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Alright so there's supposed to be some Heavy Ion Collision on Nov 9th by the LHC but what does that mean is that something that's happened before or is this the first time they've done it. Someone answe this question. I'm not worried just curious.
Off the top of my head and without checking anywhere, it's collisions between things that aren't just protons (so protons and neutrons in whatever atom they're smashing together).
As with seemingly everything around the LHC, it's happened before in the efficiently named Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, the LHC just does it bigger, better, faster etc etc. Or is at least the most recent collider to collide this stuff.
Are those collisions dangerous to earth or not.
Depends if you want to put your hand into a blob of liquid a trillionth of a centimeter across and over 7 trillion degrees Fahrenheit I guess.
As ever, the whole process has been thoroughly checked, double checked, triple checked and done before many times before, it's just now it's getting done by something else that the public is much more familiar with.
Just like the Tevatron in Illinois, the RHIC is slap bang in the middle of New York (Long Island at least, not Times Square). While it may be wrong of me to say many people who believe in doom come from the US, the fact that they have these massive experiments in their back yards, and have done for decades, makes me wonder just why they are so worried about the LHC.
So essentially unless your like He who shall not be named this test should be nothing to worry about and we will move on and have a good thanksgiving.
This is perhaps a bit of a drawn out answer, but think of it this way:
The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport is the fastest production car in the world. It's built on the foundations of a century of automotive engineering, countless hundreds of thousands of previously tested engines, all increasing in speed and efficiency as they work their way up to the Bugatti Veyron.
Did the world stop dead in its tracks expecting the Veyron to punch through 430km/h and rip open the fabric of spacetime? Course not, it's just the fastest road car.
But we're forgetting something rather important - the Veyron is not the worlds fastest wheeled machine, it's still a long way short of the land speed record for example.
Now let's substitute in some words:
The LHC is the highest energy particle accelerator in the world. It's built on the foundations of decades and decades of particle physics experiments, countless thousands of previously tested accelerators (something like 26,000 accelerators of one kind or another in the world), all increasing in speed and efficiency as they work their way up to the LHC.
Did the world stop dead in its tracks expecting the LHC to punch through 99.99999% the speed of light and rip open the fabric of spacetime? Course not, it's just the highest energy particle accelerator.1
But we're forgetting something rather important - the LHC is not the Universes fastest particle accelerator, it's still a long way short of the rest of the Universes natural events, for example.
So in short, yes, move on.
I have been watching some videos on the LHC on Youtube from CERN TV and while trying to avoid the ridiculous comments from some people. a Question i have is how often is the LHC turned on or shut down within a year.
At an incredibly quick Google, the latest schedule I could find is right here (pdf), whether there's any more detail to that (and I'm guessing there is) I've yet to come across it. But then it is 3am and I ought to not be looking at the LHC.
I may well expand this reply tomorrow. Well, later on today.
So from looking at the graph it looks like the Ion Run lasts about 2 weeks and then it's all done the 2nd week of December. So from Nov 9th until about the 2nd week of December so about 5 weeks it's being run for.
With regards to next step, yes.
Providing nobody drops their lunch into the pipes or some other cause for slowing down or stopping the schedule, a month and a bit of the heavier stuff before shutting up shop for the winter.
I didn't find any more detailed write ups of what's going on. Probably wasn't looking in the right places. Might have to try the CERN Twitter feed or something.
Who's 'everybody'? I stopped caring about the LHC when it didn't kill us back in, what? 2008? Or was it 2009? Eh whatever.
If it kills us, it kills us. That's my take on it. Nothing you can do about it unless you convince them they're wrong and you're right.
I, for one, am afraid of what the LHC is capable of that we don't know about or understand. Moo, comments like the one above are not helpful to people like me, that are terrified of the 2012 or doomsday stuff!!! I think if you don't have something helpful to say, SHUT UP!
I, for one, am afraid of what the LHC is capable of that we don't know about or understand.
We do know what LHC is capable of, and this is what the doomsayers don't want you to know. Read 3WMElliott's post about above, the one about the Bugatti. It's a great analogy.
Jessica
You shouldn't torture yourself with this stuff that's what the Doomsayers and The Fear Mongerers want you to do instead you should enjoy your life because weather we like it or not we're only here for a limited time as it is and if you spend your life worrying about dying instead of living then you really are going to have a hard time explaining to god or whoever is up in Heaven why you're there before your time.
