Talk:Large Hadron Collider

This is the talk page for discussing changes to the Large Hadron Collider article.
Please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~). Place comments that start a new topic at the bottom of the page and give them ==A Descriptive Header==. If you're new to Wikipedia, please see Welcome to Wikipedia and frequently asked questions. Please note this is not a forum for discussing the topic generally.	Talk page guidelines Please respect etiquette and assume good faith. Also be nice and remain civil.

Copyright of text from web.cern.ch

We need permission from the copyright holder (web.cern.ch) before we can cut-and-paste text from their web page. You can create new content from the information you find there but you cannot reproduce their text without permission.

- Texture 17:09, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Detecting very small particles

-Decent stuff but they will need fast computers to test for such particles. -anon1

Obvioulsy, which is the reason why the CERN is developping distributed computing systems, "The Grid" [1] Rama 16:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Nowadays you build a bunch of custom hardware to pick out the interesting events, which get stored. The computers are for "off-line" analysis and storage; they do have to be fast, but the idea is to get the real time-sensitive detection stuff done in hardware rather than software. - mako 00:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's done in hardware up to a certain point, but the decisions on the order of 1 second are still done with processor farms. -- SCZenz 06:56, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Amendments

loss of only 10−7 of ..... I suppose we aren't talkin apples but MJ here. I figure we could postfix and convert it straight in kJ?Slicky 07:11, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Location?

I didn't see it listing anywhere the location of this facility...

It's in Geneva, Switzerland Turboyoshi 21:23, 23 April 2006 (UTC) Well, It is actually close to Geneva, but not in Geneva. Of course the circle spans quite an area between France and Switzerlandyanneman 00:36, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

LHC figure

I made a figure about LHC. I think that appropriate for this article. I made it's SVG version as well, but it didn't work well (my Firefox shows it correctly). -- Harp 15:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Clarification requested

Is it a large collider of hadrons or a collider of large hadrons? This is not obvious from the article! Cheers -- SamSim 22:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

It's a large collider of hadrons. Zargulon 22:28, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

It's a proton collider more specifically, and protons only come in one "size." ;) -- SCZenz 15:22, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Technically, they're very small protons. The energy you make a particle, the smaller it gets.--Loodog 17:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Science Collaboration of the Week

Hi all. I work on an LHC experiment, namely ATLAS, and I am happy to help with this article. I don't have infinite time, but there are three ways I can help:

1. If there are specific pieces of information you need, or questions you have, I may know already where to find them.
2. A significant amount of background information relevant to all of the LHC is in the ATLAS experiment article, which I brought up to featuerd status a while back. Perhaps some of it could be used/rewritten for the LHC more generally.
3. I'm at CERN right now, so possibly I can go take some pictures if there's something for which a picture is needed. Bear in mind that I can't get better access to the experimental halls or tunnels than any member of the public, which is to say I'd have to apply for a tour. But do go ahead and ask if there's some specific thing you think would be cool; it may be such a picture can already be found in the public domain somewhere, too, and I'll know where it is. -- SCZenz 15:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

• • Yes, please do take pictures. As long as you agree to release them under the GFDL, we need your pictures! The current one in the article is not very good for the purpose, so get snapping! —Vanderdecken∴∫ξφ 11:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Template for LHC-experiments

What do you think, would it be good to put a template into the LHC-experiments like this:

ATLAS	CMS	LHCb	ALICE	TOTEM

-- Harp 10:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Looks good (but I'm no judge as to accuracy, completeness etc.). Can we somehow discourage people from clicking the text in the picture, expecting to get to the respective articles? Make the font underneath bigger/bolder? Or if anyone knows how to implement the functionality of the "area" html tag here? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:44, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I had a small trial to use area maps, I don't succeeded. I think it is hard, because the full image is a link. But if it is possible, I can change the text to a html-link like style. (The vector graphic (SVG) version is at the commons too, but it can't render the Wikimedia software perhaps because of the several layer. -- Harp 12:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

It looks very nice. I disambiguated ALICE in the above. -- SCZenz 12:59, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe something like the Germany map in World_Cup_2006#Venues could be tried. rbonvall 12:02, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Large Hadron Collider
(LHC)

Plan of the LHC experiments and the preaccelerators.
LHC experiments
ATLAS	A Toroidal LHC Apparatus
CMS	Compact Muon Solenoid
LHCb	LHC-beauty
ALICE	A Large Ion Collider Experiment
TOTEM	Total Cross Section, Elastic Scattering and Diffraction Dissociation
LHCf	LHC-forward
MoEDAL	Monopole and Exotics Detector At the LHC
FASER	ForwArd Search ExpeRiment
SND	Scattering and Neutrino Detector
LHC preaccelerators
p and Pb	Linear accelerators for protons (Linac 4) and lead (Linac 3)
(not marked)	Proton Synchrotron Booster
PS	Proton Synchrotron
SPS	Super Proton Synchrotron

Here is Template:LHC (at right). (I used some code from Template:Hadron colliders). -- Harp 09:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I changed, I you like the shorter version, you can find it in the history of the template. But if you like the longer better, perhaps it would be usfeul to put the energies of linacs, PS, SPS... in the table. Any other suggestion? What is better word: preaccelerator or injector? I think only the previous one is the injector of the LHC, so I used the preaccelerator, but I don't know wheter it is an official phrase. -- Harp 10:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I have put the template into the expertiment articles. I will put it into the LHC as well. -- Harp 08:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I have a table about LHC. I have collected the facts I think could be mention in the article. Perhaps some of them should be in the template.

General parameters of LHC

Energy at collision	7 TeV
Energy at injection	450 GeV
Dipole field at 7 TeV	8.33 T
Luminosity	1×1034 cm-2s-1
Current (proton)	0.56 A
Bunch spaceing	7.48 m
Bunch separation	24.95 ns
Number of protons /bunch	1.1×1011
Luminosity lifetime (reduce to 1/e)	10 h
Energy loss per turn	6.7 keV
Total radiated power per beam	3.8 kW
Stored energy per beam	350 MJ

Some parameters I think don't need to mention, or I don't know what means:

Coil inner diameter, aperture (300 K)	56 mm
Distance between aperture axes (1.9 K)	194 mm
Beam beam parameter	3.6×10−3
Normalized transverse emittance (r.m.s.)	3.75 μm
Total crossing angle	300 μrad
Beam separation in arcs (1.9 K)	194 mm

Ref section

Per the MoS, I believe the section currently labeled as "references" should be labelled "Notes" and go to the end of the article. Perhaps the actual references for those can then be added back into the ref section. I'll double check the MoS and provide a link shortly. --DanielCD 03:22, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Footnotes and Wikipedia:Citing Sources. It seems to be a flexible policy, but I'll change the name of the section to "Notes and references" for now. If actual general refs are added, then we can make a separate section. --DanielCD 03:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Popular culture references

Shouldn't some reference be made as to the prominence of the LHC and CERN in Dan Brown's book Angels and Demons? The mention of the accelerator creating antimatter, the theory of the process used etc. should be included. Not to mention the fallout that this gave CERN, redirecting concerns that antimatter had been made in 5 gram amounts that were not secured and so on. Many refernces can be found with our friend Google. —Vanderdecken∴∫ξφ 11:20, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

It's covered in some detail in CERN. -- SCZenz 12:43, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm really sick of these stupid "pop culture" sections in Wikipedia. Can't geeks forgo their obsession with trivia and add only information that matters? -- 71.235.238.180

Then they wouldn't be geeks. ;-) I oppose adding a popular culture section to any article. If there is something extremely relevant in popular culture about the subject, it can be worked into the rest of the article. -- Kjkolb 14:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

No one cares about that terrible book Kupesoft 16:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

What exactly is the link to Half-Life doing here? I honestly don't see how it's related. 84.250.41.125 (talk) 16:31, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Loss and AD

"Loss of only 10⁻⁷ of the beam is sufficient to quench a superconducting magnet..." On what timescale? Per second, per hour...

LEIR, AD - I think it is an other story. The LHC don't need antiproton.

-- Harp 12:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it is not about the timescale. If only a portion (I don't know the correct ratio) of a single beam bunch gets out of the path and hits the magnet once, it is enough to quench the superconductor. þħɥʂıɕıʄʈ^ʝɘɖı 09:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I have updated the text on LEIR and removed AD as it is not involved with injection.

