You have a little giggle at Mr Wagner's description of "Generva, Switzerland" and then drop a clanger of your own by saying "unescapable" instead of "inescapable."

And yes, that is the most dangerous thing in that article. Mr Wagner seems the type to suggest that we would all be wiped away by the enormous gravitational forces of all the planets being aligned with the sun at a single moment. Last time it happened, a couple of years back, Patrick Moore very snottily explained that the gravitational effects would be about the same as a bus passing your front door.

Which isn't far from what the boffins at CERN appear to have said.

He managed to be both the plaintiff and the defendant and no-one noticed until the garden received the bill.

He may be a loon, but he's a loon with some serious balls!

keep up the great work!

So the Swiss get sucked into the vortex with their mountains plugging the hole to save the rest of us. With Switzerland annihilated there will be nowhere for aviators to march too when shot down in the ensuing land grab of Euro-War XXVVXII, what with the existing border countries having been stretched by a few hundred miles to carpet over what will be known as the Swiss Gap.

Go as in gone, bye, tata, etc to the Swiss

He'd do extremely well at the Microsoft law department.

Didn't he study law for three years? And he's got the FUD

tactics down pat

We need a Winnie the Pooh icon.

Soon be time to go home.

Speaking of nuclear particles, the sun is shining!

Like a parallel universe wouldn't be an improvement? Perhaps we might wake up in a universe without any Republicans? Hell, we might even wake up in a universe without an IT angle...

My weekend is sounding better already!

When they build a LHC under Pearl Harbour he can cry all he wants, till then fuck him.

I don't know about balls, but there's certainly some serious bollocks in there.

Nature creates conditions far more extreme than anything that a CERN atom-smasher will ever manage, every time a supernova goes bang, and yet here we all still are ...

I think my daughter did some of that cosmic-ray pooh-pooh yesterday. I'm sure it could have been detected from space.

A shiny pound coin to anyone who can identify the lyrics in the title.

Surely a more Wagnarian scenarios would be that the strangelet-custard conversion and monopole transmutation threats causes the manifestation of large breasted women on flying horses who drag us through the black hole into a giant hall where we spend the rest of eternity feasting!

Bring it on!

"The mint with a black hole". Which will also be the description of a Swiss bank account.

Aliens, because our overlords from a parallel universe are just waiting to invade us.

...But, I love you guys.

Seriously.

(No leg-humping though)

US citizen sues in US court to stop something happening elsewhere in the world.

"I Hope so Blackadder.

You know, if there's one thing I've learned from being in the army, it's never ignore a pooh-pooh.

I knew a major: got pooh-poohed; made the mistake of ignoring the pooh-pooh -- he pooh-poohed it.

Fatal error, because it turned out all along that the soldier who pooh-poohed him had been pooh-poohing a lot of other officers, who pooh-poohed their pooh-poohs.

In the end, we had to disband the regiment -- morale totally destroyed ...

by pooh-pooh!"

Absolute class!

"could be turned into a fearful strangelet soup"

It wouldn't be grey perchance?

Just make sure all the gold is moved out of the country before they run their tests.

... that this geezer is as mad as a wardrobe but if this ever gets out then the GMTV watching plebs, who get their science from Heat magazine will be panicking about being sucked into Black Hole.

I only have a layman's knowledge of particle physics but isn't it true that the LHC *might* create only atom sized black holes? And, according to Prof. Hawking, don't black holes ultimately go "pop" because of quantum leakage just outside the the event horizon? I would imagine that it won't take an atom-sized black hole long to wink out of existence...

And assuming that there is other sentiant intelligence out there and assuming that they're more intelligent than us, can't we assume they've been knocking about with the same things that the LHC is doing? And, oops, the Universe is still here!

Suprise!

Its called prior restraint. Even if he could prove that these things will happen they can't be stopped until they actually make an attempt, by which time its too late anyway.

Its the way of law. he should be aware as well that nuclear blasts that have already taken place have probably unleashed similar levels of energy in the proton collisions associated with them, and the earth still exists (for now).

"the boffinry community"

That alone makes it worth reading.

And pray tell, who is the official spokesperson (speaker?) for the boffinry community?