I like 3WMElliott's Bugatti analogy so much, I'm going to ask him to add it to the page.
"Do you ever think about things you do think about?" - Henry Drummond to Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind
Everyone here knows (I hope) that I'm not a "woo-woo", and that I'm not at all concerned about the LHC, so I'm confident that this post will be taken in the way it's intended.
I see two weak points in the answers we've been giving about the safety of the LHC. I also suggest that an expansion of 3WMElliott's might make our reassurances more convincing.
The first weak point is that our answers could be interpreted as saying, simultaneously, that
I'm sure we all see how a reasonable person could see a possible (though not automatic) contradiction between these assertions. ("If you really need to spend all that money to study it more, how do you know it's safe?) We all have faith in the physicists, but those who harbor doubts aren't necessarily being unreasonable.
A second weak point is that those concerned about the LHC's safety can cite the Castle Bravo H-bomb test as an example of how physicists got a bad surprise when they were (apparently) fairly sure of what they were doing. Given this historical example, we layman who do trust the LHC physicists might wish to be a little careful in the reassurances we give to laymen who harbor doubts.
The part of 3WMElliott's post that I suggest we expand upon mentions natural events that produce collisions far more energetic than will be produced in the LHC. The following is what I infer from what 3WMElliott wrote:
If the collisions that will be produced in the LHC could cause disasters for the planet, then the more-energetic particles that occur in nature would be causing explosions [or whatever] that we could detect. We don't see any.
I think that such a statement (providing it's correct) might reassure some people who still have doubts about the LHC. Of course, we'd want to give details about what should have been detected, and what the scientists have done to detect it.
"I was glad to be able to answer him promptly and with confidence. Without hesitation, I told him I didn't know." Mark Twain
We all have faith in the physicists, but those who harbor doubts aren't necessarily being unreasonable.
Well, I guess we'll have to disagree on that one. I've talked to Gorelik, Sancho, Wagner and even Rössler, and none of them has proven themselfs the least bit reasonable. But if you can point me in the direction of any of the more "famous" LHC-opponents that aren't unreasonable than by all means I'll gladly change my oppinion and admit that I were wrong=)
A second weak point is that those concerned about the LHC's safety can cite the Castle Bravo H-bomb test as an example of how physicists got a bad surprise when they were (apparently) fairly sure of what they were doing. Given this historical example, we layman who do trust the LHC physicists might wish to be a little careful in the reassurances we give to laymen who harbor doubts.
Ofcourse there are plenty of examples available that validates fear for such experiments, but I think that the comparison to Castle Bravo is somewhat misleading. Mainly because H-bombs were built to cause destruction whilst LHC is not, but also because H-bombs wasn't replicating natural phenomena that constantly occurs (while LHC is). The nasty surprise they got was nuclear fallout that spread much wider than anticipated, a miscalculation that could have been prevented (and most likelly would have been today).
Physicists at CERN (LSAG and others) has gone beyond the known standard model when they made their safety studies, and actually involved everything from chaos theory to fringe QCD ditos. As long as no one can prove the CR argument to be invalid in one way or another I don't see any reason whatsoever to worry about it. After all, none of the claims regarding the LHC is actually "new". Most are just recycled RHIC claims that has been proven wrong on so many accounts that I'm actually surprised they still pops up.
As for CR; the highest energies observed goes well beyong the former estimated limit (GZK-cutoff) and Fe has been observed up to 10^21eV (as high energies as 300EeV). The ions used in Heavy Ion collisions of November are mainly going to be Pb^208 and the meassurments for those collisions are much less precise than for Fe for example. Nevertheless, relative abundance is at least as reassuring as direct meassurments in this case. That is because the continued existence of the moon (consisting of Pb amongst others) make for a pretty valid safety argument. If Strangelets, or any other novel particle, could be created, then they would have been so long ago. As record-breaking as the LHC might be, the energies involved in these experiments are puny compared to what the Universe throws in our way.
Facts are stubborn things.
- Ronald Reagan
Hi RickardM,
Thanks!
I think your reply has many good observations that people concerned about the LHC will find convincing. Especially the end of your last paragraph:
[T]he continued existence of the moon (consisting of Pb amongst other elements) makes for a pretty valid safety argument. If Strangelets, or any other novel particle, could be created, then they would have been so long ago. As record-breaking as the LHC might be, the energies involved in these experiments are puny compared to what the Universe throws our way.