Scaler1112 16:11, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

LHC countries

Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan Republic, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan

from http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/components/lhc-manufacturing.htm

Updated LHC information

It might be interesting to know the startup program for the LHC, later and at lower energies than was previously believed. You can find good material for the article in that post. I'll add that link to the article Franjesus 18:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

LHC starting energy

The article says the LHC will start in November 2007, which is correct, but also "when it will become the world's largest and highest energy particle accelerator". This is not true. The latest LHC schedule foresees 450 GeV collisions in 2007. The full energy will only be achieved in 2008. Until then the Tevatron will keep the energy world record. I don't know how to reshuffle the introduction to correct this while keeping the present clarity. Pkoppenb 13:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I've made the change. - mako 01:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Clarification of diminishing returns

"After some years of running, any particle physics experiment typically begins to suffer from diminishing returns. This is because the statistical precision achievable in the presence of background by any given experiment scales with the square root of the run time."

Can someone clarify exactly what this means? It's a bit difficult to parse, particularly the "in the presence of background" bit. What background? As far as I can tell, it's saying that if you repeat a given experiment, each subsequent repetition of the experiment gives you less and less new information, relatively. Is that it, or is this something specific to accelerator experiments, or is it something else entirely? chrismear 20:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

LHC simulation

I've uploaded an image from the LHC homepage - fortunately it is public domain - to the Commons. commons:Image:CMS Higgs-event.jpg Is it a simulation of a Higgs-event, isn't it? The original page don't have any description. Could you find me a description?

I think, that it is useful image for this article, and for Higgs boson too. -- Harp 15:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I find a description. I insert into the page of the image. -- Harp

Swiss francs?

Okay people, why does this article put the cost of the LHC in Swiss Francs? How much dollars or euros is that? AppleHaven 23:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. Could it be put in Euros or USD for pete's sake? And maybe include a total cost to date figure instead of spitting out half a dozen overexpenditure figures on top of an original estimate? NaK-Pump 01:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• Maybe because CERN is (mostly) base in Switzerland, and even the French part is under Swiss jurisdiction? Or more simply the fact that the article cited was giving the figures in Swiss Francs? -- KTC 00:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Some strange thing at the beginning

"Protons are then injected at 1.4 GeV into the Proton Synchrotron (PS) at 26 GeV. The Low-Energy Injector Ring (LEIR) will be used as an ion storage and cooler unit. The Antiproton Decelerator (AD) will produce a beam of anti-protons at 2 GeV, after cooling them down from 3.57 GeV."

Is it true, that we need LEIR for storage ion beams for the LHC? Why we need antiprotons (I think the LHC needn't, just the experiment at the AD). I think this part of the article is confusing. If some of them are true, we need source of citation. -- Harp 13:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Some LHC numbers

A lot of these are taken from http://edms.cern.ch/file/445830/5/Vol_1_Chapter_2.pdf and http://sl.web.cern.ch/SL/sli/Cycles.htm. Also see http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/accelconf/p99/PAPERS/MOCL6.PDF for details of the LHC injection kickers:

• Beam circumference: 26658.883 m. Other sources say that it grows by 1 mm during high tide due to earth tides, but I don't know if that's a max or min number.
• Beam revolution frequency: 11245.5 Hz (speed of light divided by above number). The protons don't actually travel at exactly the speed of light, but the difference is too small for an encyclopedia article to worry about.
• Beam revolution time: 88.924462 us
• This is divided into 3564 buckets of nominally 25 ns (actually 24.95 ns).
• Some 2808 of those buckets (78/99, or 78.8% of the total) actually contain bunches of protons. A bunch fills only a few ns of a 25 ns bucket.
• The pattern of which buckets contain protons is complex. Gaps must be left between bursts of bunches so that magnets can be turned on to redirect the bursts without spraying protons wildly during the transition. The gaps get longer when higher-powered magnets are needed to redirect higher-powered beams. Think of it as needing a gap in a train to throw a railroad switch.
• Additionally, the bucket-filling pattern should have 4-fold symmetry, so at each of the experimental intersection points, a full bucket in one ring always meets a full bucket coming the other way in the other ring.
• The Proton Synchrotron is 84 buckets in circumference, of which 72 are filled with protons and 12 are empty to allow 300 ns for the PS ejection kicker to turn on and redirect the protons to the SPS. (See http://doc.cern.ch/annual_report/2000/vol2/PS.pdf and http://epaper.kek.jp/e00/PAPERS/WEOAF102.pdf for a description of the PS loading process.)
• The Super Proton Synchrotron contains 924 buckets (11 times the circumference of the PS). It is filled with 3 or 4 72-bunch bursts from the PS, with gaps of 8 buckets between bursts. This is limited by the 220 ns SPS injection kicker magnet switching time. The SPS is not filled; after 232 (for a 3-batch) or 312 (for a 4-batch) buckets, there is a large gap in the SPS.
• The spacing between batches in the LHC is limited by the 940 ns LHC injection kicker rise time. This is a 38- or 39-bucket gap.
• A 3-batch consists of 72 buckets with beam (72b), then 8 empty buckets (8e), repeated 3 times, plus an additional 30 empty buckets at the end. 72b+8e+72b+8e+72b+38e, a total of 270 buckets.
• A 4-batch is similar, but consists of 72b+8e+72b+8e+72b+8e+72b+39e, a total of 351 buckets.
• A pattern of two 3-batches plus one 4-batch makes 891 buckets, exactly 1/4 of the full LHC circumference.
• The "334" batch pattern is repeated 4x around the LHC ring, except that one 4-batch is replaced by a 3-batch to provide a 119-bucket "abort gap", to match the 3000 ns LHC beam dump kicker turn-on time. This violates the 4-fold symmetry goal, but providing 4 abort gaps would be even more wasteful.
• The largest batch that could fit into 1/4 of the LHC ring while still providing the necessary injection kicker gap is (891-30)/80 = 10.7625 80-bucket PS loads, and the 3-3-4 pattern achieves this maximum. (I'm not sure why they don't fill the SPS more, such as with a 5-5 pattern. Heck, the SPS could hold a 10-batch with a 132-bucket ejection gap.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.41.210.146 (talk) 05:11, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

Particles Speed

The article states that a proton takes around 90 microseconds to travel around the collider. Perhaps this could be elaborated upon, to give an idea of how fast these particles are going, maybe in comparison to the speed of light. Any other info in relation might be helpful. I am not at all knowledgeable in this area so maybe someone who is could make this edit? Or is there a reason that the article does not go into further detail regarding the statement? --Overpet 20:27, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I did a quick calculation and from speed= distance/time the speed of the protons came out at exactly 300million meters per second often used as a good approximate of the speed of light, so thats where the 90 microseconds probably comes from. The protons are traveling (or will be) very close to the speed of light.

Proton energy and velocity relation [2].

energy	velocity as the fraction of light speed
1eV	0.00005
1 MeV	0.046
1 GeV	0.876
1 TeV	0.99999956
7 TeV	0.999999991 (LHC)

--Harp 08:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Magnetic monopoles

Page totally skips the search for magnetic monopoles - info here [3]. -Ravedave 02:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Put it in if you want, but the search for magnetic monopoles is considered a relatively unimportant item on the list of thousands of measurements to be made and searches to be conducted. Jeffakolb 22:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Big numbers

Are the figures at the bottom of Technical Design correct? Those seem to be very very large numbers for the beam and particle energies. John

CaptinJohn 13:46, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

hence the "large" in large hardon collider. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.12.157.200 (talk) 02:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Research

Should we really refer to one possible non-peer-reviewed theory by a non-notable scientist? 152.16.10.179 16:06, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Creation of magnetic monopoles that could catalyze proton decay

Article says that one of the concerns is creation of magnetic monopoles that could catalyze proton decay.

Can anybody describe the mechanism that would make magnetic monopoles catalyze proton decay? --161.53.6.108 15:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Physics for the layman - collision energies

"The LHC can also be used to collide heavy ions such as lead (Pb) with a collision energy of 1,150 TeV."

Could someone perhaps elaborate how the collision energy of lead ions can reach 1,150 TeV when the colliding protons reach only 14 TeV? I kind of get it that the mass of the lead ions must contribute to the collision energy (or I might be completely wrong here), but some explanation on the energies required to accelerate the ions would be extremely helpful! Thanks.

