Exploring the Risks of the Large Hadron Collider

[malawi_glenn]

Why is everyone keeping so quiet about the danger of creating white holes?

I read somewhere that when protons and anti-protons collide, there is a theoretical possibility of creating floppions, which will decay to produce a white hole that is effectively a portal from another universe.

Far from sucking the Earth in, a white hole would drain matter from an already existing universe and pour it onto the earth.

Even if we escaped the 50% danger of this being anti-matter, thus turning central Europe white-hot, the huge added mass would considerably lengthen the day, and disturb the present earth-moon equilibrium, perhaps with the obvious catastrophic result.

Even if a benign, neutral, wormhole were established, we would still be open to invasion by unfamiliar life-forms, which depending on the maximum size of the wormhole capable of being created by the LHC could be anything in size from viruses to white rabbits.

Such species would multiply exponentially, and destroy life as we know it … and please don't tell me that couldn't happen!

And does the official "safety" report deal with these dangers?

I don't think so!​

LOL that was even more speculative than MBH's traveling and growing large ;-)

Maybe I'll use the report button now.

 

[gendou2]

I found this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=DG...&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result

Looks like this idea appears in a book about religion, and is not a scientific theory at all.

 

[malawi_glenn]

I found this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=DG...&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result

Looks like this idea appears in a book about religion, and is not a scientific theory at all.

man I go to church twice a week and it's such a shame that people writes that kind of ******** in religions (Gods) name =(

 

[malty]

I found this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=DG...&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result

Looks like this idea appears in a book about religion, and is not a scientific theory at all.

Well it's written by a physicist . . .

 

[cristo]

To try and get this thread back on a serious track, here's a live webcam of the inside of the LHC that some of you may enjoy.

 

[malawi_glenn]

Well it's written by a physicist . . .

I am a physicist and can also write such crap if I want to.. I mean what is an "electrical antiproton"? LOL watch out so that the gauge meson don't decays into a white drawf that can explode and create a new universe in your kitchen.

 

[malty]

To try and get this thread back on a serious track, here's a live webcam of the inside of the LHC that some of you may enjoy.

Spoiler

Why is the accretion disk (or whatever it is) purple??

 

[malawi_glenn]

Spoiler

because it is a nice colour? No seriuos, it is related to wiens displacement law. Matters get hotter and well, you surley know the rest of the story.

 

[malty]

Spoiler

because it is a nice colour? No seriuos, it is related to wiens displacement law. Matters get hotter and well, you surley know the rest of the story.

Spoiler

Yeah, but greens my fav colour, I mean if we're going to create one of these things I'd rather go out with a green one! So I think that's what I'll research how to it's colour

 

[SorinK]

@malawi_glenn, the people that believe that a black hole will be formed are also physicist; they have more than High School info related to black holes and quantum physics.
If such thing can't happen, how is that in there math the results differ?!
All of them don't know math and the others do it in the right way?
The good way would be to meet and to show to the small group where they are wrong.
Are formulas that all of them understand and even if Otto is wrong, the other ones will understand where Otto is wrong and will not support him anymore.
But they don't do that, they prefer to say that the small group is wrong and that is all.
Hawkins theory is not proven.
I want to see a black hole that disappear or at least become smaller so I can agree with Hawkings.

 

[malty]

@malawi_glenn, the people that believe that a black hole will be formed are also physicist; they have more than High School info related to black holes and quantum physicist.
If such thing can't happen, how is that in there math the results differ?!
All of them don't know math and the others do it in the right way?
The good way would be to meet and to show to the small group where they are wrong.
Are formulas that all of them understand and even if Otto is wrong, the other ones will understand where Otto is wrong and will not support him anymore.
But they don't do that, they prefer to say that the small group is wrong and that is all.
Hawkins theory is not proven.
I want to see a black hole that disappear or at least become smaller so I can agree with Hawkings.