That's a nice job title to have on one's CV, eh?

been watching too much Futurama. There's an episode where Frey thinks of what would have happened if he hadn't fallen in the time capsule, and the whole Yooooniverse gets sucked up inside itself into white nothingness. Cool, but boring.

This concern has already been addressed, based on the strength of cosmic ray particles, but in any case, since when does a Hawaiian court have jurisdiction over Switzerland? It seems that this case is headed for the treatment it deserves.

...Is that he feels a US court has sufficient clout to stop an EU-based project dead in its tracks...

I had that same CERN/Wormhole dream once after 15 pints and a very hefty Phall, you shoulda seen the state of my sheets in the morning..

Incidentally, if CERN can produce the sort of power to produce even a tiny wormhole I think our energy crisis may be over.

Switzerland gone!? WOW! From an Italian POV, no more silly year-long highway toll stickers, way quicker travel times to the OktoberFest in Munich, and -lots- more parking space around Milan and Lake Garda. Quick, let the atom-shashers rip!

This guy is quite amusing, I think he should be put in a cage and then whenever we poke him with a stick he should spout stupid stories about physics (like he appears to be doing already).

I bet it wouldn't be long before he was claiming to be The Doctor.

using the worldwide approved many pints of cider car crash example.

He apparently complained about the RHIC too. Funny that we are still alive.

How is it people become such cranks?

He is the Doctor that is why he is stating all this information.

And he does not want to go to the alternate universe as the Daleks have survived the time war, and Gordon Brown is supreme ruler.

bbrrrnnngggg

Thank-god my alarm went off, was having a horrible nightmare.

I just hope they don't end it all soon.

I was hoping to escape the end of the world and leave it for my kids to enjoy. (Well, I've got bugger all else left since that email from Nigeria)

--Paris for fairly obvious 'fnar fnar' references

An American has noticed what can be colloquially called 'the rest of the World'.

And it's thrilling to see commaed geography back in action 'Generva, Switzerland' - bless. The latest in a veritable Whicker of glamorous destinations, 'Paris, France', 'Venice, Italy' and everyone's favourite 'London, England'. Though it really needs a bit of stock footage for full effect - possibly a cuckoo clock or a vault filled with Nazi gold*.

*That's for Generva, Switzerland obviously; not Paris, France or London, England**.

** which can only be summed up by a consumptive Julie Andrews in a bowler hat.

I think we can conclude that if you're lactose intolerant, you're screwed...

/Paris 'cus she knows about getting...ah it's too obvious.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah.

That is all.

"There could be a parallel Earth ruled by an evil victorious Nazi empire with space battlecruisers and so forth."

I think this possible outcome has been dismissed too early by some of you cynical posters. After all, as we all know from films, where there are evil space cruisers there are also intrepid heroes battling them. Usually there are really fit birds on both sides in quite skimpy costumes too.

Add some comedy aliens, wicked weapons, great uniforms for the bad guys, a happy ending, the complete lack of Earth concepts like "Gordon Brown" and "project deadlines" and I for one welcome our new particle-smashing overlords.

In the immortal words of the Sugababes, "Push The Button".

Who cares if the Universe ends? It would be the single least exciting thing - ever. Change "A tree falls in a woods but there is no-one around to hear it" to "Universe ends but no-one survives to remember it".

Dull dull dull.

...this hasn't already happened?

And some theories of time postulate almost infinite creation of alternate Universes on a continuous basis as decisions and quantum events decay. So inevitably the things Wagner is concerned about will occur, but most of the Wagners in the various alternate Universes will persist and be oblivious to the fact that a strangelet soup claimed them in an alternative branch of time...

If he served the the papers to his wife, as am officer of the corporation...

And appeared at the trial as an officer of the corporation...

And won a summary judgement against himself...

Doesn't that mean that he and his wife need to pay THEMSELVES the back salary, plus interest, plus whatever damages the court assigns, plus both sides' court costs?

Damn! They're gonna get so rich from this suit that they may have to declare bankruptcy!!

(...and now my head hurts...)

can't be worse than this hellhole we're already paying taxes to live in. Who knows, maybe Terminal 5 will work in the alternate dimension? Maybe I'll be a virgin?

Surprised US "Special" (Wonder if they really are special) forces soldiers have not taken over the whole of CERN and claimed they were a Terrorist group planning to blow up the world as after all we all know that if anyone is going to destroy the world it is going to be the US otherwise they will take your ass to court quicker than you can say Wormhole.