Westworldviewer (talk) 13:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: Death of technician in "Construction accidents and delays"

Considering he died helping to build CERN, I think it's only fair that "a technician" is referred to by his name - José Pereira Lages. citation

PapaCheez (talk) 23:40, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Amend description of ALICE

{{editprotected}}

ALICE is a fairly general purpose detector, albeit one optimized for nucleon collisions rather than particle collisions, and one thing it isn't is small. I'd rephrase:

Six detectors are being constructed at the LHC. They are located underground, in large caverns excavated at the LHC's intersection points. Two of them, ATLAS and CMS are large, "general purpose" particle detectors. The other four (LHCb, ALICE, TOTEM, and LHCf) are smaller and more specialized.

to

Six detectors are being constructed at the LHC. They are located underground, in large caverns excavated at the LHC's intersection points. Two of them, ATLAS and CMS are large, "general purpose" particle detectors. ALICE is a large detector designed search for a quark-gluon plasma in the very messy debris of heavy ion collisions. The other three (LHCb, TOTEM, and LHCf) are smaller and more specialized.

71.41.210.146 (talk) 03:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

This page is semiprotected; any username more than a few days old can edit it. There is no need for administrator assistance to edit this page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:01, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

But, since a user without an account couldn't do the editing, I put in the suggested changes. Also, I unprotected the page. Thanks for your suggestions, 72.41.210.146! -- SCZenz (talk) 20:58, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

bombardment from space

I'm confused by the section on potential dangers. It says that earth is regularly hit by high energy rays far more powerful than those being procuded by the LHC. But if so why is the LHC even being built? Why not just look at these beams from space instead of having to make our own? I'm assuming it is because there is something *special* about the LHC that makes it different from the space rays - so surely it is possible this difference is what may cause a catastrophic event? --86.152.126.105 (talk) 17:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

First of all cosmic rays aren't a beam, they are a single particle. In answer to your question I'd imagine it something along the lines of the amount of collisions generated. Cosmic rays you can see using cerrtain apparatus, the direction can't be guarenteed, the amount, the timing or even the energy. The LHC will create a magnitude more collisions, in a controlled environment exactly when and where and at the energies the physicists require. ^Khukri 18:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Animated GIF

Is it necessary to have a 4.0 MB file loading in this page? It's horribly boring and doesn't add to the article. It just slows down the load time tremendously. —scarecroe (talk) 16:56, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Heh, I was going to suggest the same thing. Stuck on a capped connection, loading this page is a nightmare. --Closedmouth (talk) 01:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Resolved

 – ^Khukri 08:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how degrading the quality of this article by removing such an informative and enlightening image is a positive change. At the very least, that image should be accessible from the Commons link or something to that effect - bumping it off the article entirely was not helpful. MalikCarr (talk) 19:14, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

No one said you can't add a link to it. ^Khukri 20:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Expert

Other than general overview, what are we looking for an expert in the field for? I have a masters in physics so I'd put myself forward but Im not an expert on particle physics so I may be able to help. CaptinJohn (talk) 13:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

It's mostly the safety concerns section that needs to be worked on. Claims and counter-claims are made which can't really be verified by someone without the necessary understanding of the subject. --Closedmouth (talk) 13:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The main problem is the fact that most of it is theory, and in the same vein as the Young Earth Creationist v Evolution debates, there are too many arguments started from a sound basis in physics or science that jump to scare mongering, horror stories and down right rubbish. I could get any number of physcists to check over the article, but unfortunately in the same way that so many people believe that there was someone on the grassy knoll, this would just lead to accusations (such as I have received) of censorship and bias. I'm keeping an eye on the page as it's clear a few others are. I'll delete the spam to external sites that aren't used as a clear reference or read almost identical to the moon landing hoax websites.

Though in saying all this it is a valid concern that has gained popular press so it should be adressed, but not to become the focus of the article. Now my personal opinion we'll find out soon enough, and in 8 months time it'll become a footnote in the same way the fears that the manhatten project were going to ignite the atmosphere are nowadays. ^Khukri 14:24, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Safety Concerns section

Expert Opinion! I'm Coming in at the top of this thread because it kind of cuts across everything being discussed here. We need an expert to weigh in with an independent opinion and try to turn this matter into some content that's actually reliable and useful for readers of the main article. So I've put a request on this for an expert in Health and Safety to have a look at all the physics arguments and try to pull the safety concerns section together into something meaningful and relatively definitive.

Robfrost (talk) 15:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

As a physicist somewhat involved with the project, I'll recuse myself from getting rid of all the BS, but I am going to get rid of redundant parts. -- Jeffakolb 22:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

At the end of the "safety concern" section it says that cosmic rays have millions of times more energy than what the LHC produces. But what counts is the center of mass energy and that's not so much more for cosmic rays hitting earth than for the LHC, thus I've changed the formulation. (Nota bene: far be it from me to give any credence to this science-fiction safety concern bullshit, but let's at least be correct.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.0.81.16 (talk) 21:24:11, August 19, 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we are all going to get sucked into the LHC, but genuine, well referenced content that informs readers about safety concerns relating to the LHC keeps getting deleted from the safety concerns section by people apparently having a vested interest in the project. How would everybody feel about the proposal that people refrain from deleting perfectly good Wikipedia content such as the following:

"The Large Hadron Collider is expected to create tiny black holes within the Earth . A primary cause for concern is the fact that Hawking Radiation - the only means by which these black holes could be dissipated, is entirely theoretical."

It's accurate, factual and informative. People who think the project is safe, if they have some well referenced and reasoned argument, perhaps they ought to consider adding a section of "Safety Reassurances" rather than subverting the "Safety Concerns" section into a "It's Really Safe" section. The Wiki guidelines say "INCLUDE CONFLICTING VIEWPOINTS". -Robfrost 20:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Please keep in mind: these concerns about particle collisions causing some gigantic catastrophe are usually considered to be "far-out". Mainstream physicists really don't believe there's a possibility for something like that happening. I'd say just a brief mentioning of the issue is enough (well, don't know). By the way: I think "...LHC is EXPECTED to create black holes" is saying too much. I think even this is rather speculative. Maybe better: "...may possibly create (according to some theories)...". Also: To me a quick "back of the envelope" calculation indicates that indeed cosmic rays generate events with higher center of mass energies than LHC (though not millions of times more), thus I don't see a problem with that argument. (Or maybe some people expect big deviations from Lorenz invariance...? Again, I'd say: very inprobable and speculative...) 85.2.203.71 15:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I think most people with safety concerns agree with you that the likelihood of disaster is infinitessimally small. However the point they are making is that the potential disaster scenarios are so grave (i.e. worst case scenario - destruction of the planet and anihilation of everything on it), that even the tiniest probability of that event constitutes a serious safety concern. I think there's a feeling out there that in view of the size of the stakes, somebody detached from physics and separate from the project such as a judge or polititian should have everybody up in front of them and make an independent review of the project's safety. That's what has happened with one previous particle accelerator that I know of, before allowing it to go ahead.

As regards the energy of the particles, CERN's own paper on the subject says that although the LHC particle energies are individually lower than cosmic rays, it is the concentration of them that is much greater within the LHC, which poses additional risks - risks which they have attempted to quantify.

I don't agree that the "creation of black holes" statement over-eggs the argument. Much publicity has been created by those promoting this project that it is recreating circumstances that haven't existed since a fraction of a second after the big bang. That's a pretty big claim, but once the discussion moves to safety they want to distance themselves from it.

Finally, us physicists have a proven track record of generating unforseen results. That's the thrill of physics. John Hall Edwards pioneered the use of X-Rays in medicine but had to have his hand amputated. Super K exploded. Even my school teacher blew the windows out.

I would like to pose these two questions to anybody participating in the safety debate:

What constitutes an acceptable probability of global anihilation?

