Geneva (Switzerland) - When the LHC is switched on in less than two days, Switzerland may finally pay the ultimate price for never having chosen sides.  In this case, for deciding not to choose to walk on the side of caution. That is, if what many scientists, watchdog groups and concerned activists believe is about to happen. The worst case doomsday scenario resulting from the operation of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) involves the total destruction of the Earth within minutes or days of the planned online time.  The best case doomsday scenarios involve a slow poisoning of the Earth through unexpected radioactive emissions. So, is the sky really falling? No, because many scientists believe that all such fears are unfounded and even silly.

TG Daily has spent some time compiling the doomsday warnings and arrived at a final conclusion regarding the state of the Earth:  The conclusion: Either the LHC is a ticking time bomb and switching it on may well be the last act we humans comit ... or not.  Read through the diverse set of compiled beliefs in this article and see if you fall into a particular camp. Before we start, let’s look at some quick background data about the LHC, what it is and why it is fascinating.

The LHC in a nutshell

The Large Hadon Collider (or LHC, as it is commonly known) is a 17 mile (27 km) long circular underground tunnel constructed at CERN (The European Center for Nuclear Research, or in French, Center European Research Nuclear) in Geneva, Switzerland, consuming 45 Megawatts of continuous power when in use.  The facility has been constructed 100 meters below the ground and houses a ring of superconducting 1232 dipole and 392 quadrupole magnets designed to accelerate the smallest bits of matter to 99.9% of the speed of light.  The purpose of the high speed motion is to collide the accelerated particles directly into other particles and watch how they explode upon impact, shattering their basic structure and quickly releasing and forming new particles.

Why do scientists believe all of this is important?  They're stuck.  Many of their dominant theories are beginning to break down as more and more high-end particle physics experiments are carried out.  In addition, there have been great advances in science from similar lower-energy collisions at previous facilities.  For example, before the LHC was built the most powerful collider in the world was Fermilab's Tevatron in Batavia, IL (consuming only 1.5 Megawatts).  While the LHC is 17 miles long and will ultimately accelerate particles at 7 TeV (tera electron volts), the Tevatron is only 4 miles long and accelerates at 1 TeV.  Still, even with its notably lesser capabilities it has been host to three major findings in the past 30 years, those which have rocked the scientific world.

Such enormous high speed collisions in "controlled environments" (meaning they're not taking place in Earth's upper atmosphere where scientists would be able watch them) provide the ability to probe deep  into matter in the search for building blocks and previously only theorized particles.  As noted, in 1997 and 2000, the discovery of the bottom quark and tau neutrino was made with the Tevatron.  And just last week in 2008, Fermilab announced they had observed 18 instances of  a "doubly strange" particle comprised of three quarks, the so-called Omega-sub-b, with two up quarks and one down quark.  This makes it the third (of six) particles found in the "One bottom quark" level of the Baryon Periodic Table, bringing scientists one step closer to proving through experimentation what their formulas predict in theory.

While the ultimate goal is much bigger than just observing new particles, namely finding a single formula to unify the four known forces of matter (the strong and weak nuclear forces as well as electromagnetism and gravitation via something called the Grand Unifying Theory, or GUT), it is very likely the intermediate steps will involve finding these kind of Omega-sub-b-like theorized particles, and then experimenting with them to push their theories beyond what is envisioned today.

The GUT would ultimately allow physicsts to relate all four fundamental forces of nature.  This knowledge will provide mankind with the real potential of harnessing otherwise unattainable sources of clean, renewable energy, as well as the manufacturing of materials which are light, strong and custom tweaked into a variety of uses for applications across the spectrum, making even more advances possible for mankind.  It is literally the Holy Grail of science endeavors.

Dr. Fabiola Giannotti, working at the LHC facility in Geneva, Switzerland, said with an observed degree of uncertainty in her voice to an Italian reporter for Corriere, "Do not be afraid of [the LHC].  Our superaccelerators are not going to destroy the Earth." And later, "The LHC is going to be the place and the moment where and when we will decide about the future [direction] of particle physics."  Dr. Giannotti is one of more than 10,000 scientists who have worked on creating the technology necessary to build the LHC over the past 20 years.  She is leading up the Atlas facility, one of the six detectors used to analyze the results of collissions.

Read on the next page: Advancing science and Theorized Risks

Colliders advance science

Already we have seen changes to our periodic table from other similar experiments performed in labs like that of the LHC and Tevatron.  The period table of just a few years ago looked like this (which was still being taught in 2006, by the way, despite the newer version shown next).  Today it looks like this, note that elements 111 through 117 are now included and all but one of them have been actually observed through direct experiment.  There are also alternate versions of the periodic table which predict even more amazing elements then those we've already seen, such as Theodor Benfey's period table.

To sum up the purpose of the LHC, while the GUT is the ultimate goal there are real and intermediate steps required.  Scientists are moving forward in their research pressing for the proof that will verify and validate their experiments.  The ever changing face of science will continue to dominate our learning.  Knowledge perfected in school just a few years ago could be nearly completely obsolete just a few years later.  The reality is science is marching forward, but is the potential gain truly worth the possible risks?  And what are those risks?

Theorized risks

There is a growing concern among many watchdog groups, physicsts, other-discipline scientists and citizens alike, that since the LHC is exploring energy levels never before seen through manmade forces that there may be unforeseen dangers resulting from such collisions.  Many believe a highly dangerous particle called a strangelet, and countless uber-tiny black holes, could all be created which eventually could suck all of the matter away from the Earth.  In addition, magnetic monopoles and vacuum bubbles may also be created.

