Last week the CERN particle accelerator, the most powerful and expensive of its kind ever built, began taking meaningful data. The high energy proton beams began colliding particles at 7 trillion electron volts (7 TeV), far exceeding the energies achieved by any previous experiment. Researchers are actually trying to probe the finest structures of matter, looking to answer a number of different questions. Of course the headlining research is the search for the so-called God Particle -- the Higgs Boson.
One of the great mysteries of the Universe is how matter gets its mass. While for most this is a question that seems kind of silly, it is a rather important question to physicists. Under the standard model of particle physics there is no way to explain how particles, and therefore mass in general, derives its mass except through the existence of a as-yet-unseen particle dubbed the Higgs Boson. How it actually comes to pass that this particle would have the ability to supply all other particles with mass is a question for another time. The point is, simply, that the detection, or non-detection, of the particle would either supply strong evidence for the standard theory of particle physics or cause researchers to reconsider even the basic tenants on which it is built.
But at this point you are probably wondering what the title of this blog is all about. I know you are, don't lie. The answer is that it is a slight jab at some folks, in and out of the media, that have perpetrated a fear among civilians that the collisions that happen deep under the French-Swiss border could bring the destruction of our planet.
The talk started when it was revealed that collisions of protons at the kind of energies achieved by CERN had the potential to create miniature black holes. Believe it or not, that part is actually true. The trouble is, that many of the people that started scaring people with this information didn't bother to stick around to hear the rest of the explanation. See, when most people think of black holes they think of cores of galaxies, or massive remnants of dead stars. And while these are, in fact, instances of black holes, not all occurrences of these objects exist with such magnitude.
All that is required for an object to be deemed a black hole is to exist in a region of space where the density of the object is so great as to emit a gravitational field of such strength that not even light can escape. O.k., so maybe that didn't put your mind at ease, but bear with me. The black holes that could, could, be created at CERN would be very small. (Some scientists have even shown that the event horizon -- the radius at which even light can't escape -- would not extend even beyond the surface of the black hole because it is so small. This implies that the gravitational reach of the object would be severely lower than most people feared.) Ultimately, the black hole would be incredibly unstable and would decay (due to a process known as Hawking radiation) in much less than a second. Keep in mind that it would be created in a near vacuum with all matter that is present scattering away from the black hole as a result of the proton collision.
Every time a new particle accelerator begins operation someone tries to stop it (there was an attempt to stop Fermi lab from operating their beams when it opened as well), and every time the scientific community has to trot out the theoretical physicists to explain how it is a virtual mathematical impossibility that these collisions could destroy the Earth. The problem is that there are always those that don't like the term "virtual impossibility", as it implies that there is still a chance. A chance that they are not willing to take. But nothing is ever 100% certain. Radiation from the Sun (and from deep space objects) could also produce a black hole in our atmosphere, but no one seems to worry about that. And by the way that scenario is actually much more likely (but still next to impossible) given the rate at which charged particles hit our atmosphere.
This brings me to a final point. The types of collisions that we are talking about a not new. In fact, these very same collisions happen every second of every day in our atmosphere. Not only that, but many of the collisions are at energies that are orders of magnitude greater than what will be produced at CERN. So rest easy, the big, bad new particle accelerator will not destroy the Earth. Still don't believe me? Hit me with a comment and I will do my best to address any remaining fears.
Comments
Wasn’t the collision at 3.5 Kev…..7Kev is what the LHC was designed for but I was under the impression that has not yet taken place?
Hi Paul, the original design specifications were for 14 TeV collisions, but were downgraded to 7 TeV due to the initial failure of one of the magnets. I think where you might be confused is in the fact that each proton beam operates at 3.5 TeV, but since the beams travel in opposite directions, the collision energy is 7 TeV. The collision energy is the value that is normally quoted, not the individual beam energy. Thanks for the question!
OK, so they ran the first test collision with no earth eating black holes.
It sounds like they weren’t running full power due to a magnet failure??
The conspiracy theorists type out there shouldn’t get overly (or underly) excited about this should they? Surely they didn’t spend all this time & money making this thing for just one half-powered test?
The earth wasn’t gobbled up by a black hole on this test, so does this mean every test will be “earthsafe”?
How often will they be doing these test, does anyone out there know (please fill me in)? And should we worry about earth hungry black holes with every test?
Well, as far as I know, the plan is to continue running the accelerator at 7 TeV. So while that is half the original design specification, I don’t think they will exceed that for the foreseeable future. Mostly because there is no need to (and maybe because they are afraid of breaking the thing again).
As far as how often the accelerator will run, the answer is that it is capable of running virtually continuously. Now, they will probably ease into it and run it for a few hours at a time. I believe that first run had collisions running for about 3 hours or so.