And what is the probability of the LHC causing such a disaster? -195.195.109.134 18:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

As a random layman, I appreciate your perspective on this. Russian roulette with a billion-barrel gun is still Russian roulette. And I always find the probability "calculations" funny because what they're really estimating is the chance that the standard theory is wrong. How can you estimate a probability for a theory being correct or incorrect? Some theories may have less support, but they're just as likely to be correct. What should really be said is, "By the standard model, there is no chance of creating a stable miniature black hole that could threaten the Earth. Some models, however..." Any numbers people give you have to be completely arbitrary. Let's just hope Hawking is right.--24.143.237.216 20:41, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure, if a possible accident is very bad, one wants to make accordingly sure that it's really very unlikely. But there should be some plausibility to the accident, otherwise we would have to start to consider speculative "alternative theories" for every case where something new is being done (...). Anyways, it's a fringe community that thinks it's worth worrying about the LHC, and let's make sure this is clear in the article. 85.2.203.71 21:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by a "fringe community" and what evidence do you have to justify categorising people with safety concerns as such? -Robfrost 17:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean to be offensive. But I claim that within the scientific community these LHC safety concerns are not given credence (like it or not) and that this should be apparent in the article. --85.2.249.107 21:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Not offensive in the slightest. If you want to make this apparent in the article you just need state it and provide some good reliable sources. It looks to me like there are plenty of sources in the scientific community that DO give credence to the safety concerns, and the references are provided. 195.195.109.134 17:13, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Do people think we could combine the 2 safety sections into one (perhaps Safety Issues with a paragraph or 2 on concerns and then a paragraph or 2 of rebuttals). As it is it's confusing because both seem to be speaking authoritatively when perhaps neither should. Also aren’t most of these issues (not monopoles) covered at Blackholes and in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider articles. Perhaps we should add that despite arguments over the size of the risk and its nature the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has been running for a while without incident. Hope this goes down well. John CaptinJohn 14:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi John, I'm happy with the changes you've made, but the article has suffered from an editing war, particularly by so-called "scientists involved with the project" calling safety concerns "BS" and deleting them. The sections were separated into to two to try to alleviate this problem by representing both points of view fairly. 195.195.109.134 17:13, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Just getting back to this after a bit of a wiki-haitus: As far as I know, I'm the only one who's called anything "BS" and I'm the only one who's identified him/herself as associated with the project (and only tenuously so). Furthermore, I haven't deleted anything since my original edits in August, which were well-explained here. As the article stands, though, I'm basically content. I still take issue with some of the arguments for the inclusion of these highly speculative disasters. For instance, Hawking radiation is basically un-proven, although it fits quite well with astrophysical data. I would argue that the proposed mechanism for black hole production is even less likely to be correct, which makes the whole point moot. In any case, I don't see the need to make any more edits to this section. Jeffakolb (talk) 23:21, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Somebody just deleted the entire section on safety concerns without any apparent consideration of this discussion. Could I suggest that at least some of this be reverted? Whilst some points may have been unneccesary, I don't feel the entire section was useless as there are genuine concerns about it. People maybe need reminding that just because it doesn't match your opinion, it doesn't automatically make it BS and give you a right to delete it all. --86.147.120.171 19:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a scientist in physics but I follow the development of the LHC. I note in this section the attitude of some "scientists" about safety concerns, see "science-fiction safety concern bullshit". Well, I have some questions for the real scientists/physicists(since I'm not one): Let's suppose a /(maybe more?) tiny black hole is created, according to the hypothesis described in the main article, when the heads of the two beams collide. Does anybody know what is suppose to happen when this tiny black hole is bombarded with the accelerated protons following in the beams? L.F. P.S. I hereby lay open an invitation to any scientist involved with LHC, as appreciation for their work, for one drive on German highways with 250Km/h in one of the safest car possible. I assure everybody that I'm an excellent driver (although I never drove at such speed before) and I give my personal guarantee that no accident will happen. I hope they will trust me as I have (no choice but) to trust them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Liviu Filip (talk • contribs) 12:59, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

This section is constantly censored by people working at lhc, please refrain from censoring security concerns, which is the theme of this section. If you believe in reason you will let the reader to get its own conclusions. If scientific reason says there is no risk, the reader should decide without censorship. as a scientist with a phd in particle physics and no involvment in the project i believe there are reasons for con-cern. It is however up to the reader to weight both sides of a discussion without censors, otherwise we can think on the legal definition of terrorism: 'a hiden action that might harm a great number of human beings' and ad to the long line of fundamentalist a new strain of 'scientific fundamentalists, argue, dont erase.Fact is hawkings radiation is not proved and discussed, otherwise mr. hawkings as per the economist this week, would already have a nobel prize. So far, the only proved theory of black holes is relativity and according to einstein all black holes are stable. Ditto per the second scenario of a strangelet runaway. The section on safety concerns not only contains a bunch of speculative BS, but repeats the BS multiple times. john — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.89.246.73 (talk • contribs)

Please do not mistake removal of information as censorship, just the removal of orignal research. There are a number of links already within the concerns section to published papers on these theories, and if you wish to add more, or links to any recognised publication then no problems. But there are far too many theory sites out there, that base themselves around the uncertainty with regards to hawkins radiation and/or cosmic rays, then go off on conjecture and unsupported hypothesis to scare mongering. It's a perceived problem and people will be coming to wikipedia to try and understand the issue, so lets make sure the article sticks to the facts (what is known), that there are a few members of the scientific community that have concerns, and what are the foundations for theses concerns. ^Khukri 11:10, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I have complied with your requirement quoting the soruce of strangelet dangers, much bigger for what i have now researched for my article, than the black hoel hype. The group of shangai researchers working at mit is among the most celebrated physicst today in china, please do read the article before erasing my changes this time, as it is in arx.org and i trust you do undestand its basic physics. Otherwise i will have to conclude that this is a matter of censorship and contact also wikipedian adminstration to decide the issue.

Well, the matter is clearly one of censorship, you cannot erase once and again an article of the seriousness of Mr. weng work on color-locked strangelets, and its stability.

If the article has as only reason détre to glorify CERN'S Position, the issue starts to be worrisome. i have found this rather surprising sentence:

“I know Frank Wilczek,” Engelen told me. “He is an order of magnitude smarter than I am. But he was perhaps a bit naïve.” Engelen said that CERN officials are now instructed, with respect to the L.H.C.’s world-destroying potential, “not to say that the probability is very small but that the probability is zero.” So what is the situation, dear friends/censors from cern, since i am in the process of writing a serious article in the theme for a major magazine: you have no remote idea of what is going to happen but you are gonna follow till the end? censoring all opinions and serious work that dissent? in what can be the biggest holocaust on earth? Do i have to write the article on those terms? Or are you going to reason in scientific terms the risks involved? It is a matter of public con-cern? My advice is that you behave as normal wikipedians and accept different opinions or else this theme might blow in the media in a very different direction to the one 'fundamentalist physcist'want. Einstein said, i do thought experiments.

Are you able to think? Do you know what is a color-locked strangelet, i assume not because you put also you need a specialist... anway im not going to edit this every day... But you do have now a problem of public relationships you might want to address here. All this is recorded.

This must be argued, you cannnot just censor again!. Argue here if you want us to believe in total safety at cern. Otherwise, the more you censor the more people will worry.

You state that MIT article is my original research. It is not. I am American not chinese.

Otherwise Mr. cheng proved that negative strangelets locked in color can be stable, moreover they provide the only known mechanism for the conversion of iron star cores into neutron stars which very likely have a central strangelet. It is a professional article of a renown physicist and far superior source that trivia media quoted here. As this is a case of censorship and I will repose as many times as needed.

You can argue Mr.cheng article on the stability of strangelets and hence the fact that cern wll create them with its present energy and they acrete the earth, but not censor it.

You also censor, the obvious fact that if Hawkings radiation is false, Einstein is right, and black holes will be stable accreting the Earth. How can you claim Einstein's work is not a reliable source?

There you really went over the top, censoring Einstein!

Regarding Hawking's, he is not proved, you cannot only quote him. In his 77 article, a young, brass, Hawkings played as most ambitious physicists do, the old trick of self-promoting himself as the next wannabe Einstein.

So he ended his article in the soft-version for laymen in scientific american, with the sentence: 'Einstein is double wrong'. I believe if Einstein had been alive he would have put the Hawkings radiation to rest as he did with Weyl, in a single letter. The doubts on Hawking's radiation are very extended, for experimental reasons - it has never been founded - and for theoretical, gruesome errors. Since Mr. Hawkings departs from the 'assumption' that black holes will feed only in antiparticles; hence reversing the arrow of time and evaporating. Which is to like saying that the dead will resurrect in the arrow of time was reversed on Earth. Fact is such assumption from where he develops his radiation is totally gratuituous. We never have seen an arrow of time to the past, and for that reason we have never seen Hawkings radiation or zombies resurrecting.

