LHC Facts

I have seen collider advocates … assume that anyone who questions colliders must be a nut. When they find a collider opponent who asks tough questions, some take their ball and go home.

[These] questions seem quite legitimate to me…

[The] most serious challenge is to Walter Wagner. I rise to defend him. I know the details. I donated the first money he ever got. I think he started his LHC Defense because of my donation.

Walter is the founding father of this field of thought. In 1999 he had a letter to the editor published in Scientific American, a letter that rather gently questioned whether the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, which was then being built at Brookhaven, might be dangerous. This started an earlier version of the present media flap. Brookhaven managed to turn off the flap by issuing a report by a group of physicists that considered black holes, strangelets, and transition to a lower vacuum state, and gave what appeared to be strong reasons not to worry. This successfully convinced most people and turned off the media flap. (Unfortunately, the reasons they gave not to worry did not age well. They said that black hole creation required energy beyond the reach of any collider. Now black hole production is predicted by some theories. They also said that a collection of strangelets would be electrically positive on its surface and therefore not attract normal matter. A recent physics paper says they can be electrically negative on their surface.)

Walter also tried a lawsuit at that time, but did not pursue it.

I learned about this issue in 2000. I read a popular article in Scientific American that predicted black hole production at colliders. This article said that Hawking radiation would immediately dissipate black holes. I knew a bit about Hawking radiation. One thing I knew about it is that it has never been seen–scientists have never gotten close enough to a black hole to be able to see it. As a statistician I had been working with low probability risk, so I was quite aware of the logic behind the precautionary principle. This seemed an important place to apply that logic.

I tried writing a letter to the editor. It was not published. I tried writing other things that were also not published. Editors had learned from the Brookhaven flap that there was no problem. Eventually I helped to set up two websites, http://www.risk-evaluation-forum.org and http://www.global-risk-sig.org. As I studied the history of the issue I learned about Walter’s letter. I tried to call him once, but he was out. A year or so later, I was impressed when he contacted me via email. He, I and a few others became part of a small group of collider opponents who exchanged email for a couple of years. As an indication of the level of the group, I was the only one who did not have some kind of doctorate–I only had three master’s degrees. One was a Ph.D. physicist, another a global risk expert. We tried a lot of things to try to put the collider issue back on the public agenda. We tried to publish papers, letters to the editor, open letters. We applied for grant funds. We wrote to top scientists. Nothing seemed to work. (Actually, I am not sure but have reason to believe that one of the top scientists we contacted helped convince CERN to set up their current Large Hadron Collider Safety Analysis Group.) Finally one day Walter spoke of filing another lawsuit. He said he would prefer to hire a lawyer, but could file the suit himself. However, even that would cost several thousand dollars in expenses. I immediately gave him $1,000, and another member of the group did likewise.

I have great respect for Walter. He has worked on the collider issue for years, and can write well about it. He is basically a nice guy. He can also be a bit flaky at times. I knew that he had some legal problems. If I could find, and pay for, a better lawyer, I would hire that lawyer. Walter also would prefer to hire another lawyer. It is not easy to find a lawyer to take this case. I have written to dozens of lawyers in Europe, and have yet to find one interested in taking the case there. Of course it would help if we had more money. Walter has been operating on a shoestring.

Whitegoddess disparages donating to the LHCdefense fund. Yes, at the moment I believe it goes directly into Walter’s pocket. He is operating on a shoestring. However I saw a letter he wrote to a potential donor in which he offered to set up a not-for-profit organization, if he could get help in setting up that organization.
I also would like to set up a not-for-profit organization. I have looked into the procedures and the costs. There are legal, accounting, and insurance costs. It can be done on a shoestring, but that takes work, and has problems. Bylaws and a board of directors are required. I would be a bit uncomfortable volunteering to work on that board if there were no officers and directors liability insurance. Doing it right costs thousands of dollars. If someone would like to donate those thousands (or donate the legal and accounting work) we can set up a not-for-profit organization to collect donations for this cause. I volunteer to work for that organization, if it is done right. By now setting up this organization may take too much time since LHC startup is due soon, although such an organization could work on similar issues in the future. Another possibility is to get an existing not-for-profit, tax exempt organization to administer the money. (This is done fairly frequently in the world of grant funding.) Does anyone know of an organization that would be willing to do this for this issue? It is quite possible that someone here happens to belong to such an organization. Otherwise, there is something to be said for trusting Walter. If one doesn’t trust Walter, I can suggest ways to spend money directly out of your own pocket, for specific things that would help.

I would like to have a better organization. To quote former defense secretary Rumsfeld, “You go to war with the army you’ve got, not the army you would like to have.” Actually, our “army” (an important principle is that we are all independent intellectuals) is getting better all the time. For example, I am impressed with this website. But we do not have time to wait for our group to become perfect, or to even to address many of the legitimate problems that critics might point out.