I should say at this point that I danced around the issue about whether of not it is “Earth safe” as you say just because it didn’t destroy the Earth this time. The conspiracy theorists will point out that we just got lucky. But let’s look more closely. If you’ve got the beams running for hours you are creating millions, perhaps billions or more, of these collisions. So the argument that we just got lucky doesn’t really hold water. If there were going to be some unwanted effect it would have been seen by now. Statistically speaking it would be difficult at this point to say that we are in danger or that we ever were, there have just been too many collisions without consequence. (Although I am sure that it won’t stop people from claiming exactly that.) Besides the most knowledgeable scientists working on this have done the leg work and determined long ago that there is no danger. So rest easy, all will be well.
So Fermi has a collision energy of what…..3.5 TeV?……and I didn’t see any results……I have been waiting for quite some time to see if we (ok, they) created those mini black holes. and as far as Destroying the Earth…..I suppose finding the Higgs Boson Particle may Destroy the way some people VIEW the Earth….or themselves for that matter….but I suppose scientific proof would fall short in changing the minds of most…..who knows maybe they are right……the sun does orbit Earth
Thanks SpaceGuide…
go for it cern.!
because if you don’t do this, the earth is going to hell in a handbasket anyway.
Great article! I actually read the whole thing, and I usually don’t read articles all the way through.
What do they plan on doing with the accelerator from here? I heard something about trying to recreate a mini big bang. Is there any truth to that?
Hi paul! What country are in? The reason why i am asking this is because i think that i am getting these newsletters a bit too late. I am in a country called New Zealand. I hope you can tell me.
Isn’t it better that people are concerned and want to be 100% assured that it is safe? What about when our government was conducting nuclear tests and dumping toxic waste? Were there concerns then? I think that anytime there is a concern for our safety, it is better than none at all.
Paula. Whenever you go to bed at night, are you concerned that an airplane might fall out of the sky and hit your house? No. The reason is because the chance of that happening is slim to none. Even then, There is a better chance of that happening than anything bad happening from the accelerator. If we complained and ran scared about everything that “could” happen, even the things that 99.9999% of the time won’t happen, we’d never get anything done.
No Ross, I am not afraid that an airplane might fall out of the sky at night and hit my house but I do realize that I have depended on some highly intellectual individuals only to find out that they were wrong. All I was saying was, it doesn’t hurt to question anything, be it the accelerator or vaccines or anything that we might think could cause us harm. What’s wrong with asking questions. Would you rather us be a bunch of zombies walking around on this planet? Or should we just allow everyone to do anything anytime anywhere? Oh wait! They already do!
Omg! I just read your April 19th article. You ended it by saying: “But as I always tell my students, never take anything for granted. Always question.”
Paula, there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking a question, unless of course you don’t want an answer. You asked a question, I answered it.
You asked “Isn’t it better that people are concerned and want to be 100% assured that it is safe?” and I answered that question. It is better that people are concerned, but people need to save the major causes for alarm for the things that are more realistically going to happen (which was my point).
As far as asking questions, there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking questions, but there is something wrong with asking questions and then disregarding the answer because it isn’t what we want it to be, which is what the alarmists in this situation are doing. They ask how dangerous this is, the scientific community tells them it is actually very safe, and then the alarmists continue to act like it is super dangerous, all because they want it to be. I guess my point in short is, if you (the alarmists, not you in particular) don’t want the answer or are going to ignore the answer regardless of what it is, don’t ask the question.
Excellent article. It is the same “dog chasing its tail” routine; the news papers twist and cloud the truth in order to gain as many readers as possible, and then wait for the Scientists to reply, which gets them more sales.
However, any human being with a modicum of intelligence will see through their games, and maybe, even become interested in Science and the CERN project, which is what we want really.
Anyway, a very informative article and some difficult topics explained with ease.
So, if I read correctly, you have mentioned that these particles can make a miniature black hole. What happens if, on a bad string of luck, you generate more than a few at the same time? So far, the scientific community knows only a little bit on Black Holes since fully exploring one is virtually impossible.
It has been noted that one black hole can swallow another and make itself larger. And yes, millions of billions of these impacts occur over a short period of time, but isn’t that how evolution works? Man isn’t the only thing that evolves.
Personally, I’m all for exploring new technology, but it still doesn’t mean I won’t worry for one out of a trillion or more chance that you won’t get a chance to say ‘Ooops’ before something goes wrong.
I do appreciate and always prefer read your e-mail, which provide interesting and latest progress at CERN and other fields. As a physicist I agree that creation of Black Hole and its disappearance in less than a second may be possible, if not given a chance to attract other elementary particles and remaining atoms in the collider, which is not possible but is confusing for others.