(To check if this post is still valid, click here.)
For Gregg Easterbrook: coolest ways that the Large Hadron Collider could destroy the Earth and/or the Universe.
1. BLACK HOLE EATS THE WORLD OH NOES!!!! LHC could create a miniature black hole, which could start gobbling up matter, growing bigger and bigger, until the entire Earth is crushed into a spacetime singularity, or quark soup, or whatever. It eventually everything in the Universe will be so crushed, by this black hole or another, black holes which, after a google or so years, will evaporate into a rarified haze of boring.
Why this won’t happen: much more energetic collisions happen all over the Universe, all the time, including here on Earth (though not so frequently in the same exact place.) One would expect that if anything was going to turn into a mini black hole and eat the world, we would already have been eated. Also, any black hole created would be crazy tiny and crazy short-lived, and – how to put this delicately? – it is perfectly valid to suppose there is no such thing as tiny black holes anyways. Yeah, I know, I know, but when I took cosmology a decade ago we knew everything there was to know, and now you tell us you can’t identify 96% of the Universe? Apart from 24/25ths of it, though, you’re mos def. If I couldn’t identify 96% of the answers on a cosmology test, would you listen to my predictions? Exactly.
Goofiness: moderate.
Possible awesomeness if it happened anyway: five out of ten Airwolves. I drink your spacetime!
2. STRANGE MATTER ICE-9′S THE WORLD OMGWTF!!!! The LHC could create a stable strangelet, which would convert everything it touched into “strange matter”, which would be all strange and shit. We’d die.
Why this won’t happen: Again, more energetic things are happening everywhere constantly, no strangelets in sight. Additionally, there is essentially no reason to think such things exist, or could exist under any circumstances, or that any single link in the deadly chain reaction I have described is remotely plausible at all. Still, it could happen, in much the same way that the LHC could suddenly turn us all into an huge ball of kittens. Admittedly, strange quarks are real. But so are kittens.
Goofiness: this scenario recreates the goofiness believed to exist 1 billionth of a second before the Big Bang.
Possible awesomeness if it happened anyway: four out of ten Airwolves. (Eight out of ten for the kittens thing).
3. FALSE VACUUM DECAY FTW!!!1! My favorite. Ever get the feeling that the reality we inhabit is not the truest reality? Ever forget which bottle of OJ has all the LSD in it and spend the next 8 hours pondering neoplatonism and Gnostic Christianity? Philip K. Dick says “yup” and “right after my second bowl of Honey-Nut-Methamphetamine Cheerios”, and he could be righter than he ever imagined. We could be living in a “metastable vacuum“, one which could suddenly fall apart into the true vacuum state, where the most fundamental aspects of reality are suddenly redefined, and the LHC could push us over the edge, if there is an edge. Or it could push us into a new reality exactly the same as our false reality, only Ricky Martin is now gay. OH SHIT!!!!!!!
Why this won’t happen: the “happens a million times bigger all the time since forever” thing again. And the “there’s no particular reason to think this is possible”, and that “there’s no particular reason to think bumping protons would ever cause it” thing. But there might be a cosmological constant. Or dark energy. Or something.
Goofiness: Livin La Vida Goofy.
Possible awesomeness if it happened anyway: As the laws of physics would no longer apply, this could conceivably be awesomer than Airwolf. Because of science.
March 30, 2010 at 5:58 pm
psuedoscience conspiracy theories.
But I have to applaud the use of the Airwolf Rating System (ARS)!
March 30, 2010 at 6:27 pm
That Peter Steinberg post is almost as awesome as this one.
But I do so hope that that false vacuum thingy happens. That would be awesome. Or the earth being sucked into a tiny black hole. Either one.
March 31, 2010 at 3:59 am
“So it seems he (Gregg Easterbrook) writes 4000 words about football every week for ESPN, but then gets another 10000 words to rant about whatever he feels like — strange.”
This demonstrates why Easterbrook fears CERN (and alien meteorites or was it unwanted ET-induced pregancy?); he is already a victim/beneficiary of the Law of Unintended Consequences:
Easterboss: “So: 4K words on something you ostensibly know something about, then 10K words exploring the vast reaches of your ignorance. Can you handle it?”
