Review of Long-Term Black Hole Risks

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DCWhitworth
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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by DCWhitworth » Sun Mar 21, 2010 10:14 pm

Stephen wrote:This article seems very accurate and fact based. You can just skip to the conclusions section to get the general idea, because the paper is very long. Is there any way to disprove it, or is the author right in his conclusions and the catastrophic implications to the LHC? I'm getting really scared. :sad-pacing:
Stephen, all you need to know is on the first page.

It says "Draft for Discussion" - until it has been reviewed by qualified scientists and published as an accepted scientific paper I'm not even going to bother looking at it let alone worrying about it.

*That* is how science is done, anyone can publish anything they like but until it's been professionally reviewed it's worthless.
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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by CharmQuark » Sun Mar 21, 2010 10:36 pm

Danny252 wrote:Minor apology, I've been a bit dicky all night. I blame annoying people.

But it still holds that the paper doesn't seem to hold up.
No worries Danny ;)
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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by CharmQuark » Sun Mar 21, 2010 10:55 pm

DCWhitworth wrote:
emmylou wrote:Came on Danny the poor guy is scared stiff......... he can't help feeling like this.........and yes it has been explained to him over and over again, but maybe he just don't understand enough physics to get a grip on things.......must be really horrible for him.......... :ugeek:
I'm not sure I agree. *I* don't understand enough physics to get to grips with the arguments one way or another in which case you have to be aware that you are likley to be preyed upon by people who want to frighten you for their own ends.

You have to ask yourself whether you are going to let yourself be a victim or whether you are going to trust reliable sources that tell you everything is going to be OK.

The modern world is now more full of shysters and scaremongerers than at any time in history due to the ease of mass communication.

DC :D ok maybe i said that wrong, I am going by what i have gone through and believe me i have some really hard times, but i have learned at least the basics of why not to be scared which to a certain extent i have done, however Stephen has a very different mind to mine and it looks like he can't get out of the circle of being scared, I was scared very scared sometimes i am still very scared but when I ask the questions and get the answers to calm me i don't dwel on things......anyways i have said enough :D
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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by DCWhitworth » Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:06 pm

emmylou wrote: DC :D ok maybe i said that wrong, I am going by what i have gone through and believe me i have some really hard times, but i have learned at least the basics of why not to be scared which to a certain extent i have done, however Stephen has a very different mind to mine and it looks like he can't get out of the circle of being scared, I was scared very scared sometimes i am still very scared but when I ask the questions and get the answers to calm me i don't dwel on things......anyways i have said enough :D
OK well if you are the sort of person who worries (and I admit I am) I guess the question you have to ask yourself is "What am I going to worry about ?". There is *so* much scary stuff out there that you could die worrying about things if you're not careful.

If a man knocks on your front door and starts telling you stuff you don't understand about the LHC and saying it is unsafe do you believe him ?

If the same man tries to do the same thing by writing a convincing looking (to you) scientific paper, do you believe that ?

That paper is -
a. Published on a dedicated anti-LHC website
b. Has not been refereed by other scientists

That is plenty enough for me to be very, very sceptical about it.
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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by CharmQuark » Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:26 pm

DCWhitworth wrote:
OK well if you are the sort of person who worries (and I admit I am) I guess the question you have to ask yourself is "What am I going to worry about ?". There is *so* much scary stuff out there that you could die worrying about things if you're not careful.

If a man knocks on your front door and starts telling you stuff you don't understand about the LHC and saying it is unsafe do you believe him ?

If the same man tries to do the same thing by writing a convincing looking (to you) scientific paper, do you believe that ?

That paper is -
a. Published on a dedicated anti-LHC website
b. Has not been refereed by other scientists

That is plenty enough for me to be very, very sceptical about it.
Ok at one point if that man had came to my door and told me the LHC was unsafe yes i would have belived him 110% now no i wouldn't.

