LHC Facts

The following exchange took place on the Talk page of the Wikipedia article for the Large Hadron Collider primarily between myself and Bill Wwheaton who has been representing CERNs interests concerning safety content of this article.

Wikipedia Large Hadron Collider Article, Talk Page

Rees & Close

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Risk Calculations and Assumptions reasonable quality, short discussion of risks and calculations at Martin Meenagh blog and some related calculations at James Blodgett on Risks Including this assessment:

If the following reasonable and plausible assumptions prove to be correct, then the uncomfortable truth may be that the probability of destruction of Earth could be closer to 100%, far from the often quoted 1 in 50 million, though only mother nature currently knows for certain due to our limited understanding of the physics involved.

A. LHC Creates black holes as CERN Predicted (1 per second) 1.

B. Micro Black holes do not evaporate as LSAG accepts is plausible. 2

C. One or more micro black holes are captured by Earth’s gravity as LSAG accepts as plausible. 3

D. Micro Black holes grow exponentially as Dr. Otto E. Rossler’s paper predicts and calculates. 4

–Jtankers (talk) 15:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the references, I think they do not support the attached statements, and in fact the entire post is just a copy of one to an outside blog. I think we are in a rut here, and have posted a suggestion for getting out in a new section below. Bill Wwheaton (talk) 10:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, all of the statements are fully supported and supportable. Do you dispute the factuality of any of the statements? –Jtankers (talk) 15:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I dispute A, that CERN predicted BH production at 1 BH/s, certainly not in the reference 1; B, I do not agree that LSAG (LHC Safety Assessment Group) accepts the invalidity of Hawking’s BH evaporation as plausible; or that the reference given 2, to Helfer’s paper, supports the assertion that they do; C, I do not see that your [8] ref 3, supports your claim that “LSAG accepts…”; and D, while Ressler predicts (& I agree) that a micro-BH inside the Earth would probably grow exponentially after reaching a certain size, this only leads to a meaningful statement about risk (compared to other inevitable planetary risks) when the characteristic timescale for the exponential growth is specified as well. The natural growth time with reasonable accretion efficiency seems to be millions of years, and it appears to me that at least twenty such periods should be required.

Then again, your apparent quotation re “…reasonable and plausible assumptions …” , which appears to be an outside reference, is actually just a verbatim copy of the above post, by you, as posted to a blog. It is clearly not a reliable source according to Wiki standards, and I cannot personally accept it as reasonable or plausible. Finally, your …“could be close to 100%”… statement, if supposed to be supported by multiplying your four likelihoods together—each cherry-picked from the extreme fringes of uncertainty in my opinion—is really not a probability at all (or else if it is, then I can respond that “the probability of destruction of the Earth is 99.9% in any case”, with perfect assurance. FYI, when I multiply my own “worst reasonable case” estimates of the above four probabilities together I get 1/300,000,000, with the additional caveat that if BHs are produced at LHC (only for special ranges of string theory compactification, etc) then they should interact strongly with the Earth, and the cosmic-ray argument, applied to neutron stars, would take hold and reduce the odds by a further factor of maybe 1000. And as one final point: I think it is not reasonable to assume that all the more than 2000 knowledgeable scientists working on LHC are so demented or in denial as to be incapable of assessing the danger of mass murder & suicide for themselves and their families. The essence of sanity is to be able to distinguish between what is possible and what is probable , after all. (This is supposed to be easy, but in the modern world, I fear it is not.)

So forgive me, James; I believe you are sincerely worried, and on a mission to save the Earth, and I have to honor that even though I think your arguments are not convincing. I will continue to defend this front until I see more clearly, either here or in another dedicated article. Best, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 00:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Bill,

You state that you have some questions about or dispute points A, B and C. The following citations and relevant quotes support the assertions above, plus a brief summary of Dr. Otto E. Rossler’s theory of fast accretion that was posted to LHCFacts.org

A. LHC Creates black holes as CERN Predicted (1 per second)

STUDY OF POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS EVENTS DURING HEAVY-ION COLLISIONS AT THE LHC

“… we see that the (4 + d) black hole will be produced if M is not much larger than 1 TeV.”