Easterbrook: “Does the walrus suck its oosik? Does the pope forgive pedophiles? Did Donny do Marie? Of course I can.”
March 30, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Only you, and Jesus General, leave me laughing out loud enough that others wonder what I am reading, and seriously pondering our ever-changing reality to the point that I need some scotch…at the same time.
Thank you for reminding me why physics is fun, and laughing as well.
March 30, 2010 at 7:37 pm
http://www.livescience.com/technology/destroy_earth_mp-1.html
been there. done that. and it was even funnier.
this post is a thing that HAS already been done, therefore it always was and quite possibly always will have been done.
there was an iain banks thing in one of the culture books about this, it was the basis for a quite coherent philosophy IIRC?
March 30, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Could Airwolf created a particle so heavy that even he couldn’t accelerate it?
March 30, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Einstein says no.
March 31, 2010 at 6:30 am
But Stringfellow Hawke says “fuck yeah it could!”
March 31, 2010 at 12:20 pm
(Textbook answer)
Yes, but then he’d just make himself more powerful.
March 30, 2010 at 10:58 pm
Where would Airwolf and the radical centrists stand on ObamaFascistSocialistMarxistCare?
TBogg found out.
March 30, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Jiminy on a stick, scientists are weak at debating!
Your link to “Bee” at “Back Reaction” is a classic of the genre.
Objective: to convince people that the LHC won’t create black holes to destroy the earth.
Method: use lots of obscure jargon, and then undermines every single assertion with scientific ass-covering.
Product: an argument that runs –
1. People who say it could happen are just speculating.
2. We haven’t measured anything, so the case is strongly disfavored.
3. The black holes that are created would be really small.
4. The black holes that are created would be really hot.
5. Anyway, black holes radiate.
6. Cosmic rays hit particles all the time at very high speeds.
7. Ignore point 6 because the LHC will collide particles at 10^16 times higher than particle normally collide. But that means the black holes that are created would go really fast.
8. Physicist are sensible and don’t want to destroy the planet. No physicist ever got a grant for developing a planet-destroying weapons.
9. It could happen, I guess – after all, anything’s possible!
This is lameness on a cosmic scale. They’d be well advised to take a page from another denialist playbook and start arguing the LHC is not a threat to the planet because Al Gore Is Fat. It’s a more convincing case than the one they make on their own.
March 31, 2010 at 7:28 am
Most scientists are Democrats, after all.
March 31, 2010 at 9:00 am
Skyrmions, bitchez!
March 31, 2010 at 3:46 am
If I could I would award you the Because of Science T-shirt award and deliver it to you on a beam of light.
But I can’t because I lack proper t-shirt, T-shirt awarding authority, and the ability to deliver at light-point.
Still, you can imagine. It would say Because of Science and have a picture of an accreting black hole placed to coincide, roughly but at very high speeds so it would be ‘hot’, over your navel.
On the back it would say: Just Because Bitches. The lack of a comma(s) would create a scientifically accurate ambiguity leaving folks to wonder if it means a) Just Because (you who are) Bitches, b) Just Because Bitches (are bitchy, create black holes, are products of science, et cetera), or c) Just Because Bitches are the newest J-pop all-girl group.
Other possibilities exist in the quantum foam of this best of all possible worlds, but a T-shirt overloaded with possible meanings is too much for anyone, even two-in-one/or/one-in-two metaentities like TheEds, and who wants to wear a black hole of meaning in the Mall of Endless Possibility, thereby triggering the end of all possible worlds as we never knew them?
March 31, 2010 at 6:34 am
[...] that the LHC is online, The Editors have catalogued three ways it will destroy the world, using the Airwolf scale of awesomeness crossed by a goofiness scale. It looks like being sucked [...]
March 31, 2010 at 6:59 am
Damn, you folks have missed the primary danger posed by CERN: it’s not the collisions, it’s the *beams*.
Here’s how: you shoot that energic proton beam at the Moon, and charge it up. The electric force is much stronger than gravity, so pretty soon* you’ve doubled the attractive force between the Earth and Moon, causing the Moon to come crashing down in a planet-crushing collision.
Oh yeah, with super-mega-giga-tera lightning bolts when the moon gets close and all the charge starts to zap its way home.