Interestingly, his site is:

"LARGE HADRON COLLIDER - THE LEGAL DEFENSE FUND SITE"

and its pupose?

"We are seeking donations to provide for legal intervention. We suggest a donation of $10.00, but would be delighted if your donation were larger. We expect to encounter expenses in excess of $100,000 in this action."

Surely a qualified lawyer/nuclear physicist with his track record (the Botanical Gardens scam... i mean case... is pure genius) is going to charge more than $100,000.

Oh, yes, "in excess"... he's got that covered

Still, at least "You will receive a Thank You letter and a written acknowledgment of receipt of your donation."

Nice.

Next thing you know, they'll figure out the exact mass of the Higgs-Boson and there goes the planet.

Anyone seen Xev? She knows where the moth is parked.

the boffs at LHC expect to create MBHs or miniature black holes as a matter of course during the running of their collision experiments, where they will be accelerating protons to within a millionth of the speed of light. quite fast. the decay of these MBHs will be due to theoretical hawking radiation which as yet is practically unproven. hopefully the math will work out. if the holes dont decay they should be able to escape earth. however this is simply expressed as a probability. there is therefore a probability they won't. we would not destroy the universe, just earth. if all the earths mass fell into a black hole it would still have the same gravitational field dur! as moylesy would say....

I'm guessing that the guys at CERN wouldn't let this guy play with their new toy.

...we could start a pertition to get the LHC rebuilt in Paris? After all, no one would give a f*** if France disappeared in a black hole...

Paris Hilton: Thats Hot!!

Stephen Hawking: (in robot voice for full effect) Actually, Hawking radiation has a blackbody radiation with a temperature T given by: kT = hbar g / 2 pi c = hbar c = (4 pi r s) blah blah blah...

Paris Hilton: Thats Hot

etc etc etc til the end of time (whatever that might be ha ha ha)

Are lawsuits free? Do I need to pay for filing this kind of lawsuits?

It sounds like he might have discovered Ice-9!

Bird because that's what my cat would like to do to it -- he is big.

Hey, don't panic people!

Torchwood will be on the case! Ready to beat back the hordes of evil pouring out of the new rift at the French/Swiss border! Looking cool and sophisticated whilst they're at it!

Call the Catholic Church! They're always ready to swing into action where opposing science and the progress of humanity is concerned.

Captain Jack is disguised as a French Gendarme who speaks very bad French: "Gude moaning!"

Tosh and Gwen argue about which of them infiltrates the Communist Resistance and which gets to say, "Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once." (I hope Gwen gets to say it...)

At least, with them being Welsh, the singing in the cafe should be better.

Even better. We might even wake up in a universe without Paris Hilton.

Doing more to show the stupidity that infests the left of America, abusing the system, screwing other people including a freaking botanical garden over for his own personal gain, and trying to stop real science with stupid ideas and in an inappropriate venue.

bet on weekends he b*tches about American "imperialism" while he and his ilk are the ones actually doing the "imperialistic" actions on the rest of the world.

Democrats and liberals remember: for all the hands pointing fingers, there are four fingers pointing right back atcha. Cultural imperialism, supporting dictators, suppression of science and reason, forced military drafts, censorship and thought control-always we're warned it comes from the Right but it gets implemented by the Left.

The real reason we don't have a HLC type device here in America? Environmentalists and luddites oppose the building of the device and people who want more money to go to socialistic welfare programs and flawed experimental climate research oppose the funding. But no, pull out the same tired "it's not us, it's Bush and Iraq" lie when you all know the HLC was designed and planned and funded loong before, and American projects were shot down in the concept stage long before Soros started his anti-American propaganda activities.

Fire it up, CERN! And worst case, if it does create black holes, imagine the power of the discovery! The magic energy sources all "green" technology needs to actually be "green" and not a scam that moves pollution elsewhere.

At best, more understanding of the Universe we're stuck in. Boo to those who oppose understanding. Especially when there's no direct military benefit or means to oppress the human mind coming from it.

my table at Milliways is booked and waiting.

So the plan, roughly, is:

1. File really stupid lawsuit in a court with zero jurisdiction over the target.

2. Put up a website to collect money for legal fees from people who are too stupid/fearful/Europhobic/scientist-phobic to realize he's talking out of his arse.