He could have perfectly assumed that time moves towards the future also in black holes, as Relativists always have done. Then a black hole will feed in both, antiparticles and particles, thus evaporating instead the electromagnetic world in which we live as all other black holes do. As a result of this gratuitous choice, by changing the arrow of time, he changed the laws of physics and then he run into the information paradox which he himself recently apologized for.

According to the scientific method, when you dont have experimental proves, when you contradict proved laws of physics (thermodynamics, Einstein Relativity, Information paradox), you are a hoax.

Hence, despite so much hype-media Mr. Hawkings have no Nobel Prize, and no prove whatsoever of his radiation.

People also believed in the XIX century in Ether, a substance stronger than iron, more flexible than water which filled up the Universe. It was as absurd as Hawking's radiation.

Cern is using the only article of the many opinions on black holes that justifies the fact that black holes are harmless. Might it be because, it had spent 8 billion dollars on the making, already when Dimopoulos and others found they would be making black holes? It is obvious cern cannot recognize any danger, as per the statement of mr. eng... 'instructing people to assume zero risks', because it will be a blow to the entire concept that we have to make bigger accelerators instead of studying better the laws of the Universe and do as Einstein did more intelligent calculations.

The scientific community does not consider Hawkings proved. Some have called his work 'fantaphysics', with all those fancy books about going back in time and killing your father. Einstein is proved. I can see also in the recent development of fantaphysics a certain disrespect for Einstein, perhaps because he after all disrespected quantum physics.

Fact is, as the Gospel say that you have to give to the Caesar what belongs to the Caesar.

And all things related to mass and gravitation belongs to Relativity.

While all things related to electromagnetism and particles belongs to the Standard Model.

Which as today are totally different, seemingly 2 fractal space-times that hardly influence each other.

Not to go into the mathematical details: Mr. hawkings' assumptions used quantum calculations with lineal equations when even the sophomore physicist knows that gravitation is not lineal. Thus all attempts to unify relativity and quantum physics for the single perspective of quantum physics might be considered at least dubious, specially when they lack any prove. There is no reason to unify both forces beyond aesthetic reasons. The Universe can be perfectly dual not monist and so far is the only thing proved. In the recent decade, the most prestigious models go in that direction (Nottale's fractal space-times, quantum space-time theory, RS models of an electromagnetic sheet floating in a gravitational space, etc).

Those models do not need Higgs particles. In fact, Einstein perfectly explains mass as a vortex of space-time. So the Higgs 'hoax' that Nobel Prize Weinberg compared to a toilet flush, is very likely nothing but yet another attempt of quantum physicists to rewrite Einstein's theory of Gravitation in terms of quantum particles. Certainly it is not the messianic, fundamentalist fantasia of Jos Engelen “It’s probably the closest to God that we’ll get'. Yeah, right, (-:, as if we didnt have enough of those God-quoters 0-:,

So what are the facts, not the fantaphysical theories cern will prove?

The facts we know is that strange matter, tau-quarks and black holes are real, extremely dangerous and whenever we look at them, they are feeding into radiant matte, which is far less important to the Universe, only 4% of it. So we cosmologists and relativists, favor MACHOS, not whimps as the candidates to dark matter, and expect them to show very easily at CERN. Specially strange matter.

This was proved clearly afte RHIC experiments. Indeed, strange matter was very easy to do.

Yet it was also for experimentalists 'a perfect surprise' (Sci Am article), as deconfined plasma started to form vortices that did not evaporate as theory expected but lasted much longer. The name strange matter comes from the fact that when it was created first it was far more stable, living billions of times longer.

So what very likely will happen at CERN is not the creation of higgs, but the creation of strange matter the natural, proved, next layer of the standard model.

Those are real risks.

So it is again censorship to deny the seriousness of Einstein's and other relativists, different vision of what is mass, what will happen at CERN, what is the cosmological view on dark matter.

There is always a silence and respect among colleagues. But you are censoring the cosmological version of black holes, which predict them to accrete the Earth, and so far despite so many attempts to tumble Einstein, has always been right. So cosmologists like Mr. Rees, Royal astronomer, or myself, and many which remain silent for respect to their colleagues, have huge doubts on LHC and the risks involved.

Regarding strangelets, the Chinese Team is the most advanced work. till today.

So I will repost those 2 sourced comments.

This is a matter of global importance, obviously as important as global warming and as I can see cern people are adopting the initial position of many scientists regarding global warming when Mr. Lovelock was alone on the other side: Bull SHIT. i dont like 'insults'but reason, i dont like censorship but reason.

You do have this talk page to convince us that the article of mr. weng, is false, with reason and physics not censor it, accusing me of being him.

And certainly CENSORING EINSTEIN IS an insult to our intelligence.

So i will quote him: 'Those who try to impose the truth with the tools of power, are the laughs of the Gods.

The chinese team accepts stability for A=4000/10000 lumps which WILL BE CERTAINLY ACHIEVED AT CERN. RHIC achieved with 10 times less power a ball of u/d/strange quarks that lasted far longer. and it was 'quote' a perfect surprise. I dont want perfect surprises at cern. Do you have any safety measures if a black hole or strangelet becomes stable? What are the measures you have to destroy them? Please enlighten me.

Further on, the quote that proves CERN relies only on HAWKINGS is quoted from the very same report of cern.

Where you say: 'they will evaporate by thermal radiation', aka Hawkings radiation.

It is not the very same report of CERN a reliable source about CERN opinions? That is indeed funny.

I have written articles and books on scientific themes. And I believe i know as all of you do, what is a reliable source and both the chinese article and the own cern article are reliable sources.

It is curious enough that the repositions last all the time in which CERN people sleep (-:...

Im in America, and no American wikipedian has erased the corrections. Curious indeed.

What is original research is precisely the stuff put by you, cern people, but we assume that all what is technical in this article must be put by cern people NOT the safety section, for which they have an obvious interest.

Every physicist wants CERN to find out if Einstein is right and mass is a vortex of space-time and black holes are stable, as all relativists, including myself believe, or as quantum particle theorists - obviously the experimentalist at CERN - believe, hawkings and higgs areright and all are quantum 'celebrity particles' (-:, IF THERE IS NO RISK INVOLVED...

But what amounts to a century old argument between Relativists Vs. Quantum theorists on the nature of gravitation and related-mass questions doesnt deserve to risk a single human life.

As it can be resolved in cosmological analysis and when the real, new Einstein (Not certainly hawkings and higgs, their fantaphysics had their day, but are past-due), with the needed mental power do solve the questions with pen and paper, as they havealways been solved. In any case human life is always superior to knowledge. A extint Scientist knows nothing. You have though to convince us, relativists, and common people, that there is no risk with serious physicist's talk. All other tactics will backfire. People are doing documentaries and articles on CERN, everywhere in the world.

If that is how you are going to treat their intelligence, you will be portrayed in a very different light, not as the heirs of Einstein but as the heirs of Teller who wanted to keep doing bigger H-bombs till creating the ultimate bomb. I dont think it is necessary to remind anyone the difference of intellectual and ethical stature between both. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.210.93 (talk) 18:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

BELOW IS THE SECTION that have been censored 9 times on account 'that they are original research'sic, which obviously are not, despite my many pleads to be discussed on account of facts, veracity and relevance.

Please any rational being that reads them, if he feels they are worth to be known, repost it:. If he has prove against its veracity, argued it.

CERN POV:. Quantum calculations presented in the CERN report predict that:

Black holes will evaporate and hence will not accrete the Earth.

FACTS as they are known: Yet that report, which is in fact called a "Review of Speculative\Disaster Scenarios at RHIC", is the report issued almost a decade ago for an American accelerator [RHIC] ten times less powerful than the LHC and relies heavily on the certainty of Hawking Radiation - 'they will evaporate via thermal radiation' (sic) - which is still a contested theoretical analysis with no experimental proof whatsoever. [13]

Thus, if Hawking Radiation is false, then we should follow Einstein's work which predicts stability for all black holes, regardless of size. Thus, in case Einstein is right, black holes produced at CERN will accrete the Earth. The chances of such black holes to be produced depends on the veracity of String Theory that predicts them. If String Theory is right - an assumption accepted according to polls by 9 out of 10 physicists (Sci Am) - then, according to the scientific director of CERN, in his last report on the particles that LHC will produce, black holes will be created at the rate of 1 per second. [14]

CERN POV: Strangelets won't be stable in case of being negative, hence will not accrete the Earth.