However if he scribbled some numbers and letter on a piece of paper yes i would completely freak out, because i don't understand enough not too.

there is always gonna be people out there who are like omg the LHC is gonna kill us it won't stop, Like you have said it's how you set your mind, if you worry about it everyday then you will make yourself ill, I am a person that worries but i have other things to worry about in my life apart from whether we are all gonna get turned to mush or not ;)
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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by Kasuha » Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:28 pm

Yet another fact that always comes on my mind is, people around LHC are not mad scientists who are ready to die in the name of science. They:

1/ understand the matter and can consider real risks
2/ have their own lives and families they want to return to after doing science at LHC

So any theory about how they are going to destroy our world is just yet another conspiracy theory out of thousands others we already know.

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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by DCWhitworth » Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:39 pm

Kasuha wrote:Yet another fact that always comes on my mind is, people around LHC are not mad scientists who are ready to die in the name of science. They:

1/ understand the matter and can consider real risks
2/ have their own lives and families they want to return to after doing science at LHC

So any theory about how they are going to destroy our world is just yet another conspiracy theory out of thousands others we already know.
Yes, most of these theories when dismissed by reputable scientists fall back on the cry of "They're all in a conspiracy together !"

Total cobblers.
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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by CharmQuark » Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:41 pm

Kasuha wrote:Yet another fact that always comes on my mind is, people around LHC are not mad scientists who are ready to die in the name of science. They:

1/ understand the matter and can consider real risks
2/ have their own lives and families they want to return to after doing science at LHC

So any theory about how they are going to destroy our world is just yet another conspiracy theory out of thousands others we already know.
Can't argue with that Kasuha :thumbup:
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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by Xymox » Mon Mar 22, 2010 12:47 am

I moved this to controversial topics as that is what it is...

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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by Stephen » Mon Mar 22, 2010 4:33 am

Danny252 wrote: He makes comments about millions of black holes being created by White Dwarfs and Neutron Stars. This raises the question of "why do we see White Dwarfs if they make so many black holes?". The first source discusses this in detail, stating that of these millions, around 5000 are captured by the white dwarf per million years. Also, as White Dwarfs have been seen to be older than 100 million years old - implying that these black holes must eat through them very, very, very slowly, if at all.
You're just repeating the same old arguments, while the author makes certain new claim to invalid these arguments. Basically, the article states that neutron stars are protected from black holes by their powerful magnetic fields. This argument was accepted by CERN scientists, who later moved to a more convincing argument of 8 white dwarfs without a magnetic field. The author of the paper then claims that 4 of these white dwarfs are disqualified from being used to demonstrate the safety of the LHC. It also states that it is not clear whether these white dwarfs were as dense 100 million years ago as they are now, so it's not certain that clack holes would have been trapped there at that time.

Feel free to address these specific concerns. Yes, I'm familiar with the following argument:
Pro LHC person: "The earth, the sun and other planets are constantly bombarded with cosmic rays with much higher energies, and we're still here."
Anti LHC person: "Cosmic rays have different velocities than the collisions of the LHC, so any black holes created by them would have passed us straight through."
Pro LHC person: "There are much denser bodies than the sun, like white dwarfs and neutron stars which would have trapped these black holes a long time ago."

However, the author of the article goes to the next level and explains why he think these arguments are not valid. Therefore I don't see how these are just the same claims we have been discussing for the past year and a half.

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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by Stephen » Mon Mar 22, 2010 4:48 am

DCWhitworth wrote: OK well if you are the sort of person who worries (and I admit I am) I guess the question you have to ask yourself is "What am I going to worry about ?". There is *so* much scary stuff out there that you could die worrying about things if you're not careful.

If a man knocks on your front door and starts telling you stuff you don't understand about the LHC and saying it is unsafe do you believe him ?

If the same man tries to do the same thing by writing a convincing looking (to you) scientific paper, do you believe that ?

That paper is -
a. Published on a dedicated anti-LHC website
b. Has not been refereed by other scientists

That is plenty enough for me to be very, very sceptical about it.
I've come a long way since September 2008, and I have calmed down a little and did hours of research to know the facts behind the safety of the LHC. I can prove this fact by showing you my phone bills from certain months of the past year, which included many calls I made overseas in order to talk to physicists all over the world about my safety concerns.