Of course, before that happens, all the extra charge on Earth will make everyone’s clothes all drier-clingy all the time, then your hair stands on end all static-y, then everyone explodes into component atoms.
Which would kind of mess up the ability to be a spectator of an awesome cosmic collision, but what the hell, worth a try.
March 31, 2010 at 7:01 am
* soon = about 10 million years at 1mA of beam current, but I hear an upgrade is in the works!
March 31, 2010 at 7:36 am
[...] around) The world continues to exist… Comments [...]
March 31, 2010 at 7:46 am
Joel Primack, UC Santa Cruz: “Not only are we not at the center of the universe, we aren’t even made of the same stuff the universe is.”
March 31, 2010 at 8:49 am
i dont know alot about this stuff but it seems to me that alot of ppl that do know alot about it thought that there was a chance that this thing could destroy the earth. it seems very foolish to me to have ignored them and risked all of our lives. someday their going to push too far with their science projects and that will be it. and just b/c we allowed it this time who is going to say no to them.
it reminds me that some of the ppl working on the atomic bomb thought that exploding it could set the atmosphere on fire. im glad it didnt lol but why would they risk destroying the planet. it may as well have though b/c were on borrowed time ever since. someday there will be someone crazy enough to start a nuke war.
March 31, 2010 at 11:09 am
Are you writing like an idiot on purpose, or is it because you are an actual idiot?
March 31, 2010 at 6:15 pm
That is the great mystery. It’s as if harris is an idiot’s idiot savant.
March 31, 2010 at 8:53 am
Herb Ellis, R.I.P.
March 31, 2010 at 8:57 am
another thing to consider is what is called a cost benefit analysis which is you figure out whether what u are going to do is worth the consequences of doing it.
well what is the benefit of this thing anyway. i hope it does more than figure out what some star a billion miles away is made of b/c honestly i dont really care about that. im sure someone does and yay for them but is finding that out really worth however much money this thing cost and potentially destroying the earth. obviously its not worth that lol and thank god it didnt happen and maybe there was only a tiny chance that it could happen but still.
what is this thing supposed to do that is so great.
March 31, 2010 at 9:10 am
What it may do is determine whether or not there are any ‘superpartners’ to ordinary particles. Finding them would tend to confirm ‘supersymmetry’, a neat device for unifying forces with particles, for real this time and we mean it, i.e. fermions with bosons, which seems to be a central point of appeal for stringisms, IF the means to supersymmetry is the simplest route we can imagine. There are at least two others, which probably have decidedly less appeal since they don’t necessarily lead to physically reasonable stringy stuff. (i.e. deformable q-algebras, and fermion-based unifications, also called Connes’-Riemann zeta spectral decomposition theory). Finding the constitution of dark matter would be nice one way or the other. But merely determining whether or not spin-space embedded push-forward exterior stylistics will do the trick is kinda important.
March 31, 2010 at 9:50 am
much respect for knowing all of that stuff and dont be offended but i dont think i could understand that no matter how hard i tried lol.
i also appreciate that it matters to u to find out what the universe is made of. but im wondering if this thing will have any use other than proving whos theory is right or wrong. i mean will it do anything that most ppl will care about. no disrespect but the honest truth is that not many ppl can understand this stuff.
March 31, 2010 at 9:56 am
Think of it this way: We have to understand this stuff before the Russians do! Or the Islamofascists. Or the Chinese. Take your pick. Feel better?
March 31, 2010 at 10:15 am
Harris,
Why do you hate America and want the terrorists to win?
March 31, 2010 at 10:56 am
what are u talking about guys. is this thing going to make some weapons or some new kind of energy or what. i honestly want to know im not trying to make some kind of political statment.
all i want to know is what is this thing going to do besides test theories.
March 31, 2010 at 11:12 am
Harris, when the scientists confirm their theories, it’ll mean that everybody on the planet gets 40 virgins and a waterbed. Delivered. You gotta want that, right?
March 31, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Yo harris, here’s two replies.
#1 – in response to the people who “do know alot about it [and] thought that there was a chance that this thing could destroy the earth” – they were ignored because they are wrong, in the same way that the scientists who feared an atmosphere-wide nuclear reaction were wrong.