That's exactly the sort of clear, convincing statement I hoped my post would elicit from someone who's knowledgeable.
However, I'd like to be clear about the objections I made as Devil's Advocate. The more clearly and strongly those objections are stated in the LHC page, the more effective the refutations you've given will be in reassuring people who come here.
1. It wasn't the widespread fallout that was the "nasty surprise" in the Castle Bravo test; the nasty surprise was that the bomb's megattonage was almost twice as great as the maximum predicted by the physicists. (This, combined with unfavorable weather patterns, produced the widespread fallout.) The bomb's yield was much greater than predicted because of an an unforeseen nuclear reaction involving Li-7, which physicists had assumed to be inert. In other words, the physicists were mistaken about what would happen at a higher level of energy than that at which they'd been working.
On the surface, a reasonable basis for wondering whether physicists might not also make an erroneous assumption in their analyses of LHC. But your observation that "[Castle Bravo] wasn't replicating natural phenomena that constantly occur (while LHC is)", combined with, "The Moon's still here" is a fine answer. I hope we won't deprive our "clients" of it. The other answers you give to that objection are (as we say in English) "icing on the cake".
2. Regarding our exchange
(From Jim) We all have faith in the physicists, but those who harbor doubts aren't necessarily being unreasonable.
(From RickardM) Well, I guess we'll have to disagree on that one. I've talked to Gorelik, Sancho, Wagner and even Rössler, and none of them has proven themselves the least bit reasonable. But if you can point me in the direction of any of the more "famous" LHC-opponents that aren't unreasonable than by all means I'll gladly change my opinion and admit that I were wrong=).
I'm familiar with only one of the four people you mention, and I don't consider him at all reasonable, either. But I wasn't referring to the famous LHC opponents. Instead, I was referring to average people who hear the objections I made as Devil's Advocate, and would like to hear real answers to those objections, rather than sweeping ad hominem attacks upon those who raise them.
Your post shows that people here (and at CERN, of course) have the answers those average people are looking for.
Again, thanks.
Now, I'll go off and find out what a Devil's Advocate is supposed to do after he's been refuted. As I recall, it has something to do with staying up all night doing a penance …
"I was glad to be able to answer him promptly and with confidence. Without hesitation, I told him I didn't know." Mark Twain
"I was glad to be able to answer him promptly and with confidence. Without hesitation, I told him I didn't know." Mark Twain
Hi again Jim
I'm sorry if I came off as offensive, that was not my intent at all. Furthermore I apologize for my errors regarding the Castle Bravo incident, I seem to have mistaken that experiment for something else.
In other words, the physicists were mistaken about what would happen at a higher level of energy than that at which they'd been working.
That is actually a very fair point After all, the energies at LHC are new to the scientific community, but not to the Universe. The universe conducts more than 10 million millions of LHC experiments (at least equal to those) every second at energies far beyond the capability of the LHC. Furthermore I think that our understanding of the Standard model of physics has greatly increased since the 50's, and scientists today take precautions much more seriously than what was common practice back then.
Take the heavy ion experiments at LHC for example. They are going to slowly (relativelly) increase the energies over the month it runs and carefully monitor any derivations from their predictions. I think, although I'm not sure, that they will start at energies of aprox. 0.2TeV and work their way up to 2.76TeV (although I've heard that they might go beyond that). Anyhow, they took the same precautions when they started running proton beams and worked their way up to both higher energies and higher luminousity. They have found some contradictions to their current understand of the standard model, like the two-particle correlations that gave similar readings as the QGP did at RHIC (Highs and lows=). QGP is a medium that is only expected to form in heavy ion collisions so that discovery (although not verified) might be the find of the century.
I'm familiar with only one of the four people you mention, and I don't consider him at all reasonable, either. But I wasn't referring to the famous LHC opponents. Instead, I was referring to average people who hear the objections I made as Devil's Advocate, and would like to hear real answers to those objections, rather than sweeping ad hominem attacks upon those who raise them.
I misunderstood you there, I thought you was refering to people like Gorelik to be reasonable. As for ad hominem attacks, I think I've used those quite a few times (unfortunatelly). My only way of justifying that is because frustration sometimes take overhand when talking to people like Gorelik, which is in no way a valid reason (but A reason nevertheless). When I talk to people that are scared of one of the nutcase claims made by one of those persons on the other hand, I try to be as objective as possible. A question regarding magnetic traps answered with a simply "Ivan is a crank" doesn't really help with anyones fear.