FACTS KNOWN RECENTLY: after CERN issued its assessment, Physicist from the Chinese center for Nuclear research proved that might not be the case, as color-locked negative strangelets could be more stable than iron providing the only known mechanism for the conversion of iron core stars into neutron stars with a strangelet center. If so, strangelets will become stable with A=4000/10000, a quantity certainly within the reach of CERN. Hence if the Chinese team at MIT is right, the probability of a runaway 'ice-9'-like type of reaction that will destroy the Earth, as stated by Nobel Prize Wilczek in Sci-Am, might be termed as 'very likely'. [15] 'We should believe in the authority of the truth, not in the truth of authorities'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homocion (talk • contribs) 04:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I check the report of New solutions for the color-flavor locked strangelets. It saids they are unable to convert our plant into a strange star. Here is the link to the report --58.178.152.74 (talk) 12:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Any one care to explain how a fictional material Ice 9 is now a concern, I can't see anything in it's references. The article jumps from Stranglets to Ice 9 with no previous mention. I'll delete it unless it deosn't get re-worded to explain it's relevance? ^Khukri 09:22, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Morning has broken here in california, closemouth, i am not chinese, it is not original research. This is obvious. So you do not 'AGAIN' as you say take away original research. You 'AGAIN' censor important information on the stability of strangelets and Einstein's theory on blck holes. What humanity expect from CERN is a responsible analysis of the risks involved. So far it has not been done. CERN is insulting our intelligence, publishing a report made for RHIC as if it were done for CERN. it is insulting our intelligence denying Einstein's work. I have been at CERN many times. I have seen a street named after Einstein but none named after Hawkings. So why is that? I have seen also many posters: 'recreating the big-bang', even an 'Armageddon' comment on his film, 'microcosms'. It is this responsible? I was hoping CERN physicists would take note of the MIT article and argue its relevance. There are thousands of very good physicists there to analyze this recent discovery.The article is flawless in terms of good Physics. Fact is if strangelets are stable and are so easy to reproduce to the point that are a strong candidate to dark matter, this rock on a corner of the Universe is in real danger... NOTHING will happen if LHC doesnt go into work, because it is not safe to mankind. Actually, humanity will be in awe and respect that someone with power, finally! somewhere do recognize an error. It is easy to 'closemouth' closing our 'eyes'. Then if something happens we will say 'nobody told us'. point here is that if something happens, indeed nobody will be left to tell. Do you realize that for the first time, mankind faces an experiment that can terminate us with an important probability? This in legal terms is: possible victims: 6 billion x probability (Einstein vs. hawkings, Chinese Team vs. old theories, give it a 50-50): 3 billion legal death. Beyond any conceivable war or genocide... This is what ice-9 means. I believe everyone in the community of quantum physicists knows the work of wilczek in asymptotic freedom (his Nobel prize) and his metaphor of ice-9. In the same way quarks are a metaphor taken from literature, ice-9 is a metaphor taken from literature to express a runaway reaction of strangelets. It was invented by Vonnegut to denounce precisely the Nuclear Research being done at the time to make 'our nation safer'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.210.93 (talk) 01:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Just in case it helps to be verified without revealing at least in this public page my name, so CERN people dont keep erasing perfectly scientific and proved facts on the risks involved, aducing is original research, instead of arguing what they seem unable to argue, i Registered with a californian ip an an email to prove that...this user is not any of the 3 sources he quotes: He is not chinese, his eyes are rounded... he is not CERN, he weights only 80 kilos and cost nothing to produce (-: He is not einstein, as much as he admires him... despite acusations by closedmouth of being reborn... (-: but my mouth wont be closed easily since i believe in the 1st ammendment, freedom of speech... and i believe in homo sapiens and i believe in the emotion of being alive... (hence my name)... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homocion (talk • contribs) 02:46, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

As I have said before I have no problems with the article having a section on the perceived threats, but it's becoming more and more like your own personally musings. It reads terribly and extremly poor english and anyone who reads about this danger are going to leave this article none the wiser. Now you can go on about your first amendment rights but this is a red herring argument and has no grounds on Wikipedia, which only relies on verifiable sources. I've removed the ice-9 comment as the cited paper does not support this and I can't see any reference to Franck Wilczek saying this is highly likely. ^Khukri 22:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to try and tidy the structure as the arguments and counter arguments are looking messy. ^Khukri 22:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• Removed assurances from the title as it's the concerns that are being discussed not the assurances.
• I've added a number of {{fact}} comments, can someone please find corroborating references or I will delete them.
• Removed the RHIC comment, the CERN report is now correctly linked at the top of the section and is not the RHIC report.
• The Jos Engelen presentation does not say the CERN will create black holes 1 per second, though the CERN courier does, added the correct link to the top.
• I've removed the einstein comment, as this is supposition and written as original research, if verifiable 3rd party studies where this is writtten can be found, then by all means add it.
• I've left the Stranglets as is, this seems to be your area of expertise. But can I ask you expand the section whilst being objective, 1) what is the perceived problem 2) what was the CERN response 3) how does you colour stranglets paper refute this? (bearing in mind User:58.178.152.74 above wrote that having read the report that colour stragnlets don't pose a problem
• At the moment the strange matter magnetic monopoles aren't really a problem looking at the article, so again, 1) what is the perceived problem 2) what was the CERN response 3) What verifiable sources refute this evidence. ^Khukri 23:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Someone wrote in my user page: stop editing the safety sections of the Large hadron colider. --58.179.166.212 (talk) 00:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Homocion"

Why? Is this a menace?

Chen and wen wrote in his work on strangelets:

all the three kinds of CFL strangelets are more stable than 56Fe, and also more stable than the normal unpaired strangelets. As for the comparative stability between the three kinds of CFL strangelets needs to be further studied in the future. This invalidates 1st cause or rather hope of assurance at the end of the article

(only CFL1 positive will show up. we dont know, the 3 are equally probable)

chen and wen also wrote: The slet-2 and 3 are more stable than the nor- mal unpaired strangelets, and so may have chances to be produced in the modern heavy ion collision experiments.

Thus cfl2 and cfl3, neutral and negative will accrete the earth The 1st positive not. Thus probability of strangelets to accrete the Earth: 66%

2nd assurance at first sight might reduce the probability... 'when the electron’s Compton wave length (≈ 386 fm) is reached, the constraint ne = 0, (or, equivalently, μu = μd = μs) is no longer valid, and so the strangelet will be neutralized and ceases to expand its size.' But it relies in 2 very dubious assumptions: 1) That strangelets dont break apart as they grow... we dont know but it is logic to suppose specially among 'quantum physicists' that a strangelet is not a single particle of enormous size, but as everything else in the Universe a quantum fluid/solid that constantly breaks Hence the 2nd insurance dissaears. Thus what chen is really saying is that when a strangelet has packed in its max. surface a quantity of quarks it breaks in 2, which again grow as it happens with most systems of nature, 1,2,4,8,16... you know the drill every 10 decouplings 10 up to 3 new strangelets will be born in a superfluid state. Statistically however all self-similar phenomena show that the particle fissions when it reaches its surface limit accelerating in fact its rate of accretion. As fission is a lower energy process. This was the case observed in the protostable stranglets at RHICm which the experimentalists called a perfect surprise' lch merely is a super-rich(rhic sorry:) machine that will make stranglets bigger and we will be studying strange matter not higgs ffantases the next evolutive horizon of matter. Many unnown species of dark matter, some not even theorized, strange moleclules and perhaps tau quark superfluids described by wen and chen will be the basic production of the lhc, which is a factory of strange, dark matter. The theoretical development of dark maatter fluids of which the wen paper is essential show a high risk. in Comosmolgical evolution you can consider that the arrow of Einstein, the increasing curvature of space by time, evolves species into more complex forms, we are food of dark matter and it is not in evolution become prey.if the evolution of physics in XX century has shown us something is that all entities we thought static are dynamic, we thought neutrons and protons were static and it turns out u-quarks become d-quarks, converting one into others, some particles switch billions of time a second between states, gluons and quarks constantly transform into each other at amazing speeds. Neutron stars collapse the iron core of a sun in a few seconds, very likely into strangelets. What is static is the language of mathematics, nature is not We have never seen a strangelet, we dont know what we know is that strange matter has been always more dynamic and lived longer than previous calculations. it has been always a perfect surprise. But for all what we know about particles, if you look to the decuplet and to the octet of particles, the Kaon, the essential strangelet particle is in the center of both, it is in layman terms the particle which can most easily transform its nature dynamically to accrete all the other particles around it. What we do know after chen and wen, please stop calling it my article is that CERN will create stable strangelets with almost 100% of certainity, as the 3 cfl are within reach of its energy and unlie the higgs particle we do know they exist.