3. Go to court, representing yourself. CERN won't bother, knowing it's a bunch of hooey and the court's decision couldn't be upheld even if they did agree with the crazy bastard.

4. Case thrown out. Pay whatever legal fees are incurred. Since your opponent didn't show up, that means only your legal fees and anything to the court I would guess, IANAL though. You represented yourself so you pay yourself your legal costs. Better hope they can't charge you with wasting their time (probably not, just look at the SCO case).

5. Profit!

Of course you also have the option of halting proceedings somewhere just before #3 and making good with the money.

The court should order that he be shipped off to CERN and used as a calibration target for their new toy. :)

Another El Reg classic.

"Appearing last year on paranormal-matters talkshow Coast to Coast ... alongside a time-machine professor"

That's all you need to know about this guy right there. :)

We need the opinion of Amanfrommars on this one real quick!

Sounds like there's a 1 in 20 billion chance that the Swiss might produce a blackhole which could trigger the end of the world (WMD anyone?). I'm supprised the US Congress hasn't passed a bill to start a conflict over it yet. Time to clear out the hospitals and cover up any giant red crosses so the US don't think they're targets.

"So inevitably the things Wagner is concerned about will occur, but most of the Wagners in the various alternate Universes will persist and be oblivious to the fact that a strangelet soup claimed them in an alternative branch of time..."

Time for a new Cash'n'Carrion t-shirt?:

"The occupant of this t-shirt was consumed by stranglet custard in a perpendicular alternate universe"

Come on guys, you know you want to....

The American "boffinry community" at Los Alamos in 1945 were genuinely worried that the atomic bomb test at Trinity would ignite the atmosphere in a runaway fusion reaction. They did the calculations more than once and kept getting different results. It didn't stop them pushing the button, though. Ah, wait a moment - hardly any of them were actually Americans. Damned irresponsible Europeans, again!

Those all sound quite interesting, so damn the monopoles, full speed ahead! Threats to our continued survival are no barrier for science!

/need a Feynman icon...

It's all right appealing to the doodles to get this stopped, wasn't it their decision not all that many years ago to explode a bomb that it was thought by many involved MIGHT incinerate the earths atmosphere, and then exploded the bugger anyway.

If we get sucked into a black hole at least it will be quick ;)

and err,

LMAO at " the Moon remained made of moon"

Icon as we might meet them in the // universe

It does look very Stargate, doesn't it .... http://atlas.ch/ and they have some cool sounding Projects .... http://aliweb.cern.ch/Collaboration/ALICE_Project/TPC/index.html

There are events in the universe that are already unleashing far more energetic collisions than this generation of colliders can ever do. Thus far, the universe just keeps ticking on.

A question for Walter: When you study nuclear medicine, does that qualify you to be an expert in quantum mechanics? I think not.....just because both have "nuclear" in their name, doesn't mean they are alike. The phrase "Nuclear Physicist" - as he calls himself on his "website", lhcdefense.org - is a little broad in this case, no?

I believe his title is "First Speaker"...

As has already been noted, any black holes created by the LHC would be subatomic-particle-sized and would dissipate mass via Hawking Radiation far faster than they could accrete it.

Strangelets, on the other hand... Just as neutron stars are composed of neutronium - ultracompressed matter where all the electrons and protons have been forced together into neutrons - it is theorised that even greater compression could cause the neutrons to break down into individual quarks, creating an even denser object composed entirely of strange quarks. This "strangelet" would have a gravitational field powerful enough to accrete matter, and compress the new matter down into more strange quark matter. What is more, it doesn't emit Hawking radiation, and so won't lose mass unsustainably. It doesn't have an event horizon either, so the sensitive detectors of the LHC should be able to track its path as it falls out of the particle beam on its way to the earth's core...

Mine's the white coat, the one with the gloves attached, and the matching leggings, bubble helmet and life support pack. This sort of thing, methinks, is best monitored from the far side of the Moon.

"The latest in a veritable Whicker of glamorous destinations, 'Paris, France', 'Venice, Italy' and everyone's favourite 'London, England'."

Surely everyone's favourite is "Scotland, England"?

I work on ATLAS and it appears nothing is going to stop the LHC from starting up.