Again, I'm really sorry that I came off as hostile in my previous post. You have done a great job answering questions over here, and that is really appreciated by people like me that come here with all their fears
Facts are stubborn things.
- Ronald Reagan
Hi RickardM,
I'm sorry if I came off as offensive, …
Not at all! As Devil's Advocate, I presented the best case I could come up with for honestly doubting the safety of the LHC, and you presented clear refutations that I think would be quite understandable to laymen.
I hope Jessica comes back some time to read them, and let us know what she thinks. (But I agree with Alene, Astrogeek, and everyone else who told her she'd be better off staying away from 2012 sites (even this one) for a while.)
"I was glad to be able to answer him promptly and with confidence. Without hesitation, I told him I didn't know." Mark Twain
(But I agree with Alene, Astrogeek, and everyone else who told her she'd be better off staying away from 2012 sites (even this one) for a while.)
brackets within a brackets.. MATH!!! RUNNN
Like Juju said..
Legitimate scientists know what the LHC is capable of and what it isn't capable of, people who are fear-mongering tackle the LHC because they, themselves, don't know anything about it, whereas the scientists who work on it know exactly what they're dealing with.
It's a classic case of pointing in fear at the first thing that they don't understand.
Wie Sie säen, so sollst du ernten.
I'm here!! Been here every day….So basically, in a nutshell, of your conversation, the LHC is safe because they have checked, rechecked and triple checked everything to make sure it's going to go smoothly?And they aren't doing anything there, that isn't done daily in the universe somewhere and we are still here??
From looking at the link to the graph that Elliott posted it looks like the Ion run begins on Nov 11th and the machine is turned on Nov 9th and it appears to be turned off around early December.
But what they are going to be doing has already been done at the RHIC????
But what they are going to be doing has already been done at the RHIC????
Yes and no. RHIC collides heavy ions and so does LHC (occasionally, no more than aprox 1 month a year are devoted to HI collisions), so that part is the same. But there are some differences between those two colliders; RHIC collides mostly Au-Au (Gold), Cu-Cu (Copper) and p-p (Protons, even polarized ones), while LHC is going to focus on Pb-Pb (Lead) collisions when they run their heavy ion experiments. The energy that is put in the beams are also quite different, because LHC is going to reach collision energies up to 28 times greater than RHIC. The energy increase is thought to give some exciting new results, but are in no way dangerous. The LHC is supervised by some of our worlds most brilliant scientists, and they (as well as we) have families that they care for and thus isn't going to take any risks at all.
But none of this is really essential, since the Universe constantly dwarfs any experiments done by us mere humans. There is absolutelly no need to worry about this, at all.
Facts are stubborn things.
- Ronald Reagan
Hi Jessica,
Welcome back. I played Devil's Advocate with folks like you in mind, so I'm glad to hear your responses to the answers RickardM gave me.
I'll give my own (layman's) answers to your questions, based upon RickardM's responses to the Devil's Advocate. I hope RickardM will correct any errors I make.
[So] the LHC is safe because they have checked, rechecked and triple checked everything to make sure it's going to go smoothly?
The LHC's safety doesn't depend upon all the checking. What makes it safe is that it isn't powerful enough to produce anything that could harm the Earth. Physicists couldn't destroy the Earth with it if they wanted to.
How do we know this? The Moon (because it has no atmosphere to protect it) is bombarded by naturally-produced particles, some of which have energies far greater than anything the LHC can produce. (Check out this beauty.)
Of course those particles collide with atoms of all sorts in the Moon's rocks. If it were possible for those collisions to produce exotic, dangerous things like strangelets, then the Moon would have been destroyed long ago. But the Moon's still here. Therefore we will be, too: the LHC's a comparative peashooter.
"I was glad to be able to answer him promptly and with confidence. Without hesitation, I told him I didn't know." Mark Twain
So essentially in order for the LHC to destroy the earth it would somehow have to destroy the sun and the moon and then eventually destroy humans.
Neither destroying the sun nor the moon is a criteria that must be fullfilled in order for the LHC to be able to destroy our planet, but they would most likely be destroyed in the process. Luckilly, none of that is any cause for concern, since the LHC isn't going to do anything that hasnt been done already.