Summing up the vast majority of the concerned, Dr. Adrian Kent, a theoretical physicst at Cambridge University who wrote a paper in which he denounced the LHC as being wildly unpredictable based on man's current understanding of theoretical physics, citing specifically the "killer strangelet" as just one possibility of disaster, asked a most interesting question.  In his paper he mused, "Exactly how improbable does a cataclysm have to be to warrant proceeding with an experiment?"  In short, how bad does the possibility of real bad have to be before you reconsider turning it on?

Dr. Kent belives that such a question has never been seriously addressed by the scientific teams leading the research at LHC.  And he's right.

Even as the most recent attempts to shut down the LHC were dismissed by the European Court of Human Rights on August 29, 2008, the paper used to invalidate the plaintiff's claims was far from conclusive.  It included such language as "...if particle collisions at the LHC had the power to destroy the Earth, we would never have been given the chance to exist, because regular interactions with more energetic cosmic rays would already have destroyed the Earth or other astronomical bodies."  One scientist wrote in a similar paper, "in the Earth's billions of years of existence there have already been the equivalent of approximately 1 million LHC-like tests performed naturally in Earth's upper atmosphere, and yet we're still here."

Dr. Fabiola Gianotti, a leading researcher working on Atlas - one of LHC's six detectors - says, "It is a ridiculous fear because [collisions like those at the LHC] occur spontaneously every second in nature thanks to cosmic rays from space.  Such collisions release energy billions of times higher than those we obtain [at the LHC].  And even if we can generate black holes as a theory suggests, they would be microscopic and evaporate in a fraction of a second."  Dr. Gianotti does acknowledge that the theories they're using do allow for the creation of tiny black holes.

Critics are quick to point out that the LHC will be generating approximately 600 million collisions per second from more than 12,000 billion zooming particles.  This is many times above the number of naturally occurring, higher-energy phenomena.  Such a rapid succession of collisions, not all of which will be perfect or yield the exact right conditions to allow the correct "mixture" for creating the most harmful and theoretically dangerous particles and collision side-effects, only increases the risk.  It is believed possible the LHC might operate successfully for years before finally creating the killer particle, and then what?

Dr. Kent's postulate of "exactly how improbable" is forefront on many scientist's minds at the present time.

Read on the next page: The official position and Conclusion

Scientists have provided much evidence to the courts refuting claims issued by plaintiffs over the years, including those made in the United States and European Union.  To date, the courts have been satisfied that there is not a significant enough danger to justify halting the experiments.  And yet when research is given into the subject, the rhetoric used to disprove concerned positions by watchdog groups seems to be largely comprised of canned jargon and recycled claims.  It is as if every scientist is repeating the same mantra when asked "what about the doomsday scenarios?"

Thoughts of reproducing the theorized energy conditions just 10 microseconds after the Big Bang are foremost on the LHC scientists' minds.  Dr. Gianotti said LHC will be colliding particles at a combined energy of up to 14 TeV.  And significant advances to science by such endeavors are claimed by most scientists to be extremely worthwhile and needed if particle physics is going to continue to advance, and advance mankind.

In my research, I found some startling facts.  Officially the project's website hosts LHC's Quality Assurance Plan which is at least 5 years out of date with some documents not even published yet, just two days before the LHC will be switched on.

Reports from CERN relating to LHC Project Reports are up to date and very current, in fact there are several from just a few days ago.  And yet, they are of such a type that the average layperson would have no ability to understand what's going on inside the facility or what the reports actually mean.  Articles with the innocuous title, "Results from Commissioning of the Energy Extraction Facilities of the LHC Machine" include sentences like, "The risk of damage to the superconducting magnets, bus bars and current leads of the LHC machine ... is being minimized by adequate protection," but fails to go on and indicate what protection is being employed in words that someone without a significant investment in obtaining LHC-related knowledge could understand.

Conclusion

In short, the official position is one that the average person cannot understand.  And what we can understand of it seems to be a simple recurring theme such as, "wild speculation," "pure fantasy" and "unrealistic possibilities".  In addition, for any of us to know for sure would require a high-end knowledge of physics, such as an advanced degree, just to be able to understand what they're talking about in their documents, let alone what it might actually mean to the Earth.

All of us without physics degrees are left sitting back scratching our heads wondering what exactly it all means.  All of this while at the same time we're hearing from several people who are much more likely than we are to be in a position to know the possible dangers, that it is possible such a device could destroy the Earth in a matter of days.  And even Dr. Gianotti herself indicates that the theory does state that it is possible micro black holes could be created, which is one of the foremost claims cited by concerned parties.

So, who are we (regular people, the inhabitants of this Earth) to believe?  As Dr. Kent says, "Exactly how improbable does a cataclysm have to be to warrant proceeding with an experiment?"

Would it really harm science that much, after having spent $20 billion to get everything this far, to assign a team of knowledgeable physicists to go out and fully investigate all of the claims being made about possible destruction to the Earth, and to do so for one year before then taking a vote among all of their peers about whether or not to switch it on just yet?

Is not the future of mankind worth a brief, one year pause as the most powerful device ever created by man is about to be turned on?

Upcoming documentaries

For those looking for some insight as to what the physicists and researchers at LHC might actually be doing, including some pertinent information on the LHC itself as well as the inner-most workings of its six detectors used to identify and classify new particles, cable TV's History Channel will air a documentary entitled "The Next Big Bang" on Tuesday, September 9, at 5 pm PDT.  It will highlight both the theoretical and experimental particle physics projects going on at LHC, giving viewers a hands-on idea of exactly what goes on inside the minds of theoretical physicists on operating big boy toys like the LHC.

Following that program in movie theaters several months later will be a feature length movie entitled Particle Fever.  View the trailer in high def or standard def (requires QuickTime).