Regarding Einstein you should put instead Relativity, not erase it, as Relativists like Oppenheimer and Wheeler defined black holes. Yet it is an absolute fact of physics that if Hawkings is wrong, Relativistic theory on black holes hold and all of them are stable.

You have also taken away the quote of 1 black hole per second, truly relevant and the link to the text of cern that quoted it. why if you recognize it is in the report? Also the fact that string theory must have them and 9 out of 10 physicists believe in string theory according to sci am polls. That gives according to physicists a 90% of chances of producing them. Why you say 'non-standard?'. Certainly more people believe in string theory than hawking's radiation or any other higgs-like unification theory. string theory has become the standard, most believed theory of unification there is.

Those are the essential facts, needed to 'calculate' - and the mere fact of doing such calculation seems obscene to me - the probability of human extinction by the LHC. And it is high, certainly not 'zero'...

All those facts have been censored. I have not reposted them, it is up to your consciousness guys and that of all wikipedians. In the old times there was 'faith' which requireD no reason no prove, and if prove came against it it was denied it, and there was science, a rational innovation... which could accept an error when prove came. It seems that this is lost at CERN.

What CERN should do - and trust me, it would change the way humanity perceive us is this sort of statement: that in ‘view of recent theoretical developments on the field of black hole and strangelet theory, the risks of operating the LHC at maximum strength are much higher than previously expected’ hence ‘a moratorium in those experiments has been issued, till we obtain experimental prove in cosmological research of the existence of black hole evaporation, and strangelet theory is fully developed’.

And then we put the telescopes to work on the halo to see if those hard core MACHOS and strangelets are there, without evaporating, forming the dark matter as most cosmologists believe – 30 years and still not a single signature of black hole evaporation, please! - and take pen and paper as the Chinese team asked to the scientific community and resolve further strangelet theory, till we know for certain. It is not CERN fault CERN didn’t know when it started to make the machine. We all wanted that machine, but now that the risk is known CERN should not censor but acknoledge scientific facts and get if not another Physics nobel prize, a novelty, a Nobel prize for peace (-:

And a Principle of a fellow american, 'If something can go wrong, it will go wrong'.Murphy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Homocion (talk • contribs)

Again you added alot of blah blah blah with out addressing any of the bullet points above. Your Einstein comment though maybe relevant was not objective and written in the first person. As I said above find 3rd party verifiable sources and you can add it though I have re-added the 1 per minute comment. Please keep to the issues instead of wandering off on your own personal musings. Also if you are replying to a comment please use : to indent your comments to make them slightly more easier to follow. ^Khukri 09:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I see here two groups of people. One has concerns about the risks of the experiment based on proved and/or commonly accepted theories, and the people from the other group seem to fanatically support the experiment(I bet they dream to get the Nobel prize by any costs/means). I am very worried about this matter and I wonder what can be done to delay/stop the experiment, until all doubts are addressed? Inform the political powers about the risks? Inform the press? For that we need a well argued paper written/supported by top renown scientists, which can be presented to the public/politicians. But we need this paper as soon as possible, knowing the delay in taking a decision caused by bureaucracy. Happy new year! I hope that's not the last time we will say that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LF1975 (talk • contribs) 11:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of offending both atheists and the faithful can I just say "God No!!! Please, no more on safety!". There are those who think that the LHC is perfectly safe (all those working on it, otherwise why would they build a doomsday device). There are those who are convinced that it will cause serious problems (people who don’t believe in hawking radiation or who think it will produce stranglets). With every experiment that is some risk that an unknown will make it end the world. Surely the safety concerns section should say that: 1. Mainstream scientific opinion (right or wrong) thinks that the experiment is safe (otherwise scientists would be attacking the project not just in journals but also trying to blow it up before anyone could switch it on, I know I would if I was sure it would kill us all) 2. Some people are not convinced by this. Either because they don’t think that the current theories are correct (the latest string theory says ...) or because they think that the possibilities of error are to big (no one has ever tested hawking radiation). Within this we can very briefly discuss actual causes for concern eg stranglets and hawking. 3. Most scientists remain convinced of its safety

Central to this is that NO-ONE Knows if its safe, just as no one knows if anything is safe (I don’t think it is even scientific to say you know something, you only know something until someone disproves it [world was flat till a few hundred years ago, mass was invariant till Einstein, energy was conserved perfectly till Heisenberg, etc]) BUT that enough people are sufficiently convinced that it is safe for the project to go ahead, at least for now.

That should be all it says. There is no agreement about anything beyond that, so it cant be added except to say that there is no agreement.

I hope that this gets us away from long arguements between people who clearly have great understanding but cant reach a conclusion. Sorry for the block caps, Im not shouting, Im just trying to really emphasise certain parts of what Im saying that I think go beyond who is right.

John CaptinJohn (talk) 14:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"1. Mainstream scientific opinion (right or wrong) thinks that the experiment is safe ..."

"Mainstream" scientist from NASA gave the "GO" to Challenger Shuttle before the last launch.

"2. Some people are not convinced by this."

2. "some" NASA engineers (one) raised concerns about the "O" rings behaviour in cold temperatures

"3. Most scientists remain convinced of its safety."

"Most" scientists remain convinced of its (shuttle) safety.

Nasa has more than one shutle. Do we have more than one planet?

Based on common knowledge everything that happens in this universe is ruled by PROBABILITY. Everything made by man that was deemed initially very safe, has been proven to fail sometime, even more often than calculated previously. Remember Chernobyl and the space shuttle? Or show me something made by man which never failed! But compare these cases where the risks were concerning just some people, with the risk of the CERN experiment which concerns ALL HUMANITY.

In the cases of Chernobyl and Challenger lessons were learn for the use of others. If the LHC experiment goes bad, there will be no one to learn anything anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree with taking risks for the sake of progress and discovery but only when the risks concern me and/or a limited number of volunteers, while well aware of said risks.

Therefore, taking this risk (LHC experiment) is just immoral, and even if everything goes well the scientists promoting the experiment should be condemned.

I remember seeing somewhere a formula calculating the probability (again this word) of extraterrestrial life in the universe. In this formula there was a factor relating to the number of technologically advanced alien civilisations which destroyed themselves by accident. I say that we should be wise and wait until we contact other civilisations (some scientist say that this will happen with a “great probability” in the next 20 years) and see if they have stories about other alien civilisations eaten by a black hole of their own making.

Oh, I know, some will say: "Nothing the human race will do can destroy earth because Jesus has not came back yet". Well that may be also possible/probable, but in that case, why hurry His comeback?

Once created, the black hole will, at the beginning slowly, eat the matter of the earth and all the wise CERN scientist will be able to calculate will be the time left to live. I fear the most of humanity will become a cancer patient knowing just how long it has to live, while some will hope that “Jesus will come tomorrow”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LF1975 (talk • contribs)

In response to both editors above and to anyone else reading, as one of the only editors at the moment trying to keep some form of control on the section I'm not trying to advocate who is correct, just what is verifiable. Taken from this link;

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that readers should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed.

Unfortunately Wikipedia is not the place for analysing the risks, only for documenting what is verifiable. I've stated all through this furore, there has been popular press on the issue, it is a perceived problem therefore it is quite right that there is a section on these issues. But what Wikipedia (or it's editors) can't do is draw conclusion within the article itself. There have been a number of studies carried out on this accelerator and others that reach the same conclusion, these have been referenced in the article. If there are any published papers etc, that confirm or support the black holes or any other issues then by all means add them, but what we can't have is 'I heard it from a man in a pub who said he was a physicists' stories. I will not remove information that is verifiable (hence the reason I have left the stranglets paper, though can't access it) and information that does not constitute as original research.

I have deleted 2 sets of links within the article and have done so with this in mind.