Sorin,

The trouble here is that as physicist we know that there is a definite possibility of such an event occurring, but as Zapper already said it is as possible as you smashing a vase and the vase reassembling itself without your intervention. In physics this is a possibility so we cannot say the vase will definitely be destroyed, likewise we definitely cannot say that there is no chance of a black hole (or white hole [I'm sure there's some minute possibility of that too :)]) but we are incredibily more likely to be destroyed by something other than CERN, yes it could happen but there's a million other dangers in this world that are far more likely!

Anyways if you haven't already I suggest that you read this
http://physics.aps.org/articles/v1/14

The article assesses the risk even with many of our more accepted assumptions such as Hawkins being incorrect. You don't really think that we wouldn't do worse case scenario assessments??

 

[gendou2]

SorinK, please watch this: http://cdspages.web.cern.ch/cdspages/1120625.htm

 

[ZapperZ]

@tiny-tim they want only formulas.
They have the impression that all that is calculated is good, and if even they don't know what will happen, they know that is not dangerous because was made at a smaller scale.
If you think that a white hole will be formed you need to give them some formulas because they don't like theories with no formulas.
I was warned because I had a theory with no formulas and wrote it here.

This is because you have an incomplete understand of what physics is. Physics is MORE than just saying "What goes up must come down". Physics must also say "When and Where it comes down". Both of these means that there must be QUALITATIVE and QUANTITATIVE agreements with observation! Without the latter, it is merely a hand-waving argument.

Please note that the PF Guidelines is strictly applied throughout PF, and certainly in the physics sub-forums.

Zz.

 

[Orion1]

Interesting video listed in reference of what is predicted to happen when the LHC reaches full intensity!

Reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moEzECvJDas&feature=related"

 

[vanesch]

The trouble here is that as physicist we know that there is a definite possibility of such an event occurring, but as Zapper already said it is as possible as you smashing a vase and the vase reassembling itself without your intervention. In physics this is a possibility so we cannot say the vase will definitely be destroyed, likewise we definitely cannot say that there is no chance of a black hole (or white hole [I'm sure there's some minute possibility of that too :)]) but we are incredibily more likely to be destroyed by something other than CERN, yes it could happen but there's a million other dangers in this world that are far more likely!

I would again want to point out that there is NO *definite probability* that the LHC will create earth-eating things. Contrary to the probability of the vase re-assembling itself, which has a tiny but genuine probability of happening (that is, if you would do an inimaginable number of times the experiment, in some cases the vase WOULD re-assemble), we have in fact no indication at all that the LHC *could* produce an earth-gobbling thing - even if we were to build a gazillion LHCs on a gazillion Earth's.

So what can we do ? We can say that according to most of our theoretical understanding, it is physically impossible to create such an earth-gobbling thing. That would be it.

Or, we can go a step further, and say: LET US SUPPOSE, against all of what we think to know, that we are fundamentally wrong concerning our basic knowledge, and ASSUME that - despite all of what we know telling us that it is physically impossible - it is nevertheless possible. In that case, it has a hypothetical probability of happening. How high could this probability eventually be in order for it not to be in contradiction with observation ?

Now, the last point is important: it means that we have to find ways that would give us observable consequences of our hypothesis that this "theoretically impossible thing" occurs nevertheless. So it depends on our ability to do so, that we can derive UPPER BOUNDS for this probability. If we just stay in our armchair, the upper bound is something around 100%. Indeed, sitting in our armchair is not *incompatible* with our strange thing happening at 100% probability. But it could still be 0%. We simply don't know. So it is not because we sit in our armchair that the probability of creating black holes that eat up the Earth got a probability of 100% ! It's that we didn't do much work to find a better upper boundary. It's like me saying that I don't know how much money you have in the bank, but an upper boundary must be something like 1000 000 times Bill Gates' fortune. It's just because I don't know any better that I can only say something of the kind. If I would have done some better job, I'd find a better upper boundary. In no way this implies that you are so rich.

