Large Hadron Collider Sparks 'Doomsday' Lawsuit

smooth wombat writes "In what can only be considered a bizarre court case, a former nuclear safety officer and others are suing the U.S. Department of Energy, Fermilab, the National Science Foundation and CERN to stop the use of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) until its safety is reassessed. The plaintiffs cite three possible 'doomsday' scenarios which might occur if the LHC becomes operational: the creation of microscopic black holes which would grow and swallow matter, the creation of strangelets which, if they touch other matter, would convert that matter into strangelets or the creation of magnetic monopoles which could start a chain reaction and convert atoms to other forms of matter. CERN will hold a public open house meeting on April 6 with word having been spread to some researchers to be prepared to answer questions on microscopic black holes and strangelets if asked."

John Titor

[daveschroeder]

OMG! John Titor's story [wikipedia.org] is true!

THINK OF THE SPACESHIPS

[i_liek_turtles]

Captain Zapp Brannigan: We'll just set a new course for that empty region over there, near that blackish, holeish thing.

Obligatory

[bondsbw]

xkcd [xkcd.com]

half life

[Anonymous Coward]

portal storms incoming?

They forgot one...

[supabeast!]

What happens if an escaping convict accidentally wanders into the collider, gains super powers, and tries to take over the world?

Re:WTF?

[Spacepup]

I guess it's just the kid in me, but now I want it turned on even more just to see what will really happen.

Maybe they should schedual the first start for one of the predicted end dates ala the Mayans and Egyptans. The Hadron collider builders should also play "It's the End of the World as We Know It" by REM the day it starts.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:They forgot one...

[IthnkImParanoid]

Obviously one of the scientists will have wandered into the collider as well. Although his or her superpowers will not be as powerful/deadly/cool as the convict's, their determination, faith in humankind, and good heart will allow them to narrowly win in the end, no matter how badly the odds look to be stacked against them.

They will still have a hard time getting laid, though.

Tinfoil hats

[OSU ChemE]

Will they be distributing them at the open house meeting? Perhaps that will calm those worried about the doomsday scenarios.

Could this explain the lack of ETs?

[RobinH]

Could this explain why we haven't found the universe teeming with extra terrestrial life? Every civilization becomes more and more advanced, then starts doing more and more powerful experiments, and thinks, "the chance of destroying our planet is really slight... we're perfectly safe going ahead with this." Then, poof!

Re:John Titor

[MouseR]

WOuldn't it suck to discover that, in the end, Hawking is just some lame robot sent from the futur to enlighten us?

Futur Scientist 1: "We should send back a robot!"
Futur Scientist 2: "Hrm. it'll take years to develop a convincing one!"
Futur Scientist 3: "Let's get to it!!"
Futur Janitor: "Hey... why dont you make him look like a crip? You could then use that IBM 5100 chip on the floor as a voice box."
Futur Scientists: "Smart ass".

But...

[Colin Smith]

That's natural and this is man made.

Re:WTF?

[Chris Burke]

Maybe they should schedual the first start for one of the predicted end dates ala the Mayans and Egyptans.

I want to see them turn it on too, but that's tempting fate a bit much maybe? So to make sure they can't accidentally cause the Mayan predictions to come true, they'll deliberately activate the machine several days before the end of the Mayan calendar.

Only once they turn it on, as it's powering up, they'll get a phone call from an anthropologist who will tell them that he just discovered that the previous calculations as to the start of the calendar were wrong, and it is in fact THAT VERY DAY that the calendar ends! Oh bitter irony, when your attempt to avoid the prophecy causes it to come true!

Re:WTF?

[Valiss]

but the job requirements of being a nuclear safety officer is hardly any prerequisite to being able to in any way accurately understanding the quantum chromodynamics, or even quantized general relativity

No kidding. Have you seen the safety inspector in section 7G?

Re:Hawking Radiation

[bugnuts]

So what if it creates microscopic black holes?

Microscopic black holes are actually the cause of networ

CARRIER LOST

Re:Well if this did happen...

[BigJClark]

oh, man, I hate to be the one to tell you, but we're all going to die without seeing DNF regardless.... sorry :(

Re:WTF?

[HomerJ]

THIS PLANT IS SAFE!!

