One of the most intriguing scientific articles I’ve read in a while, and it brings up a lot of concerns. Thanks for the link go to Broken Toys, where he very cleverly opts himself out of the ‘Gordon Freeman’ role when the very fabric of our world is folded open for malicious aliens to send their giant fetus’ into. For me, some of the more disturbing parts are:
a 27km-long circular particle accelerator at the CERN experimental facility near Geneva, will smash protons into one another at unimaginable speeds trying to replicate in miniature the events of the Big Bang.
Nothing like some typical human nature to solve this!
“There has never been such a jump in particle physics. It will go into an area that we don’t really understand,”
So, let me get this straight? We don’t really understand it, so let’s smash things together and see what happens! I guess it makes sense, considering they’re doing it in between France and Switzerland, our bastions of strength against the alien invasion. They’ll be lucky to make it through whatever insane apertures happen to develop, much less withstand the relentless assaults of our Franco-Swiss shock troops!
“We don’t know what 95 per cent of the universe is made of – which is a bit embarrassing for a subject that claims to be fundamental,” Dr Cox said.
I wonder if this Dr. Cox was later on quoted for saying, “We’ll probably have a pretty damn good idea about this when this here freaking-long-mc-huge thingie blows our planet into the rest of the universe.”
“For the first time in many decades we have built a machine that exceeds our powers of prediction. “
Oh, so you’re saying you have absolutely NO IDEA what will happen?
“New processes are bound to be discovered. We are truly journeying into unknown territory.”
Again, you have no idea?
Dr Cox dismissed worries that by adventuring into the unknown and creating tiny black holes, the machine could even destroy the planet. (emphasis mine, or FREAKING LOGICAL FEAR FOR EXISTENCE, you decide, maybe reality bolded it as a warning…)
“The probability is at the level of 10 to the minus 40,” he said.
Oh, well that’s good. Thank god (who?) that it’s that low, otherwise I’d be worried. Wait a second…or an hour, whichever is more useful to you, but I think someone forgot their pills in the morning:
“For the first time in many decades we have built a machine that exceeds our powers of prediction. “
This reminds me of that episode of Ren and Stimpy where they were on the space station, and Stimpy was assigned to guard the big red button.
I mean…come on! Who wouldn’t?
Of course, when it comes to NOT pushing buttons, that’s a bit harder.
(And yes, I’m aware that no where in your post was the word ‘button’ even mentioned. We’ve taken the train to tangent-land!!! Woo!!)
I know you’re being facetious, but I wouldn’t worry about the planet being destroyed just yet. 10^(-40)% chance of anything destructive happening. It’s also not “We have no idea what’s going to happen!” in terms of we don’t know if this experiment will destroy the earth or not, it’s “we don’t know what’s going happen to the protons”, you know, teeny tiny subatomic particles. It’s really not that easy to make a black hole. Experiments like this are important to furthering scientific inquiry: science has a way of making itself useful.
Which parts of “exceeds our powers of prediction” and “here’s our PREDICTED statistic of the world being destroyed” did you miss?
Facetious? Maybe, but something definitely bothers me about the contradictory quotes coming out of these people. If they’re willing to give a probability that the planet will be destroyed, then they consider it a possible outcome. I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt, yes, but I care now because I won’t have time to care when I’m atomized, I’ll be too busy floating through space or something.
You’re simplifying and taking quotes out of context: “For the first time in many decades we have built a machine that exceeds our powers of prediction.” is referring to the possibility of showing evidence of higher dimensions then our own- NOT “Well, hell, we’re just going to throw the switch and see what happens, ’cause we’re just plum outta ideas ’bout what this here proton thrower can do!” Trying to get unexpected results (and then repeating them.)
And as for the probability of the planet being destroyed… well, scientists have assigned a probabiltiy of the Earth spontaneously destroying itself. (It’s greater than 1 to 10^10^100)
Oh, and you wouldn’t be atomized instantly, unless there’s really something they’re not telling us. If the black holes don’t evaporate and somehow become stable, they’d drill into the center of the Earth and start eating the planet from the inside. You’d have PLENTY of time to send me an email saying “I told ya so!”
A page definitely worth checking out about a related subject: http://www.qntm.org/destroy
You should be working for NASA…
…in their Jerk Department. Jerk. 😛
Your mom works at NASA!… wait…
Here’s another interesting page on the subject, done by scientists and not the mass media:
http://www.kressworks.com/Science/A_black_hole_ate_my_planet.htm