So the more work I can put into restricting the upper boundary, the lower it can become. In fact, if the actual phenomenon doesn't physically exist (as is suggested by about all of our theories), then with enough work and observation, I can put that boundary as low as I want.

Now, people did a limited amount of work, and they considered only a certain class of observable phenomena, such as planets like Jupiter, or neutron stars, that are exposed for millions of years to LHC-like collisions. From that, they could derive an upper boundary of the eventual probability for our hypothetical event to happen. It DOESN'T MEAN AT ALL, that this is an ESTIMATE for that probability. Only, we don't know any better. If we would like to get a lower boundary, we should do more observations, we should do more clever deductions, etc...

Again, there's a big difference between an *upper boundary* on an eventual probability of an event happening, which should theoretically actually not happen (but we are modest and recon that all of our theoretical knowledge could be wrong), and an *estimate* of the probability of a genuine phenomenon happening, like an estimate for a smoker to devellop cancer due to smoking.

So it is not because some or other scientist writes that "black holes have a probability smaller than 1/500 to eat up the earth" that this means that once out of 500, a black hole will eat up the earth. It simply means that with the limited set of observations, the scientist couldn't find a stronger upper boundary on the probability (which might - and most probably is - zero if we have any reason to believe current theory) starting from the set of observations he decided to start with, and considering the kind of reasoning and approximations he made.

 

[gendou2]

Interesting video listed in reference of what is predicted to happen when the LHC reaches full intensity!

Reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moEzECvJDas&feature=related"

I don't see how a flashy animation of the Earth being swallowed by a black hole contributes to the discussion one bit.
You obviously need to watch this, too: http://cdspages.web.cern.ch/cdspages/1120625.htm

 

[Almanzo]

What's wrong with the following syllogism?

1. Lord Martin Rees would not be trying to scare people, unless he himself were scared.
2. Lord Martin Rees is trying to scare people.
3. Therefore: Lord Martin Rees is scared.

And, by the way, I would like to suggest that if cosmic rays hitting atoms in the Earth's atmosphere are producing black holes, these holes will pass just once through the planet, and then disappear into the great unknown. Their velocity would be way beyond escape velocity.

 

[vanesch]

What's wrong with the following syllogism?

1. Lord Martin Rees would not be trying to scare people, unless he himself were scared.
2. Lord Martin Rees is trying to scare people.
3. Therefore: Lord Martin Rees is scared.

Sure. Or:

1. Lord Martin Rees would not be trying to scare people, unless he knew that makes his book sell.
2. Lord Martin Rees is trying to scare people.
3. Lord Martin Rees knows that fearmongering makes a good sales argument.

Or:

1. LMR would not be trying to scare people, unless blah blah
2. LMR is not trying to scare people
3. anything

Or:
...

And, by the way, I would like to suggest that if cosmic rays hitting atoms in the Earth's atmosphere are producing black holes, these holes will pass just once through the planet, and then disappear into the great unknown. Their velocity would be way beyond escape velocity.

Ooops. Didn't think of that

There are two points here:
1) if ever the LHC produces earth-gobbling BH, they will ALSO pass with high momentum through the detector, the Earth and disappear in the great unknown.
2) cosmic-ray BH might eventually "zap through" the earth, but they won't zap through a neutron star without a few interactions. A few interactions is what it takes to slow them down because of conservation of momentum.
Let us not forget that the LHC has at most 14 TeV at its disposal (but actually much less for the elementary collisions of the partons) which corresponds to at most the weight of 10 000 protons. That's very tiny for a BH ! Much much much smaller than the size of a proton. So IF these things interact with a proton, they won't eat up all of the proton, but just maybe one quark of it... and hence liberate a pion. In doing so, there will be a release of energy, comparable to the binding energy of the quark in the proton (grossly, the difference in mass between a proton and a pion). So they will get random kicks. Very very soon, they'll acquire enough speed to escape the very very low Earth attraction... *unless* they eat up much faster much more mass. But if that's the case, they will be stopped by a neutron star too even if they started out very fast, and eat it up very quickly.