Re:John Titor

[AuMatar]

So, was he sent back to warn us about our impending loss of the letter 'e'?

This just in

[geekoid]

gorg will be rubbing two sticks together next wednesday. He hopes to create a sustainable heat source.

Mrog, who new gorg as a child, is trying to stop it claiming this 'fire' may ravage the cave.
Next up, a balanced report on why the wheel should be avoid at all cost due to it's risk.

THIS is what happens!

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS is what happens when you turn it on! [xkcd.com]

P.S. Xkcd may be super-awesome, but this post is in no way meant to endorse the irradiating of little birds or helicopters...

Re:Hawking Radiation

[pcgabe]

to: [e-mail]
re: MBHs
status: urgent

MBHs not dissipating as anticipated. Please advise.

My theory

[TopSpin]

The rest of it just sounds so bizarre it's unreal.

The exopologic theorem of Flammeus Fortuitus states that civilizations that pursue the Higgs boson eventually produce destructive monopoles, usually just below their own troposphere, which immediately annihilates their planet/moon and nearby planets and/or suns. Each gamma ray burst detected in the universe is, in fact, another such conversion. Fortunately, interstellar space lacks sufficient matter to sustain the conversion and the process stops.

This theory provides a compelling explanation for why, despite the inevitability provided by immense timescales, we have yet to observe alien visitors; the physics of our universe tends to eliminate those species that investigate the sort of physics that lead to interstellar spacecraft. Thus, the only long-lived species one may expect to discover in the universe are those that do not employ high energy physics which, naturally, precludes all efforts at detection.

It is also possible that I've been working on makefiles for too many hours and no longer merit your attention. You are to be forgiven; you didn't know that when you started reading.

Homer Simpson filed a law suit !?!?!?

[Brigadier]

I may be wrong here but wasn't Homer a Safety Officer for a nuclear power plant ? What is he doing working at CERN ?

Re:John Titor

[spazdor]

That's what my old roommate used to say.


Fucking ravers.

Re:WTF?

[vloktboky]

The Hadron collider builders should also play "It's the End of the World as We Know It" by REM the day it starts.

Except if any of those three scenarios they described came true, I don't think you are going to "feel fine."

Obligatory hardon

[justinlee37]

Try searching Google Scholar for "large hardon collider." [google.com] You might be surprised.

Don't laugh.. It could happen!

[kpainter]

I found this on Wikipedia (so it must be true). "What came later to be known as "The Black Mesa Incident" was triggered by a seemingly innocuous and routine experiment into teleportation. As part of the Anomalous Materials team in Sector C of the facility, research associate Gordon Freeman introduced a crystalline specimen..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mesa_Research_Facility [wikipedia.org]

Nothing to worry about. No evidence of black holes

[GrpA]

If there was any likelyhood of civilisations wiping themselves from existance with the creation of microscopic black holes, then you would expect the universe to be full of black holes where each subsequent civilisation had extinguished itself.

Now take a look into the night sky... How many black holes do you see?

None!

So obviously, this is completely safe...

GrpA

Porn Version

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I am going to wait for the porn version of this experiment.

The DVD will be called:
Large Hardon Experiment Goes Interracial!
Creates black holes and fills them with loads of quarks!

Re:Hawking Radiation

[Anonymous Coward]

re: MBHs

Well gentlemen, I suggest you all stick you head between your legs and kiss you ass goodbye. I'm going to the Andromeda galaxy. Yes, I invented a way to get there. I did it twenty years ago after a vodka binge, actually. Peace, bitches.

Re:WTF?

[Harmonious Botch]

Thank you for correcting GP. I feel so much better now.

Re:WTF?

[TheSHAD0W]

You're assuming the collapse of the Earth into the singularity would be symmetrical. I could see it getting kicked into a grossly elliptical orbit, playing ping-pong with the the other planets and eventually intersecting Sol.

Re:WTF?

[phat_cartman]

I wish they'd just eliminate humanity and get it over with already. It's the waiting I can't stand.

Re:WTF?

[Omestes]

But we won't be here, so why should I care?

It would be very amusing for the folks on the ISS though.

Re:They forgot one...

[Xtravar]

Dear Sir,

I work for a major Hollywood studio and would like to make a movie based on your plot. It is both refreshing and unique. Can you get me a complete transcript by next Friday?

