The Large Hadron Collider is going online very soon. It's supposed to mimic the conditions just after the Big Bang. This will be a giant leap forward for physics but some scientists think it could cause a catastrophe of extremely fucked up proportions!
There are two alternate theories of what negative consequences might ensue... It could create a tiny black hole which would proceed to destroy the Earth and quite possibly the entire Solar System. It could also create a particle which is called a Strangelet. A Strangelet produced by a particle accelerator is a hypothetical particle which, if it came in contact with ordinary matter, would turn it into Strange Matter in a chain reaction which is unstoppable and quick.
Of course there are scientists that say nothing will happen at all... There always are! I wonder if since I am already sort of strange if the Strangelet particle will turn me ordinary?
Yahoo Article (leaving out any hint of potential danger)
NY Times article regarding the lawsuit filed to prevent collider from opening
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I don't think there are any mainstream scientists (certainly not any prominent scientists) that seriously worry about a black hole being created by the LHC, and the guys who filed that lawsuit are hacks. I'm not saying there's no chance of a black hole being created, but the consensus seems to be that the probability is laughably small.
My understanding is that our chances of getting wiped out by, say, an asteroid are orders of magnitude greater than our chances of getting killed by an LHC-spawned black hole. And of course our chances of being wiped out by something much more mundane, like climate change, are much greater still.
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