You can give your BH a certain set of properties, but then you have to stick to them. Once you stick to a certain set of properties, you should find out how such a BH would behave if produced in the LHC, and how it would behave if produced by a cosmic ray at the surface of a neutron star. In both cases, you have to find out whether your neutron star could have survived, and not earth. That's what has been analysed.

 

[mal4mac]

man I go to church twice a week and it's such a shame that people writes that kind of ******** in religions (Gods) name =(

Yeah. Why don't they stick to the sensible stuff like ghosts descending the Earth and having it away with virgins?

 

[ZapperZ]

I would again want to point out that there is NO *definite probability* that the LHC will create earth-eating things. Contrary to the probability of the vase re-assembling itself, which has a tiny but genuine probability of happening (that is, if you would do an inimaginable number of times the experiment, in some cases the vase WOULD re-assemble), we have in fact no indication at all that the LHC *could* produce an earth-gobbling thing - even if we were to build a gazillion LHCs on a gazillion Earth's.

So what can we do ? We can say that according to most of our theoretical understanding, it is physically impossible to create such an earth-gobbling thing. That would be it.

Or, we can go a step further, and say: LET US SUPPOSE, against all of what we think to know, that we are fundamentally wrong concerning our basic knowledge, and ASSUME that - despite all of what we know telling us that it is physically impossible - it is nevertheless possible. In that case, it has a hypothetical probability of happening. How high could this probability eventually be in order for it not to be in contradiction with observation ?

Now, the last point is important: it means that we have to find ways that would give us observable consequences of our hypothesis that this "theoretically impossible thing" occurs nevertheless. So it depends on our ability to do so, that we can derive UPPER BOUNDS for this probability. If we just stay in our armchair, the upper bound is something around 100%. Indeed, sitting in our armchair is not *incompatible* with our strange thing happening at 100% probability. But it could still be 0%. We simply don't know. So it is not because we sit in our armchair that the probability of creating black holes that eat up the Earth got a probability of 100% ! It's that we didn't do much work to find a better upper boundary. It's like me saying that I don't know how much money you have in the bank, but an upper boundary must be something like 1000 000 times Bill Gates' fortune. It's just because I don't know any better that I can only say something of the kind. If I would have done some better job, I'd find a better upper boundary. In no way this implies that you are so rich.

So the more work I can put into restricting the upper boundary, the lower it can become. In fact, if the actual phenomenon doesn't physically exist (as is suggested by about all of our theories), then with enough work and observation, I can put that boundary as low as I want.

Now, people did a limited amount of work, and they considered only a certain class of observable phenomena, such as planets like Jupiter, or neutron stars, that are exposed for millions of years to LHC-like collisions. From that, they could derive an upper boundary of the eventual probability for our hypothetical event to happen. It DOESN'T MEAN AT ALL, that this is an ESTIMATE for that probability. Only, we don't know any better. If we would like to get a lower boundary, we should do more observations, we should do more clever deductions, etc...

Again, there's a big difference between an *upper boundary* on an eventual probability of an event happening, which should theoretically actually not happen (but we are modest and recon that all of our theoretical knowledge could be wrong), and an *estimate* of the probability of a genuine phenomenon happening, like an estimate for a smoker to devellop cancer due to smoking.

So it is not because some or other scientist writes that "black holes have a probability smaller than 1/500 to eat up the earth" that this means that once out of 500, a black hole will eat up the earth. It simply means that with the limited set of observations, the scientist couldn't find a stronger upper boundary on the probability (which might - and most probably is - zero if we have any reason to believe current theory) starting from the set of observations he decided to start with, and considering the kind of reasoning and approximations he made.

vanesch: I think this post of yours should be framed and stickied for everyone to read before they write anything about "black holes" at the LHC!

:)

Do you mind if I copy it for my blog? :)

Zz.