If I do get sucked into a black hole then my last thought will be "At least my mother will be proud of me..."

"If I do get sucked into a black hole then my last thought will be "At least my mother will be proud of me...""

If it was my mother she'd probably say "Fucking typical".

Although there might be some brief ironic enjoyment of going down several billion dress sizes.

No. If the CERN solution is anywhere near to generating "green" electricity, I'd bet all my money on a Republican retard. I don't consider Greenpeace as "leftist liberals" or "rightwingers", they're off the scale on that 'coz they seem to rant against the entire political spectrum. Look how they fight against ITER...

If HLC's an energy source (I don't think thats the purpose for this one, is it?) then that's your real reason right there for not having a prototype in the US. Oil profits would go down, wouldn't they??

Anyway ... I think I fed the troll too much. Realistically speaking, what are the probabilities of *any* of these events happening??? I only had heard of the "strangelet" theory, and it doesn't seem to be probable.

In his first degree at Berkeley he majored in biology and minored in physics."

Nuff said.

Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none is a well worn phrase which springs to mind.

Personally I'd LOVE it to rip a hole in the fabric of the space-time contiuum. Matbe then I'd find myself back in a universe that a) made some fucking sense and b) where REAL science was done my REAL scientists.

... that should we open up a dimensional rift, I for one welcome our new Trans-Dimensional Insectoid Overlords!!

Gawd I cant believe you all missed it, He is in Hawaii . Hawaii is known for growing good weed. Folks he is baked , a pot head.

A lot of people keep saying more extreme conditions exist elsewhere in the universe, inside supernovas and so on, this just ain't so!

Particle smashers nowadays create conditions not seen since tiny, tiny fractions of a second after the big bang. There will be all sorts of exotic particles but they all have tiny, tiny, TINY half-lifes and decay to boring things like protons in electrons before anyone can blink. A proton accelerated fast enough can be turned in to a black hole but that, too will evaporate before it can take in other particles and destroy the planet.

Really strangelets are more worrying although I don't think that's a feasible danger either. Like 'neutronium' strangelets, like the matter of the hypothetical quark stars will probably not be stable anywhere else. He's just a crank...

If the world does end I won't be able to read The Reg anymore... I guess I'll find another website.

This one actually drove me to sign up here so I could comment. Apologies for not taking the time to come up with a cool nym.

This objection is straight out of James P Hogan's novels. I think it was "Thrice Upon a Time" where the newest mondo-collider made black holes that went into an orbit that brought them just above the earth's surface where they would slice through brains and such. At the very least make your teapot leaky.

I don't remember the deatils, but there was another article a couple weeks back struck me the same way. Boffins are making names for themselves by spouting what they've read in sci-fi novels.

BTW, no offense meant at all to James P. - one of the best we've had at the craft.

I thought the world had already been destroyed, only nobody noticed because the footy was on.

... Infinite Improbability Drive?

"Monopoles could trigger a runaway reaction not unlike the quark-strangelet scenario, in which everything gets changed into something else. This could lead to a turn-up for the books, in which the Moon remained made of moon but the Earth was abruptly converted into cheese."

It does work something like that, does it not? :)

"Boffins are making names for themselves by spouting what they've read in sci-fi novels." .... By Earl Kubaskie Posted Saturday 29th March 2008 01:46 GMT

Bigger names are made building what can be read in novels, Earl. And it is a moot point as to who be Joint Lead in such Projects/Projections/Managements of Perception/Creations for Reality...... although who would be caring just so long as IT Leads into the Future.

"I work on ATLAS and it appears nothing is going to stop the LHC from starting up.

If I do get sucked into a black hole then my last thought will be "At least my mother will be proud of me..." ... By Simon Posted Friday 28th March 2008 20:37 GMT

Were that it, that more could not be so proud of their achievement, support and guidance ...... Being.

"Nature creates conditions far more extreme than anything that a CERN atom-smasher will ever manage, every time a supernova goes bang, and yet here we all still are"

We are nature, perhaps the reason we are still here, is that we didn't live on a planet far, far away (long, long ago), with a rogue LHC that caused it's nearest star to go supernova.

If the earth passed through it's own black hole into a parallel universe, what would happen to the earth that was there before we arrived?

Maybe the boffins of that other earth, are also about to fire up a LHC with similar consequences and we'll pass each other in the void.