#2 – if you’re concerened about a lack of practical applications for the science being done here, know what radio technology resulted from scientists asking the question, “What is light?” That certainly sounds like an unimportant question, but in the search for answers, the principles underlying electromagnetic radiation were uncovered.
March 31, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Typo corrections!
“…if you’re CONCERNED about a lack of practical applications for the science being done here, know THAT radio technology…”
March 31, 2010 at 12:21 pm
“all i want to know is what is this thing going to do besides test theories.”
That’s what experiments are for.
If you want a slightly longer answer, here it is. Our current theories about how the universe works can’t explain, or rather have no evidential basis to support their hypotheses, why things have mass. That’s a pretty fucking big thing not to know. The LHC will provide solid evidence, among other things, for whether the dominant hypothesis on why things have mass is accurate or not. If it is, it will affirm the Standard Model of particle physics and give us great confidence that we’re on the right track when it comes to the fundamental forces and particles of the universe. If it doesn’t turn up the Higgs boson, then we’ll know something is seriously wrong with the Standard Model, and we have to rethink some pretty fundamental physics.
That’s why we’re donig the experiment, along with the supersymmetry mentioned above and other stuff. Now it’s possible that 20 or 50 years down the line some practical application (even a weapon if you desire) may come of this, like it did for quantum mechanics, but that’s not the point of research like this. The point is to expand our knowledge and come to a truer picture of reality. Some of us prefer to live in a world of expanding knowledge rather than fearful ignorance.
March 31, 2010 at 1:03 pm
As G.Y. has explained, yes it will (maybe) test theories and yes that’s important. Unlike say, Q.M. where practical applications were just around the corner, confirming the Standard Model won’t result in immediate applications. Most of the results of the S.M. are hidden by being too far above ordinary conditions in energy. There are about 23 adjustable constants in the S.M. No one knows their values although for many we know they can;t be exactly zero or really big; and some we know canpt be exactly zero but should be pretty small. Again, SM hides most of the differences (effective theories, so called) so that for US it isn’t of any concern whether a given coupling constant is 10^-16 or 10^-8. But at the energies of the LHC it might indeed start to matter. Tying down these constants will help to develop theories beyond the standard model on why these constants have these values and not others. Most calculations in plain old nuclear theory are still done in the shell model, but the corrections due to the Standard Model (in this case particularly Quantum Chromodynamics) are important. Presumably, knowing a bit more about these constants might enable us someday to design hugely better nuclear reactors (or maybe fusion reactors) via the exoteric knowledge of ‘apecial’ solutions for QCD given the hopefully-soon-to-be-nailed-down value of some of these parameters. Wouldn’t a reactor where essentially all the products are recoverable charged species with no byproducts (and no waste) be a good thing? Right now we really can’t even begin seriously looking for such serendipitous reactions.
March 31, 2010 at 1:06 pm
I thought James Maxwell was trying to invent the electric razor.
April 1, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Forgive me for my ignorance, but isn’t 99.9999991% of the speed of light pretty danged fast? When the hell does our little proton approach “infinite mass”?
April 2, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Ginger Yellow: “The point is to expand our knowledge and come to a truer picture of reality. Some of us prefer to live in a world of expanding knowledge rather than fearful ignorance.”
Yes!
March 31, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Sheesh, harris. The potential for the biggest coolest explosion ever should be all the justification anyone needs!
Ir’s gonna be so cool.
March 31, 2010 at 9:56 am
This is kind of like that old joke about the veterenarian flow chart for diagnosing horses, where every diagnosis ends up with the same treatment “shoot the horse.” Every possibility here ends with “more energetic collisions happen all the time and the world hasn’t ended yet.”
March 31, 2010 at 10:25 am
Actually, there IS a point here. According to at least some interps of Q.M. — if we are not in a position to see such collisions, it is treacherously problematic to claim that they DO happen. Whereas at least in the LHC we are in a position to observe them. The safety of the universe would then rest on the anthropic principle, which is a pretty weak standing.
March 31, 2010 at 11:28 am
[...] The Editors @ The Poor Man Institute. [...]
March 31, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Isn’t this the same thing that ‘Lost’ is all about? I hope the black hole/vacuum things holds off for at least 8 weeks.
March 31, 2010 at 6:19 pm
That’s called a plot hole, I believe.