 

[mal4mac]

Physicsits didn't make the atom bomb, politicians did. It's all politics...

I just read Wheeler's intriguing biography "Geons..." and he says he was involved in building the bomb with a lot of physicist friends. He didn't mention that Churchill or Eisenhower got handy with a screwdriver...

Also no one forced the physicists to build the bomb. They decided to do it for their reasons -- political or otherwise.

 

[mal4mac]

You must be the biggest goof I've ever encountered that think that cosmic rays are high energy gamma rays...

I've encountered some very clever people who I would think, probably, do not know that. So why do attribute goofiness to the lack of recondite astrophysical knowledge?

cosmic rays consists of protons, electrons and ions which interact with nuclei in atmosopheric atoms at HIGHER CM-energy than LHC. It doesn't matter who and where you collide partiles, what matters is CM-energy. It doesent matter if you have two collding beams or a fixed target experimet such as the Earth beeing hit by protons acclerated from an AGN or SN.

That's your opinion, but not Martin Rees'. Why do you keep repeating this without saying this is your opinion, instead of making it sound like it is an absolute law of nature? I might let you get away with 'most physicists think'

 

[vanesch]

Do you mind if I copy it for my blog? :)

be my guest !

 

[malawi_glenn]

Yeah. Why don't they stick to the sensible stuff like ghosts descending the Earth and having it away with virgins?

Since ghosts are supposed to be supernatural and are not objects for the scientific method?

I just read Wheeler's intriguing biography "Geons..." and he says he was involved in building the bomb with a lot of physicist friends. He didn't mention that Churchill or Eisenhower got handy with a screwdriver...

Also no one forced the physicists to build the bomb. They decided to do it for their reasons -- political or otherwise.

It like saying that its not the politicians that kills people in war, because it is the soldiers. And it's also like saying that an atomic bomb is morally wrong. Why? Dynamite can be used for good things and bad things, it is the carachter of the person using it and his motives that matters.

I've encountered some very clever people who I would think, probably, do not know that. So why do attribute goofiness to the lack of recondite astrophysical knowledge?

Because he claims that he knows what cosmic rays are? It would be better if he asked what cosmic rays are, then he would be no goof.

That's your opinion, but not Martin Rees'. Why do you keep repeating this without saying this is your opinion, instead of making it sound like it is an absolute law of nature? I might let you get away with 'most physicists think'

Rees is referring to the saftey report made by cern, see an earlier post made by GerorgeJones yesterday. In that report, the cosmic ray argument is adressed.

 

[mal4mac]

Sorin,
The trouble here is that as physicist we know that there is a definite possibility of such an event occurring, but as Zapper already said it is as possible as you smashing a vase and the vase reassembling itself without your intervention. In physics this is a possibility so we cannot say the vase will definitely be destroyed, likewise we definitely cannot say that there is no chance of a black hole (or white hole [I'm sure there's some minute possibility of that too :)]) but we are incredibily more likely to be destroyed by something other than CERN, yes it could happen but there's a million other dangers in this world that are far more likely!

What is the possibility of a vase reassembling? It would guess it is a lot less than the 1 in 50 000 000 chance of planetary destruction that Rees put down in his book. So you are comparing unlike events,. The chance of winning the UK lottery is roughly 1 in 50 000 000 (with a carry over...) So that's a much better comparison event. Of course physicists are scared to use that, as people would be rather worried about a planetary destruction event occurring with the same probability as the lottery ticket they have just bought. So they make up fairy tales about vases...

 

[cristo]

Of course physicists are scared to use that, as people would be rather worried about a planetary destruction event occurring with the same probability as the lottery ticket they have just bought.

Did you read vanesch's posts above?

 

[mal4mac]

Since ghosts are supposed to be supernatural and are not objects for the scientific method?

I was referring to the "holy ghost". Maybe I made too many assumptions. If you are the same kind of church goer as Martin Rees you probably just go for a chat and don't actually believe in all that stuff (for this allusion check out Dawkins "The God Delusion").