Then tell me that none of us are in a parallel universe already!!

"There could be a parallel Earth ruled by an evil victorious Nazi empire with space battlecruisers and so forth.".... Would that be the one uncloaked by Gary McKinnon and undeniably disclosed to be true by subsequent malicious prosecution? .... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon.

A whole can of wormholes in that little DRMadness.

And victorious Nazi is an oxymoron, surely .....

Vainglorious fits better, does it not?

* Well, Stephen Hawking is supposed to work in eleven dimensions, in his head, of course, which is where they are created. Sharing them makes them Real though.

It smells too.

Physics seems to attract more loonies than all other fields of science and other academia. put together. I wonder why the loonies like physics so much. I think it's the prestige people like Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Richard Feynman have gained. I think the crackpots see physics and they somehow think they can make a name for themselves without doing too much hard work.

1. We're already changing into a parallel universe...the one beyond this one in the future...one big, long string of parallel universes in God's universe computer. I'm just not sure if God's AFK or not.

2. If CERN does have an accident, it'll probably just nuke Europe. Definitely will make the dollar's value come back up.

3. Don't panic. The world's due to end on December 31, 2012 by some dead culture's calendar. If it's CERN's fault, at least you know how long you have left.

4. Infinite Improbability Drive? Maybe, but the earth's atmosphere will jump about .03AU to the left of Earth's current position on the universe's central axis once it's started. Oops.

5. I'm more concerned about the upcoming alignment of several planets and a supernova - and which side of the planet will be facing it when the moment arrives. Problem is, I can't figure out which side I want to be on.

6. Just imagine what happens when CERN's billiards game screws up...CERN scratches, and a chunk of Earth flies into space...and hits the moon! The moon's going out of orbit...and it hits Mars! A chunk of Mars goes flying into the asteroid belt...and a huge asteroid goes flying back towards the Sun...and slingshots around...and hits Mercury! A chunk of Mercury flies past Venus, and smacks into Earth, right at the exact spot CERN was located. Don't you just hate it when beginners get lucky trick shots?

7. Maybe, just maybe, they'll get it all right, and quantum physics will be reconciled with newtonian physics, and they'll build a bridge between them, and we'll be able to manipulate quanta with machines, then build machines into ourselves a la Technomages in Babylon 5, then wield magic for real, and then we have our first magical civil war. Why worry? It's far too late already.

8. There is no number 8.

9. They wouldn't spend billions of (insert currency unit here) on the machine if they didn't know how it was supposed to work. Unless it was someone else's money...or they wanted to make Bear-Stearns look stupid.

10. It's the world's biggest crappuchino machine. Look out, Starbucks, you've got competition.

Okay, folks, we need a towel icon.

"I think the crackpots see physics and they somehow think they can make a name for themselves without doing too much hard work." ..... By BKB

Posted Sunday 30th March 2008 04:58 GMT

Methinks physicists would see that as a crackpot's notion, BKB, for one can never ever make a name for oneself without more hard work/sustained application than the next man/woman or even any man or woman before in their Fields. However, they would fully understand why such notions are mainstream and it wouldn't phase them at all .... as IT is a Very dDeep Field with more Tangents and Tangrams in IT than can be Mainstream Imagined. It is their Privilege and Pleasure to Reveal them to All ...... for your Enjoyment and Edutainment.

Wow, 86 comments on a Large Hadron Collider story. Crackpots and/or super sub-atomic physicists galore supporting El Reg with Thoughts for Binary Inspection/Positive Rendering/Big Picture Inclusion.

Way to Boldly Go, El Reg. The AutoPilot System works Well.

Someone in America fears the end of the world and asks a U.S. court to stop people in some other country from carrying out scientific tests.

With our luck the judge will probably imagine himself having authority over all the rest of humanity (not just Americans) and impose an injunction against CERN.

@ amanfrommars

Oh crap, I must be having a really bad day. I actually followed that.

CERN’s web site states that we have not been destroyed by effects of cosmic rays and micro black holes will evaporate.

However, cosmic rays travel too fast to be captured by Earths gravity, and Hawking Radiation is disputed (http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0304042) and contradicts Einstein’s highly successful relativity theory.