The case for mini black holes, CERN Courier

“… the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could allow it to become a black-hole factory with a production rate as high as about one per second”

B. Micro Black holes do not evaporate as LSAG accepts is plausible.

LHC: what if … ? Michelangelo Mangano CERN, TH-PH

“At the LHC, some [MBH] … could start growing”

LHCSafetyAssessment.Group@cern.ch Sun 3/16/08 6:06 AM

“… we are not working under teh assumption that BHs decay. …We are in fact working under the assumption that they are stable”

Dr. Adam D. Helfer Do black holes radiate?

“this prediction rests on two dubious assumptions…”

“no compelling theoretical case for or against radiation by black holes”

Dr. William G. Unruh and Prof. Ralf Schützhold On the Universality of the Hawking Effect

“Therefore, whether real black holes emit Hawking radiation or not remains an open question”

Prof. V.A. Belinski On the existence of quantum evaporation of a black hole

“…the effect [Hawking Radiation] does not exist.”

James Blodgett (Masters Degree in Statistics) 2004 Delphi Study on LHC Risks

“I asked [15] physicists… estimates that Hawking radiation would fail ranged from 0% to 50%…” [average 9.9% doubt].

C. One or more micro black holes are captured by Earth’s gravity as LSAG accepts as plausible.

LHC: what if … ? Michelangelo Mangano CERN, TH-PH

“At the LHC, some of them [MBH] will have v<10 km/s, will be gravitationally trapped”

LHCSafetyAssessment.Group@cern.ch Sun 3/16/08 6:06 AM

“…particles that in head-on collisions … find themselves at rest.” [percentage of at rest results from head-on symmetric collisions unknown]

D. Micro Black holes grow exponentially as Dr. Otto E. Rossler’s paper predicts and calculates.

Bill Wwheaton: “while Ressler predicts (& I agree) that a micro-BH inside the Earth would probably grow exponentially after reaching a certain size”

fyi: Professor Dr. Otto E. Rossler’s theory is that when a MBH accretes a charged particle, say electron, this will not go straight into the MBH, but will circulate around the MBH for a while, and by doing this, a magnetic field will be created which will attract positive and negative charged particles, each at the opposite poles of the MBH, thus accelerating the accretion rate. He estimates potentially as few as 50 months from creation to full Earth accretion

–Jtankers (talk) 04:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you have any references that don’t need to be misrepresented to back up the views expressed on your blog? I got through the first few refs you’ve provided, before giving up. You do realise that saying “Even if X were true, Y would still be false”, does not imply that the writers feel X is is any way true, right? — Mark Chovain 05:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The assertion is merely that the concept is considered plausible and that it is not reasonable to exclude the possibility. In the case of Hawking Radiation the implication is that the net consensus of the cited authors is that the probability can probably be best estimated at 50% at most. But all that is asserted is only that the concept is plausible and not reasonable to exclude the possibility. –Jtankers (talk) 05:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Then at best, this whole thing is original research, because you still haven’t provided a reference showing that there are valid safety concerns. Your refs do not say that it is plausible. Some say that micro black holes likely exist (at higher energies), while others say that even if they did exist at low energies, the LHC would still be safe. That is nothing like saying it is plausible that micro black holes will be created at a rate of 1 per second: an assumption your synthesis requires. — Mark Chovain 05:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The prediction of possible creation of micro black holes at a rate of 1 per second was posted on CERN’s safety web site earlier in 2008. This prediction was also published in the CERN Courier and by other news sources: The case for mini black holes, CERN Courier Quote: “… the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could allow it to become a black-hole factory with a production rate as high as about one per second” I believe this indicates that the assertion is considered plausible by CERN. –Jtankers (talk) 12:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)