March 31, 2010 at 4:02 pm
[...] sistema solar y el universo, después de ser encendido. El blog The Poor Man Institute publicó una lista de las tres más populares, igual de insensatas, igual de imposibles, pero unas más chifladas que [...]
March 31, 2010 at 6:58 pm
no way.
March 31, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Bienvenidos!
March 31, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Thanks!
April 1, 2010 at 9:53 am
Hey, ricardos, where are you?
April 1, 2010 at 11:25 am
México. More precisely in Colima.
April 1, 2010 at 8:00 am
La Cerveza Bud Light – el Sponsero Official de Liga Mexico Fusbol! Mas vida y mas sabor!
March 31, 2010 at 5:03 pm
[...] March 31, 2010 by musicmancz WE’RE ALL DOOMEDDDDD [...]
March 31, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Twenty!!!
If nothing else, a liberal democracy is the best thing going yet. Argue that as long as you want; you’ll lose. Nuff said.
March 31, 2010 at 8:34 pm
What about the Wormhole Theory? I wanna hear the story of the Wormhole Theory!
With “Cygnus X-1″ playin in the background.
With lasers ‘n stuff.
March 31, 2010 at 10:03 pm
In a hole there lived a worm. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of hobbits and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a worm-hole, and that means comfort.
April 1, 2010 at 9:45 am
Not to nitpick at your eloquent retelling of such an excellent story, but I think that while the balrog may have shot lasers out of his eyes when Gandalf fell into his wormhole, I don’t think the hobbits were into Rush, much.
March 31, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Web site that keeps track of any possible Earth destroying issues arising from the LHC:
http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/
Read the source for the page for notes on what to do if the situation changes.
March 31, 2010 at 10:07 pm
If a black hole had been started by the LHC, wouldn’t it have stayed right there at the surface instead of sinking into the center of the earth? The graphic should have looked like the Earth getting sucked into a straw. I think.
March 31, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Earth’s center of gravity would have a large macro-gravity effect on the initially tiny micro-gravity region of the black hole, sucking it toward the center. Like a whirlpool in a river flowing downstream.
March 31, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Teabonics
The End of the Wurld: not with a Bang but a Wimpher.
March 31, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Dump the Polititions! Sign the Petician! I luve McCan Megardle!
April 1, 2010 at 12:05 am
OMG! The Largesse Health Caer systime! I know it didn’t make the nombre uno slot, still, it deserts taliking about… I gave you pruf, prog prof!(;?);
Anyhow, did I kompletely misunderstang?
April 1, 2010 at 1:40 am
[...] of you that are worried that the Hadron Collider might somehow destroy the earth. The PMI has a good rundown (with video) of how, awesome as it may seem, it won’ t [...]
April 1, 2010 at 8:16 am
Ummm yeah.
April Fools!
April 1, 2010 at 8:22 am
You forgot to say ‘bitches’.
April 1, 2010 at 9:55 am
What if the Mayan priests found exactly the right combination of mind-altering drugs to open a viewport wormhole thingy enabling them to connect with the realm “everywhere all the time” (higher dimensional consciousness) allowing them to see the folly of an LHC faux pas in the year 2012? If you people won’t believe this I know plenty of folks in conservativeland who will. As long as I involve Soros and Gore in the theory, that is.
April 1, 2010 at 11:40 am
True enough, but Salvia devinorum is now illegal in Minnesota.
April 1, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Ah, but apparently the heavy-duty stuff is still legal everywhere.
April 1, 2010 at 2:32 pm
What if, while playing with a combination of mind-altering drugs, I stumbled onto those Mayan priests I was just talking about?
I think they saw me. Please hurry. I think they’re coming after me now.
April 1, 2010 at 10:05 am
via Roy
April 1, 2010 at 11:37 am
I luvved the Dickies. They were teh kuhl.
Manny Moe and Jack.
Bitches.
April 1, 2010 at 10:13 am
April 1, 2010 at 5:43 pm
[...] via The Editors (who had a totally awesome* particle physics post the other day, btw), I learn that flying killer robots have killed somewhere between 875 and 1291 [...]
April 3, 2010 at 8:45 am
[...] Five ways the world didn’t end when the Large Hadron Collider turned on. [...]