It like saying that its not the politicians that kills people in war, because it is the soldiers.

Both are links in the chain, phycisists cannot push off theuir moral responsibility onto politicans.

And it's also like saying that an atomic bomb is morally wrong...

How is what I said like that?

Why? Dynamite can be used for good things and bad things, it is the carachter of the person using it and his motives that matters.

Because he claims that he knows what cosmic rays are? It would be better if he asked what cosmic rays are, then he would be no goof.

Maybe, through faulty education, he was convinced that cosmic rays are gamma rays, and didn't think he needed to ask. It seems unfair to call someone a goof because, perhaps, his physics teacher wasn't up to scratch.

 

[Orion1]

The Schwarzschild radius R_S of an (4+n)-dimensional black hole:
$$R_s = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi} M_p} \left[ \frac{M_{BH}}{M_p} \left( \frac{8 \Gamma\left( \frac{n+3}{2} \right)}{n+2} \right) \right] ^{\frac{1}{n+1}}$$

How do I transform this equation into Systeme International units?

Anyone here interested in examining Rossler's paper disputing Hawking Radiation?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moEzECvJDas&feature=related"
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-ph/pdf/0106/0106295v1.pdf"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_black_hole"
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1844504&postcount=48"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_Radiation"
http://www.wissensnavigator.ch/documents/OTTOROESSLERMINIBLACKHOLE.pdf"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_R%C3%B6ssler"

Leave, leave Geneva every last one of you,
Saturn will be converted from gold to iron,
RAYPOZ will exterminate all who oppose him,
Before the coming the sky will show signs.

 

[ZapperZ]

What is the possibility of a vase reassembling? It would guess it is a lot less than the 1 in 50 000 000 chance of planetary destruction that Rees put down in his book. So you are comparing unlike events,. The chance of winning the UK lottery is roughly 1 in 50 000 000 (with a carry over...) So that's a much better comparison event. Of course physicists are scared to use that, as people would be rather worried about a planetary destruction event occurring with the same probability as the lottery ticket they have just bought. So they make up fairy tales about vases...

The fairy tale here is that you are holding on to nothing else but this piece of information, AND, that you also have no idea how that number came about with respect to what kind of unrealistic assumptions that were made. So despite every other piece of information that contradicts that which has been published elsewhere, and despite the fact that Martin Rees has clearly revealed his objection on why someone would use such numbers blindly, you STILL stubbornly refused to learn and listen. You have already made up your mind and no amount of reasoning will change that, no matter that the fact that you do not understand how this single piece of information came about.

Vanesch has explained how one can come up with such numbers. Even Peskin has stated the level of assumption and speculation one has to make to make any kind of probability measurement (no matter how unrealistic they are) for such an event. If all of these somehow does not compare to this ONE number that you are hanging on to for dear life, then nothing will and you are wasting your time here in this forum.

And considering that this is the ONLY piece of information you rely on, I'm surprised that you still refuses to double check with Martin Rees if your opinion matches his. After all, he is the "horse's mouth". I would say there is a substantial odds (significantly more than 1 in 50 million) that he will tell you that you had understood it wrong. It is why you won't chance it.

Zz.

 

[ZapperZ]

Maybe, through faulty education, he was convinced that cosmic rays are gamma rays, and didn't think he needed to ask. It seems unfair to call someone a goof because, perhaps, his physics teacher wasn't up to scratch.

You should never pretend to know what someone else means. Here, it is YOU who has made him into a goof, because of all people, Martin Rees would never think that "cosmic rays are gamma rays". That's the silliest thing int he world to assume of him because he has heard of the high energy cosmic rays from the AGN's. The recent Auger Observatory results verified that these are NOT gamma rays.

I suggest you stop putting words into his mouth, especially when you haven't checked with him first.

Zz.