What we are saying is that the continued existence of our sun, moon and all the other planets gives us reassurance that the LHC isn't going to cause any disaster.
If LHC could cause any dangerous chain rections then so could cosmic rays, and if cosmic rays could do that then we wouldn't be here now. LHC is only mimicking phenomena that occurs naturally more than 10 million millions times per second throughout the Universe, but now scientists can watch it happen in closer detail.
Facts are stubborn things.
- Ronald Reagan
"But there are some differences between those two colliders; RHIC collides mostly Au-Au (Gold), Cu-Cu (Copper) and p-p (Protons, even polarized ones), while LHC is going to focus on Pb-Pb (Lead) collisions when they run their heavy ion experiments. The energy that is put in the beams are also quite different, because LHC is going to reach collision energies up to 28 times greater than RHIC."
So, they are doing something that has never been reproduced by man? So, we don't really know what the consequences will be…..
So, they are doing something that has never been reproduced by man? So, we don't really know what the consequences will be…..
What do you think they will be? I'm certain they have done some sort of forecast or prediction of worst case scenario.
Pb-Pb has been done many times before, I think it's a fairly common thing to collide with collisions easily dating back to before I was born1, but as has been said, the LHC just does it bigger, faster, better, more accurately, whatever choice words you want to use.
I would also guess (I hope RickardM will comment) that when extremely energetic cosmic rays hit Moon rocks that contain lead, the cosmic rays knock some lead atoms into others, in collisions much more energetic than will occur in the LHC.
"I was glad to be able to answer him promptly and with confidence. Without hesitation, I told him I didn't know." Mark Twain
I found this….HOpe it helps…It helped me a little bit with my anxiety over the LHC….
Mike? how are you feeling these days? ok i hope?
I am one of the Mod on a forum dedicated to the LHC, I know people that are really scared about the Ion collisions there really is nothing to worry about.
But it seems the fear will always be there for a lot of people concerning the LHC, I myself was terrible back in 2008 I thought as soon at it got switched on it would make a black hole and suck us all in, hmmm that would have been hard at the time because there was only one beam and no collisions taking place.
On the 30th on March my 29th birthday the first 7TeV collsions took place nice birthday present for me but i was so scared i thought that would be the end of us.
There are alot of people out there these days fear mongers saying things are gonna happen it's terrible with these Ion collisions it's something that has not been done at these high energies before it's a scary but a really exciting time ;)
Anyways i am done rambling now :)
Emmylou :)
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein
Emmylou
I'm fine thank you for asking. Honestly i wish i would've found out about the LHC in a different manner then having to read Ivan Gorelik's rants on it but i guess that's the way it goes sometimes. Honestly i'm not overly worried about the LHC doing anything because in my opinion if it was going to kill us it would've done so the first time it was turned on and it didn't.
Mike :)
Pleased you are fine :D
As for Ivan me and him have a very love hate relationship LOL he loves me and I hate it hehehe joking :)
Ivan is very ummmm odd to say the least his rants have scared me so much in the past it's unreal, especially when he does his OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG the world will end tomorrow yeah not the most clever thing to say to someone who is so scared they can't eat, sleep and even be bothered to talk to people, I used to just sit in my corner in complete fear shaking *blushes*
I first heard about the LHC in 2008 in the Sun news paper headlines read WORLD WILL END NEXT WEDNESDAY ughhhhhhhhhhh well that was me freaked out completely.
Ivan has a big problem with being told when he is wrong however i have a very clever knack of making him completely shut up ;)
I talk to much have you noticed hehehe :)
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein
"odd"…
Ivan is "odd" is like saying that waking up to a slavering monster with nine-inch fangs dripping blood onto your face would be "disturbing".
I would happily agree with that enormous understatement, if it weren't for the way he went after people posting here who were seeking reassurance.
Part of me regrets losing my temper with Ivan. But another part of me says that I let him go too far.
"Do you ever think about things you do think about?" - Henry Drummond to Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind
Astrogeek :)
Believe me over the past 10 months i have called Ivan a lof worse than odd, and I totally understand why you lost your temper his only purpose on the net is to spread fear.
There is something wrong with his brain, something very off balance, do not have regrets about losing your temper with him, he is good at pushing buttons and he is also very good at not answering direct qustions about things i hate this personally.
I just want to help people not be scared of the LHC and thats what i intend to do :)
Emmylou
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein
(account deleted)
