Will this machine destroy the world?
TALKING POINT: Scientists fear black holes from particle collider switch-on.
Published:
COULD this machine spell the end of the world?
The largest, most expensive scientific experiment in history, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), is to be turned on next Wednesday.
The £4 billion-plus particle accelerator has been built under the Swiss-French border near Geneva. It has been called the most powerful device built for probing the secrets of the atom and the forces and particles which make up our universe.
However, some scientists claim the switch-on could lead to a massive black-hole being created and swallowing the world.
But University of Aberdeen physicist Dr Jan Skakle insists there is no “doomsday scenario” and is urging people in the North-east not to panic.
She said: “There is not going to be anything happening in this instrument that doesn’t happen every day.
“The Earth will not be ending when the machine is switched on.”
The LHC has been created by the European nuclear research organisation (CERN).
Six detectors – individual experiments – will count, trace and analyse the particles that emerge from the collisions.
The device is in a tunnel with a circumference of about 16.5 miles, buried about 300ft underground.
A report issued by the company say there is “no conceivable danger”.
But a group of scientists, led by German Otto Rossler, are using the European Convention on Human Rights to argue that, should the LHC destroy the entire universe, it would “violate the right to life and right to private family life”.
However, Dr Skakle, who has been lecturing at the university for 11 years, disagrees.
She said: “People think a black hole is going to be created and the whole Earth is going to be swallowed into it.
“But it’s not possible for about five different reasons.
“If they do manage to create the black holes they will be so tiny they will immediately wink out of existence.
“We are very used to watching programmes such as Star Trek and seeing black holes sucking things into them.
“But they are not big vacuum cleaners.
“In the worst possible scenario it would be a long time for something to happen and that is just as likely to happen from the cosmic rays going into the atmosphere every day.”
The LHC is funded and built in collaboration with more than 8,000 physicists from more than 85 countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories.
The LHC was founded in the early 1980s, approval was given in December 1994 and the first civil engineering construction work began in April 1998.
It was due to be switched on in November but the date was rescheduled for Wednesday.
Readers' Comments
they saaid the Titanic could not sink and look what happened to it - wander what Dr Skakle will say when there is a problem
Thomas Owenson
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