Re:Spelling Problems

[nomadic]

As I understand it, there is a fellow who is just bad at math and wants to keep his grant money coming.

You can get grant money for being bad at math?? Sign me up!

Re:WTF?

[Dun Malg]

You underestimate the Mayans. The few days in between is the time
the black hole takes to gather enough mass to speed up the process.
It will be tiny first, and will grow slowly. Amazing how the Mayans
got it right. I would not know where to start.

Yep, you can't count on the safety of exact dates, as we all learned from Back to the Future III when Doc and Marty figured they were safe going to the dance Saturday because the tombstone Marty saw in 1955 said Doc died on Monday. Then along comes Buford who points a gun a Doc's kidney...:

Buford: "It's a Derringer, Smithy. Small but effective. Last time I used it, the fella took two whole days to die..."

Re:ID is an ally in this case

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I didn't know Prof. Pangloss was writing for the ID movement.

Re:WTF?

[EdIII]

You'd have a few milliseconds to make peace with yourself.

I dunno how long you take, but it takes me longer then a few milliseconds to make "piece" with myself.

Re:WTF?

[Robber Baron]

Are they serious? They make it sound like a Pandora's Box that could destroy the whole planet, or solar system.

All the same I still think it'd be a good idea to keep a shotgun, ammo, and a few medpacks handy...

Re:John Titor

[Anonymous Coward]

well done. I call it X though. And yeah, its enlightenment in a pill.

Hey, this is Slashdot. It's called "The X Window System", or "X11", or "X11R7.1" if you're up to date, and enlightenment is merely a fancy window manager that looks so fucking awesome... oh, wow, it really does look awesome. Goddamn, I fucking love everything when it boots up.

Re:Fermi Paradox.

[glittalogik]

Scientists are different to normal people [xkcd.com]

Creationism has your answer

[dreamchaser]

God created all life, ET's included, 6,000 years ago. The light just hasn't had enough time to reach us from the nearest neighbor. Give it another few hundred years.

(for the humor impaired, I am joking)

Re:John Titor

[luag]

I dunno, maybe in another universe there is another me who didn't read the title as "the large hardon collider".

Re:WTF?

[Alsee]

Score:4, Funny

Who the hell modded that Funny?

Citing a Hollywood Sci-Fi movie to explain temporal causality theory on why you should not tempt fate against ancient Mayan mythology predicting the end of the world because of scaremongering US-litigation junkscience, according to Slashdot rules that is damn well supposed to be modded Informative!

-

Re:They forgot one...

[Anonymous Coward]

A bunch of junior high-school girls from MegaTokyo can fix this problem in about 200 twenty-minute TV episodes.

Re:John Titor

[BrotherBeal]

There aint no E in All that and a bag of potato chips!

Unless you're Dan Quayle.

Re:WTF?

[sexybomber]

While their reaction cross-sections couldn't be huge, given a few hundred of these and a few decades, one might just be able to take off and make the real thing--that's why serious physicists are worried about this.

Um, don't you think the folks at CERN would notice that they're creating black holes every time they fire the LHC up? And then ... you know, stop if they weren't evaporating like they're supposed to? I can envision the scene now:

Dr. Smith: F**k dude, we just created a black hole!
Dr. Heinrich: Cool! But it's not evaporating.
Dr. Smith: Uh oh. Maybe we shouldn't create another one until this one disappears. We wouldn't want them merging and creating a macroscopic black hole!
Dr. Heinrich: Good idea.

Re:WTF?

[kalirion]

Unless of course an alien space ship saves them and sends them back in time 5 years to stop it all from happening.

Re:John Titor

[jgoemat]

Well, as everyone on Slashdot surely knows, E=MC^2. Therefore, since matter and energy cannot be created nor destroyed, merely changed in form, it follows that the letter "E" cannot be created or destroyed, merely changed in form. Which would probably Txplain this sTntTncT.

I don't undMC^2rstand what you'rMC^2 trying to say...

Astronaut gets job as a nuclear safety officer ...

[pbhj]

But those ISS dudes are going to be pissed that, whilst they were once astronauts, the closest they can get to being CERN scientists is being Nuclear Safety Officers ... damn!