happened with the "science" behind deep sea oil rigs.
What science? The problem with the deep sea oil rigs had nothing to do with science or even engineering. It had to do with ignoring engineering design principles because the accounting department didn't want to pay for it to be done right.
People seem to confuse science with technology. | |
|
hyoid
| | Joined: 5/12/2009
Msg: 216 | |
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 6/25/2010 6:52:37 AM |
In the case of the LHC, yes, there is politics involved -- that's what led to the project being moved away from Waco, TX. That's about the extent of it.
Waxahachie
The SSC was a classic example of a pork barrel project.
When approved by the federal govt, the president, speaker of the house and president of the senate were all from Texas. Where was it sited? Here's a hint-Not at the location with a reusable existing infrastructure and workforce experienced with building this type of machine. I had several colleagues relocate to work on the SSC. I seriously considered going but the political uncertainties scared me off.
So several billion dollars were spent digging a large hole in Texas. When the political leadership changed , Congress found the malfeasance of buying potted plants for the newly constucted administration building, called the project corrupted beyond repair and allocated another billion dollars to shut it down.
The funny thing is if it had been sited where it should have been, I'm certain we'd be celebrating 10 years of physics results this year. | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 6/25/2010 8:16:37 AM | The SSC was a classic example of a pork barrel project.
That's true.
When approved by the federal govt, the president, speaker of the house and president of the senate were all from Texas. Where was it sited? Here's a hint-Not at the location with a reusable existing infrastructure and workforce experienced with building this type of machine.
Actually, I think that argument overstates the case for building the SSC in Batavia. The site selected in Texas turned out to be a poor choice and I'm sure politics had a lot to do with it, but the infrastructure and workforce experience is a weak argument for selecting Batavia over Waxahachie. For one thing, land is a lot more expensive in Batavia. I'm not really sure what about the infrastructure at fermilab would really be reusable (except perhaps the accelerator itself as an injector).
The workforce was experienced in building what was suitable for the way fermilab was constructed. For example, at that time, 5T superconducting magnets were not mass manufactured. The Fermilab magnets were constructed individually which doesn't scale up to the requirements for the ssc. especially when it comes to having to replace one. This is evident from the design proposals submitted by several competitors for the contract, including Fermilab. The design proposed by the Houston Area Research Consortium (HARC) was competitive with the design proposed by Fermilab and although Fermilab was eventually awarded the design, I don't think there was any clear consensus on which was actually better. If experience was really a major factor, then the Fermilab design should have been clearly superior to competitive designs from groups with much less experience.
What I do know is that the Fermilab design fell short of the claims, which made the decision on the design, questionable and possibly politically motivated. Part of the reason that the ssc was able to get funding at all was that the people from Texas made sure just about every politicians from every state who voted for it got some polical advantage from funding that flowed into their state for being involved in some aspect of building the ssc. Also, I knew one of the people who was heavily involved in designing the beamline. He came from Los Alamos and his expertise in accelerator design is beyond question, so it's not really clear that he wouldn't have been recruited to do the work regardless of where it was built. Personally, I think a better choice for the site would have been in the desert, possibly in New Mexico.
I had several colleagues relocate to work on the SSC. I seriously considered going but the political uncertainties scared me off.
I was in graduate school at the time and the ssc would have been a natural place for me to consider working. However, I was unconvinced by more than just the political uncertainty. The expectations for the physics itself were a bit optimistic.
So several billion dollars were spent digging a large hole in Texas. When the political leadership changed , Congress found the malfeasance of buying potted plants for the newly constucted administration building, called the project corrupted beyond repair and allocated another billion dollars to shut it down.
The funny thing is if it had been sited where it should have been, I'm certain we'd be celebrating 10 years of physics results this year.
I think the malfeasance would have shut it down regardless of where it was built. I'm not even really convinced that the ssc was ever really expected to be finished, by the people who voted to fund it. | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 6/26/2010 9:50:07 PM |
Don't you see politics encroaching on scientific validity in all of this? That's my whole point in my posts. Science and probability weighted against politics sans any type of analytical thinking.
Forget anal focus on science. Science must deal with politics. social ignorance, etc. Unless you realize that, you're not running with the Big Dogs. | |
|
| New legal challenge for the Hadron Collider...
Posted: 7/4/2012 6:06:38 PM | July 4th, 2012, lots has happend.
What will come of the knowledge which is gained?
Little concerned about this bit..
[/"CERN has an immunity from court action" ] | |
|
|
|
Home
login 