 

[vanesch]

What is the possibility of a vase reassembling? It would guess it is a lot less than the 1 in 50 000 000 chance of planetary destruction that Rees put down in his book. So you are comparing unlike events,. The chance of winning the UK lottery is roughly 1 in 50 000 000 (with a carry over...) So that's a much better comparison event. Of course physicists are scared to use that, as people would be rather worried about a planetary destruction event occurring with the same probability as the lottery ticket they have just bought. So they make up fairy tales about vases...

Look at an earlier post of mine in this thread. As I said earlier, Rees, nor anybody else, can give an ESTIMATE of the probability of earth-eating stuff at the LHC, simply because it is an unknown phenomenon, which, to about all of our theoretical understanding, is simply impossible. Objective probability zero. But one cannot exclude the possibility that totally unexpected things happen. Hence the need for upper bounds on eventual probabilities.

If you want to compare to the lottery thing, then a more accurate comparison (even though it remains an analogy), would be the following: you receive an enveloppe. Period.

Now, you start reasoning: IMAGINE that someone just sent me a ticket of the UK lottery ! Horray, I have a 1/50 000 000 chance of being rich now !

You open the enveloppe, and it is in fact a parking ticket. Nobody was going to send you ever a ticket of the lottery. The objective probability of you becoming rich by opening the enveloppe was actually 0. But, by making the assumption of having the lottery ticket, the best upper boundary you could find was 1/50 000 000.
If you would have done further inquiry, like looking at the finger prints on the enveloppe (and seeing that it were the fingerprints of the local police officer), you would have been able to lower the upper boundary of your chances of this enveloppe making you rich. But you stopped short of thinking of a UK lottery ticket.

 

[peter0302]

do we ? I'd say the jury is still out for that one for at least 50 years. How can you "know better" otherwise ?

Have we observed a nuclear winter ? So how do you know ?

Did MOST of them die ?

Did MOST people who took them, die ?

Did they ? Or did they just call themselves "barbers" ?

Any published papers about that ?

Any published papers about that ?

:rofl:

Look I spent 30 minutes on the phone yesterday explaining to my friend why there'd be no black holes. He was seriously worried. I don't blame him. Like I said, I blame the media.

And yes, CERN and others have done an extremely thorough investigation and should be thanked and commended. Let the atom smashing begin.

Let's just hope that when the next experiment in 20 years comes down the road, that catastrophic possibilities are not poopooed.

 

[mal4mac]

... despite the fact that Martin Rees has clearly revealed his objection on why someone would use such numbers blindly...

I gave a direct link to his book using Amazon "look inside" in this thread. How is this using his numbers blindly?

You have already made up your mind...

No. Still thinking...

And considering that this is the ONLY piece of information you rely on, I'm surprised that you still refuses to double check with Martin Rees if your opinion matches his.

I don't refuse, I'm just not inclined to bother the chap. I'm sure he'd rather get on with finding dark matter than answering my questions.

 

[ZapperZ]

I gave a direct link to his book using Amazon "look inside" in this thread. How is this using his numbers blindly?

Did you actually understood the derivation? Reading it, and understanding it, are two entirely different things. Many crackpots can cite stuff. Doesn't mean they understood what they are citing.

If you did understand it, then you would have seen why what vanesch said is utterly relevant here and you have have ceased making the same argument.

No. Still thinking...

You could have fooled me.

I don't refuse, I'm just not inclined to bother the chap. I'm sure he'd rather get on with finding dark matter than answering my questions.

Yet, you have no qualm in putting words into his mouth, or holding steadfast to something that even HE has said that has been misused. And you were expecting to have a rational discussion when you do that?

Zz.

 

[mal4mac]

Here, it is YOU who has made him into a goof, because of all people, Martin Rees would never think that "cosmic rays are gamma rays"...

Ooops the thread's got twisted, my goof, I should have quoted the original poster. I was not referring to Martin Rees, I was referring to an earlier post where a knowledgeable poster was calling another poster a goof.