Collider particles smash head on like a car collision and can be captured by Earth’s gravity, and relativity predicts micro black holes will not decay (Hawking called Einstein doubly wrong, yet it is Einstein who is repeatedly found to have been correct in his theories). There is currently no reasonable proof of LHC safety, LSAG (LHC Safety Assessment Group) has been trying for months to prove safety without success. I hold the minority opinion that it may not be possible because it may in fact not be safe.

If micro black holes are created, we may soon be trying to calculate the growth rate, and in my personal speculation, it might not be too implausible to believe that calculation might need to account for the same quantum effects that Hawking predicts but as an accelerator not as a decay factor.

NewScientist March 22-28 “Stakes get higher in antimatter puzzle”: “We can say with greater than 99.7 per cent probability that CP violation is there” says Sivestrini [of Italy’s National Institute of Nuclear Physics INFN] (link corrected from article: http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.0659)

Cosmic Rays from the legal complaint.

…any such novel particle created in nature by cosmic ray impacts would be left with a velocity at nearly the speed of light, relative to earth. At such speeds, …, is believed by most theorists to simply pass harmlessly through our planet with nary an impact, safely exiting on the other side. … Conversely, any such novel particle that might be created at the LHC would be at slow speed relative to earth, a goodly percentage would then be captured by earth’s gravity, and could possibly grow larger [accrete matter] with disastrous consequences of the earth turning into a large black hole.

Sincerely, JTankers LHCConcerns.com

.....is what the fuck do the US Government have to do with a project based completely within EU boundaries?

Oh sorry, I forgot that they police the entire world.

Not defending the crackpot at all, but there's no harm in mixing biology and physics (biophysics is an extremely healthy and active discipline).

In fact, some of our greatest biologists started out as physicists - take Francis Crick, for example.

"based completely within EU boundaries"

Don't let the Swiss hear you say that...

Robert Oppenheimer:

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed... A few people cried... Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form, and says, "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another."

(July 16, 1945)

It's been said before that if the Earth got gobbled up by a black hole that had sunk to the core, the orbital mechnics of the solar system would not change because the centre of mass of the Earth-moon system wouldn't have moved.

The gravitational force exerted by a mass depends on its *mass* not its size, so if a proton doesn't suck in all the other mass around it, neither does a proton-mass black hole. The mass of the earth will exert more gravitational force on anything "trying" to fall into the maw of the tiny ravenous singularity than the proton-mass will.

And if some other LHC elsewhere has already initiated the chain-reaction destruction of the universe, the conflagration-front will only be expanding at less than the speed of light, which is why it hasn't reached us yet.

There's bound to be a Vista PC involved somewhere in all this - so...

It won't work anyway.

(well, there's the IT angle guys)

Ok, I'm going now.

Userfriendly.org yesterday:

http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080330

(Yes, I know I'm late)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/science/29collider.html?ex=1364529600&en=e0f3790b6598f9ca&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

seems that the reg left the important detail out.

American companies are supplying some components, the person is asking CERN to comply voulentarily, but the law suit intends to kneecap the project by taking away components needed during the build.

you all speak as though black holes exist! its a stupid idea dreamed up by excited scientists in desperate need of funding. Show me some actual evidence for their existence. And as for you beloved hawking, don't even get me started.

Stop - please stop refering to black holes as though there existence is factual.

- and are not some idiot who thinks the world is flat...........

I do exist, many can confirm this. There are laws of physics within which I can be described and I am aware of the curvature of the earth.

The maths which could be used to prove my existance, alegedly can be traced to a singularity which proves the existance of blackholes, however i've seen equally convincing forms of the equations which result in no such singularity.

I'm not saying black holes don't exist only that there is an equally good argument for them not to exist as there is for them to exist.

Please try and keep and open mind and not just swallow the media BS that you are obviously so fond of.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080330

If still u/s, just look at 30th march cartoon....

- and I'm sure 'non-american' companies would be glad to supply the parts.... Can USA afford to lose out???

How would this collective paranoia/prudent caution manifest if it were found that an equally sized LHC had been built in North Korea? Iraq? Afghanistan?

Snuggle.

lasersage: are you bipolar??? look at what YOU said...

"please stop refering to black holes as though there existence is factual."

"I'm not saying black holes don't exist" - you just did, see above...

If you want to continue your BS, at least stick to your story...