I don't get scared when I hear arguments I'm familiar with because people explained to me why they are not true. However, if I hear new arguments which seem convincing, then I completely panic.

The paper being discussed here is not some kind of a comment on a fear mongering website containing many grammatical errors. It is a 300 pages document, containing many references to other article about physics, and addressing all previous arguments presented by scientists. How do you expect me not to get scared, especially when this article was published this month and had no time to be reviewed or published in any well knows science journal?

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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by Stephen » Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:16 am

emmylou wrote: DC :D ok maybe i said that wrong, I am going by what i have gone through and believe me i have some really hard times, but i have learned at least the basics of why not to be scared which to a certain extent i have done, however Stephen has a very different mind to mine and it looks like he can't get out of the circle of being scared, I was scared very scared sometimes i am still very scared but when I ask the questions and get the answers to calm me i don't dwel on things......anyways i have said enough :D
emmylou :romance-kisscheek:

I get upset when people dismiss any safety concerns I have, by saying completely irrelevant things. Of course the physicists working on this experiment are not suicidal and would try to stop this experiment if they believed it to be dangerous. Yes, I get that physicists have on average higher IQ than fear mongers. However, these statements prove nothing regarding the questions I ask, so I don't see the point in repeating them over and over again. I'm not forcing anyone to answer my questions or participate in this discussion, so those who are tired of discussing black holes etc., are more than welcome to ignore this topic instead of personally attacking me and my intelligence.

Thank you for understanding where I'm coming from. I'm indeed still afraid of things, but I try to calm myself down using logic and science because I too know the basics of why not to be afraid. It doesn't mean that I automatically dismiss any other safety concerns, because new claim are being made every day.

Danny - I also had a bad day. I blame it on anti LHC fanatics, pro LHC fanatics and the government. Just because all safety concerns have been disproved so far, it doesn't mean that we need to ignore all future concerns. Automatically believing the claims to be false is not less dumb than automatically believing the claims to be true.

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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by Shadowdraxx » Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:56 am

Ok, so tempers flair, but yeah I know what its like when you think you have it all figured out finally, then for someone to pull another trick out of the hat.

So I understand this stephen, but I guess everyone is really tired of claim/counter claim etc etc, I'm tired of it too, tired of having to go thro it to re-convince myself all is well.

We all just need to be thoughtful here.

Peace out

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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by Xymox » Mon Mar 22, 2010 8:58 am

Wow my goodness...

We all need a group hug now dont we...

:romance-grouphug:

And just randomly..

:orcs-buttshake:

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Re: Review of Black Hole Risks

Post by Kasuha » Mon Mar 22, 2010 9:08 am

Stephen wrote:You're just repeating the same old arguments, while the author makes certain new claim to invalid these arguments.
I fail to see how survivability of neutron stars can affect safety of LHC.
It all reminds me of a B-grade horror movie - you can enjoy the thrill, but you must ignore things that defy elementary logic. Such as that the main character which was taking his shotgun with him even to the bathroom suddenly hears a horrible scream, then uses his shotgun as a paperweight and goes exploring dark basement with no light.

Let's call whatever horrible phenomenon we are discussing here a whale. It's supposed to eat us all so I guess the name fits and you can imagine a black hole, strangelet, or whatever else under that name.

pro-LHC: whale is purely hypothetical
anti-LHC: whale will 100% be created in LHC at XYZ energy
pro-LHC: nobody has noticed whale in cosmic ray collisions for tens of years
anti-LHC: you were not paying attention
pro-LHC: even in the unlikely case the whale can be created and we did not see it, there is no difference between it being created in LHC and by cosmic rays
anti-LHC: there's big difference between LHC collisions and cosmic ray collisions because of center of mass
pro-LHC: all collision matter is leaving the collision site at almost speed of light, where is the difference?
anti-LHC: neutron stars can survive whales

huh?

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