LHC concerns

From: Why we're concerned

 

...Why We're Concerned

To explain the concern thoroughly and accurately it has to be stated that the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva is not the first particle accelerator in history. In 1929 the Cyclotron, invented and developed by Ernest O. Lawrence, was the first particle accelerator, and from that initial invention over several decades we have come into a new breed of Larger and More Powerful Particle Accelerators. Although we have had particle accelerators in the past, The luminosity at which these operate has increased dramatically, in fact it is true that prior to the construction of the RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) such theories as MBH Production, Strangelets, and several other theories were placed on the table as relevant possibilities.

So, what's different this time?

this is the point that has to be emphasized, this time things are quite different, a study was conducted after initial concerns for the RHIC were explored, and to their conclusion the amount of energy necessary for these scenarios was not sufficient. The Large Hadron Collider operates at a total combined energy of 14TeV, which is a lot higher than the energies generated by the RHIC, as such the possibility of Black Hole creation is a reality, in fact on CERN's own web site they admit it could create Black Holes, here is an excerpt from Safety at the LHC

"If the LHC can produce microscopic black holes, cosmic rays of much higher energies would already have produced many more. Since the Earth is still here, there is no reason to believe that collisions inside the LHC are harmful. Black holes lose matter through the emission of energy via a process discovered by Stephen Hawking. Any black hole that cannot attract matter, such as those that might be produced at the LHC, will shrink, evaporate and disappear. The smaller the black hole, the faster it vanishes. If microscopic black holes were to be found at the LHC, they would exist only for a fleeting moment. They would be so short-lived that the only way they could be detected would be by detecting the products of their decay."

We'll cover the theoretical problem of this statement in the next section.

So, what's the problem?

In theory (according to Hawking Radiation) any Black Hole created would evaporate in Femtoseconds, not having the chance to accrete any mass, and being essentially harmless, although this is comforting in theory, It has never been proven, and in fact has been questioned before. The problem is that although most people in the physics community believe in Hawkings Radiation, it has no basis in observation. In 2003 Adam D. Helfer Published a paper concerning Hawking's Radiation coming to the conclusion that Hawking's Radiation may in fact be incorrect, and that a Black Hole would not lose mass in such a way. (For the full text of this document go here Paper By Adam D. Helfer on Hawking Radiation.)

In fact since the LHC has been on the drawing board several studies and theories which have gained a lot of support in the scientific community such as "String Theory" and "Extra-Large Hidden Dimensions" have surfaced, which do indeed place the threshold for Black Hole Creation much lower than previously thought.

The main problem lies in believing in theory as fact, every argument for safety made concerning Black Holes and thier creation immediately references Hawking Radiation, however, if Hawking Radiation turns out to be incorrect then the Black Hole would continue to accrete mass at an exponential rate...