At least religious nuts *keep* saying GOD exists, even though it cannot be proven... - and before they join in, I'll only accept a public appearance as proof.... :D :D

NASA has got this..

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/blackhole_milkyway_021016.html

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast12jan_1.htm

http://www.wonderquest.com/black-holes-proof.htm

i haven't changed my story one bit, in my opinion blackholes are at best unlikely, I never said they didn't exist, only that you should keep your mind open to the fact that they may or may not exist. I personally err on the side of their non existance but that is merely my view, not a fact. I wouldn't present it as one either.

And yes I'm sure you can find a million links to claims for black holes reality, but your overlooking the fact that there's money to be made from this bandwagon. There was a time when all you had to do was drop "blackhole" into the title of a paper and it would be practically guarenteed publishing (if you need publishing I'd now recomend saying something about nano technology).

How can you show such an inteligent view: questioning the existance of god, and yet swallow the science pill so easily.

All I'm saying is, real or not, don't believe all that you read - even when a whole load of people believe it is fact.

Cerainly not bipolar, just healthily eccentric as all should be.

time to get back to your bible class????

ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL

ROFLMAOAAPMP ROFLAICGU ROFLASTC (poor cat) ROFLASTD ROFLMGO ROFACGU ROFLAICGU ROFLASTD ROFLMAOAAPMP ROFLASTD IRJCGUMSATM.... WALOLHATF TIWPAR....

HIHOYT!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzMhrBPSm5w

GYSOHB??

> .Is that he feels a US court has sufficient clout to stop an EU-based project dead in its tracks...

You're forgetting about the US contribution to the world of science. They get the bill :) Joking aside, he's sued various US-based investors / partners in the project.

A few days late with this so I spose no-one will be reading it but...

I just heard Walter L Wagner spouting off on BBC Radio 4's prestigious 'Today' morning news programme. As far as I could tell, his main gripe is that CERN has failed to publish a risk assessment and therefore no-one knows whether or not the collider will go tits-up and send all to hell in a handcart. A *risk assessment* FFS - how very 2008.

I know very little about theoretical physics but I know a 24-carat nutter when I hear one! Walt sounded barking to me (albeit in an affable way).

Given the choice seems to be between the views of an obvious loony and those of several thousand sober physicists and cosmologists, I'll rest easy in my bed.

Trouble is, a lot of Radio 4 listeners are even more scientifically illiterate than me and I am sure at least a few of them will be shitting in their slippers as they contemplate the Earth vanishing up its own hole.

They could, of course, be right. Walter the dread-droid might not be mad as a hatter. But at least they won't be around to say "Toldja so"

Professor Dr. Otto E. Roessler estimates 50 months Earth accretion time from a single micro black hole captured by Earth's gravity (www.golem.de/0802/57477-4.html, translation at www.lhcconcerns.com/LHCConcerns/Forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=52)

of Mr. Roessler's mind to be infinite.

...so if the LHC goes online in May, 2008... then, allowing for, say, a few months of testing before they go for The Big One, 50 months for the Earth to fall into the black hole would put as at just about December, 2012...

Looks like the Mayans were right, after all

Hmmm...

The man seems to be experiencing financial difficulties from what appears to be a scam, and now is so worried about black holes, parallel universes and stranglet soup he has launched not only a lawsuit, but created a website that, among other things, asks for money.

Fascinating, as Mr. Spock would say...

Speaking of Mr. Spock... that reminds me:

According to the Startrek Mirror Universe Theorem (SMUT), we may well slip into a kind of mirror universe that could well be ruled by Good Nazis having triumphed over the Evil Allied powers. As well, SMUT also endorses the Babes in Skimpy Costumes Hypotheses (cf Evil Graham, earlier post), though there's still some debate about the Evil Empire in Cool Uniforms Conjecture. All in all, it might be fun to see what our evil counterparts are up to!

...unless, we're _their_ evil mirror twins, and it's the Evil American Empire that has triumphed, and Emperor Bush has enslaved the world to construct his latest Death Star Weapon of Mass Destruction, and all he needs is the secret to having an atom smasher create strangelet soup with which to destroy the universe...

...oh dear. I'm getting a headache. Time for my milk and cookies.

Mine's the one with the Starfleet logo and the clearly labelled directions to my parents' basement, in case I ever get lost in the real world.