I personally think that I have left the section with a balanced perspective and to the first editor I think it's disingenuous to be calling either party fanatical. Cheers ^Khukri 15:06, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I realise that I might have offended some CERN scientists by using the term "fanatically" previously. I'm ready to apologise and delete the text myself with one condition. But before that I would like to state that I understand by “fanatic” the following:

- Someone who’s so convinced that he is right that he refuses to even consider another opinion contrary to his own (e.g. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, etc), and moreover wants to impose on others his own believes/values (e.g. terrorists, religious fanatics, etc).

All these considered here’s my condition to apologise and delete the text:

The supporters of the experiment to thoroughly consider the concerns and arguments of the other part and if they come to the conclusion that the risk is absolutely zero without any margin of error, to show this proof to the public.—Preceding unsigned comment added by LF1975 (talk • contribs) 12:42, 7 January 2008

I would like to reiterate the reminder that this article needs to follow Wikipedia's official policies and guidelines. Specifically, supposition and other original research has no place here, claims both pro and con need to be properly sourced and cited, and sources should be strictly limited to reliable, third-party, published sources. --Kralizec! (talk) 16:22, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I did not make myself clear (sorry if that sounds arrogant). I don’t know if the LHC is safe or not. No one does. This is because there is always some chance that something strange and un-foreseen will happen. The article should say that most people (scientists, politicians etc) THINK that it is safe because that is verifiable. It should also say that some people THINK it is not safe because that is also verifiable. I am not saying that we can verify that it is safe and that it is not safe. I am saying we can verify that some people THINK it is safe and some people don’t. We can also verify that the project is continuing. So the safety section should say

1. Most people THINK it is safe

2. Some people THINK it is un safe

3. The project continues

Kralizec! is quite right to say that only what is verifiable should go in.

Thanks you

CaptinJohn (talk) 10:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I've re-worded the colour stranglets part, as the chinese letter only theorises about the stability of color locked stranglets in relation to Iron. It does not theorise on their relationship or their ability to turn anything into anything. Though the stranglets article does give a much better description on the process about neutron stars etc. It's with this in mind this topic seem to have been brought up in other articles, RHIC and here. I propose to create on single entry on wikipedia about these fears and the science behind them, might I suggest that;

• Black holes segment be merged into Black_hole#Black_holes_and_Earth
• Stranglets segment me merged into Strangelets#Danger_of_strangelets:_catalyzed_conversion_to_strange_matter

These two sections better describe the issues, and the chinese theoretical paper can be added here if you so wish? Cheers ^Khukri 11:05, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Also I've just indented some of the above discussions, to make it easy to follow and to attribute who said what to whom. Please feel free to revert if you aren't happy with it. ^Khukri 12:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

There is parts of the colour flavour-locked stranglets thoy that have assurances that saids that it won't convert the earth into a strange can someone please add this to the article and keep it there (that means you Homocion :) ) to have to sides of the safety argument's of the collider.

We need have a Dispute resolution over this. And please stop using the talk page as getting the point of view as this is not a fourm but a ::way to approve the article 116.240.141.173 (talk) 10:01, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that, I've finally manage to gain access to the report but not being a scientist, can't claim to understand the intricacies of the letter. To help with this discussion, could you point out clearly where in the report it says it will or will not do anything, because all I can see is it theorising about the stability of colour-stranglets in relation to iron. ^Khukri 10:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

This came from the page 4 right hand side from the report:News solutions for the color-flavor locked strangelets

uThe slet-2 and 3 are more stable than the normal unpaired strangelets, and so may have chances to be produced in the modern heavy ion collision experiments However they are unable to transform our planet into astrange star for the following two reasons. First, the positively charged slet-1 is the energy minimum for the same parameters. And secondly, when the electron’s Compton wave length ( ≈ 386 fm) is reached, the constraint ne = 0,(or, equivalently, µu = µd = µs ) is no longer valid, and so the strangelet will be neutralized and ceases to expand its size. --116.240.141.173 (talk) 11:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Strangelet Section

THE CENSOR HAS ERASED THE ENTIRE SECTION OF STRANGELETS, SINCE LHC WILL BE PRIMARILY A PRODUCER OF STRANGE MATTER (AS RHIC WAS BEFORE IT) TO CENSOR STRANGE PHYSICS (ALSO IN STRANGELET AND STRANGE MATTER ARTICLE) AND SPENDING 14 BILLION $ TO CONSTRUCT A MACHINE TO make STRANGE MATTER, SEEMS SOMEWHAT A CONTRADICTION. i reposted again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homocion (talk • contribs) 00:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I am not "the censor", I am a physicist who has worked for many years on strange matter and strangelets. If you want to add material on this topic then please propose it on this talk page first, and I will help you make it correct. What you added isn't correct, which is why I have deleted it.Dark Formal (talk) 02:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Glad you did; I was about to tag the section {{inappropriate tone}} and {{technical}}. --Kralizec! (talk) 03:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Could you please explain why it's incorrect, otherwise we end up with an "oh yes it is, oh no it's not argument" and bring this once and for all to a conclusion. Thanks ^Khukri 15:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Cosmic Ray Argument

There is certain disputes over if cosmic rays collisions from the atmosphere are the same thing as particle colliers such as RHIC and LHC. Can we talk about this matter? 116.240.143.97 (talk) 07:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I've seen personal opinions that there are contradictions, and the article often gets edited as such, but I'm still waiting for verifiable 3rd party sources to explain the physics behind these fears. The CERN report is at the top of the article, but I haven't seen any published papers that refute CERN's position or directly calls them into question. Cheers ^Khukri 15:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a significant difference between miniature black holes [MBHs] created in nature, and those that might be created at the LHC. The constant bombardment of earth's atmosphere by high-Energy cosmic rays does duplicate, and exceed, the center-of-momentum [COM] energy capability of the LHC, based on the recent November 9, 2007 Pierre Auger announcement essentially proving that those highest-energy cosmic rays are high-speed protons that originate from extra-galactic AGNs in "nearby" galaxies. The very reason we build colliders is to take advantage of the fact that if we generate the collisions in earth's reference frame, we have the full energy of the collision available for particle production. The cosmic rays, though of very high energy, have a much lower energy in the COM rest frame, which is the frame of interest for particle production. However, with the recent Pierre Auger results showing those cosmic rays to be normal protons, even the COM energy of the collisions of those protons with earth's atmosphere exceeds the LHC capability [but only by about 3 orders of marnitude].

That does not prove that MBHs are safe.

The rest frame of the collision product of such high-E protons is very high speed. The incoming protons are at about .9999999999999999999999c [if I counted the 9s right]. The collision product is reduced in the number of 9s, but is still very nearly relativistic. In other words, if the collision product is a MBH, it will be a near-relativistic MBH that would then strike earth after being created in the atmosphere. At that speed, it would transit earth in about 1/4 second [if it has not evaporated by Hawking Radiation, which is the issue of concern].

The likelihood of interaction of such high-speed MBH is extremely minimal. In the parlance of nuclear reactor neutrons, it would have a very tiny cross-section for interaction. It would require a 'direct hit' in order to accrete a nucleon, and it would be of such small mass that its ability to 'suck in' matter due to its own gravitation would be infintessimally small. It would, for all intents and purposes, be the gravitational equivalent for the neutrino's exceptionally tiny cross-section for interaction with respect to the far stronger 'weak force'. Trillions of neutrinos pass through us each second, yet they never interact. Only with great care and precision can we detect that they can interact on rare occasion [see our work at Fermilab for details].

This contrasts sharply with "at rest" MBHs as would be produced at the LHC. The phrase "at rest" is quoted, because they would have some inherent kinetic energy relative to earth, but not much. An appreciable percentage would have speeds below escape velocity [40,000 kph] anda become gravitationally bound to earth [if they don't "evaporate" via Hawking Radiation]. They are "at rest" because that is the design of the LHC, to have the two beams of circulating protons [or Pb ions] of equal but opposite momentum, so as to both maximize the available energy for particle production, and to create something in which the particle detectors can be placed 360 degrees around it, and not just in the forward direction [as in fixed-target accelerators]

By being captured by earth's gravity, if they don't evaporate, they would endlessly orbit through earth, giving repeated opportunity to interact and grow. Production of millions of them [as some have suggested might be the case], coupled with an inherent growth capability that might be as short as millenia to accrete earth, could be disatrous, which is the reason some of us mainstream physicists with backgrounds in applied nuclear physics, who have obviously thought about this in greater detail than have the CERN physicists, are concerned. <Noah>