Could a super-collider end the world?

[Occam's Banana]

h/t LRC: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/02/n...-of-the-world/

What think you, RPFers? I skew skeptical - but who can really be sure?
After all, the impetus for such experiments is that (& what) we don't know.
(And an affirmative to the question would certainly be a viable resolution of the Fermi Paradox.)

In any case, it's some marvelous stuff ...

Could a super collider end the world?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...rts-claim.html
Sarah Griffiths (18 February 2014)

Scientists and legal experts have raised concerns that an ambitious experiment using a super-charged ion collider could accidentally destroy planet Earth.

One of the world’s most powerful particle accelerators, which is capable of generating particles hotter than four trillion degrees Celsius, has come under the spotlight after experts have warned that micro black holes and strange matter could be generated.

The Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Realistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) accelerates nuclei to the speed of light, before smashing them together in a bid to create quark-gluon plasma, which is an incredibly hot substance thought to have occurred just after the Big Bang.

While the experiment could help to answer questions about how life started on Earth, critics, including the Astronomer Royal, have warned that subatomic particles called ‘strangelets’ could be created accidentally

These particles have the potential to start a chain reaction and change everything into ‘strange matter,’ which Martin Rees said could transform Earth into ‘an inert hyperdense sphere about one hundred metres across’.

[... more at link ...]

[Henry Rogue]

It will only hurt for a second.

[Ronin Truth]

I SWAG skeptical - but who can really be sure too?

Perhaps many other alien civilizations have arrived a this technological capability point previously. And that's why we can't find any of them.

[Seraphim]

And here I thought it was because they are shape-shifting reptilians...

**Mind = blown**

I SWAG skeptical - but who can really be sure too?

Perhaps many other alien civilizations have arrived a this technological capability point previously. And that's why we can't find any of them.

[eduardo89]

Man cannot end the world, even if he tried.

[kcchiefs6465]

Man cannot end the world, even if he tried.

Man should be more humble.

They may not end the world, but they can sure as $#@! destroy this planet. (Destroy in the sense of making it uninhabitable.)

[Cabal]

Man cannot end the world, even if he tried.

Ye of little faith.

[Origanalist]

It will only hurt for a second.

Out in a blaze of "glory"?

Yes of course it's a possibility (as far as our understanding).

[FindLiberty]

In his quest to destroy the world, Man will stop at nothing.

[eduardo89]

Ye of little faith.

The exact opposite.

[ClydeCoulter]

Haven't we been here before?

[Origanalist]

Haven't we been here before?

There's nothing new under the sun.

[Zippyjuan]

The same question was rasied about atomic energy and the atomic bomb. You would need a force powerful enough to destroy every atom in the world. When atoms collide, energy is lost so the force which can break up one atom can't continue at the same force level and break apart every atom.

[kpitcher]

It's all perfectly safe...

http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

[Danke]

It will only hurt for a second.

It might not hurt at all, it could probably happen so fast you may not even know.

[Danke]

Does anyone know the date they are gonna attempt this? It could be a great pickup line.