Perhaps a better answer would be to explain how it works…. Otherwise, aren’t you just expecting people to take your “no” on (::gasp::) faith? 😉
Ben
“I suppose I could part with one of these [doomsday devices] and still be feared.”
–prof Farnsworth
Ruth Ellen
I thought the LA Times scenario of a black hole being created and slowly swallowing up the earth was sort of fun. Plenty of science fiction fodder, there.
rk
yay Girl Genius!
I wasn’t aware that people here read that excellent webcomic. I’d love to see a post or two on it from you all.
My favourite response to this would be to earnestly begin by explaining how the LHC have been in the works for the past 20 years, and is designed and built by a huge cadre of scientists….
and then detour into a dark conspiracy theory about how it is really secretly funded by a evil shadowy organization (which depends on my target audience, although I find the politically incorrect “Nazionist Triad” the most entertaining) as tool of world domination, as it has the capability to selectively create miniaturized black holes at any given spot and time, destroying their enemies’ past, present and future….one by one.
Do you know whatever happened to those few brave scientists who tried to raise the alarm about the LHC’s ability to destroy the world? They no longer exist….muahahahahahahhaha!
Kenneth Moody
I thought the LA Times scenario of a black hole being created and slowly swallowing up the earth was sort of fun. Plenty of science fiction fodder, there.
Larry Niven, “The Hole Man”, although that was Mars not Earth.
jeff
It could destroy the physics world if Higgs isn’t found.
Count Iblis
If the LHC were to blow up the Earth, then that would mean that the world’s existence is incompatible with operating the LHC. Few people believe that this will happen.
However, the results from the LHC will eliminate/constrain certain theories. Arguably, those eliminated theories describe alternate realities. So, the LHC will effectively “destroy” those worlds for us in the sense that they become incompatible with the LHC results.
I’m honestly divided about how to address this issue. My feeling is that — tempting though it may be — you can’t just respond “No — because I said so!” People don’t like being treated like children, as a general rule; they want to know why they should trust you. And as another commenter pointed out, we’re always telling them not to take stuff on “faith,” but to look at the evidence. When do you demand proof, and when do you opt to trust greater expertise?
The problem is that the evidence in this instance is pretty esoteric in nature. These are not issues that can be easily grasped by anyone lacking a PhD in particle physics or related area. For that matter, the average person’s grasp of “probability” isn’t quite up to snuff, either: a non-zero possibility for a physicist is pretty much equivalent to “none,” but John Q Public just hears “small probability.”
The cosmic ray argument has proven ineffective, in part because we have to explain what cosmic rays are (they sound scary! we’re being bathed in radiation! Eeeee!). Thus far, these are best examples I’ve heard on equivalent probabilities: about the same as winning the lottery 1000+ times in a row, and dropping a pencil and seeing it fall straight through the floor rather than bouncing off it.
I’m not sure there’s an easy answer. Maybe “No” with one or two pithy examples like above?
The Titanic was unsinkable, the Titanic sank! Or was it the Olympic? Don’t open Pandora’s box, the theory of the universe is a burden you are not ready for!
Do not look at me for I do not exist! I am a ghost! It was a Whale that sank the Titanic, It was a torpedo that sank the Olympic and the Britannic split into two.
johnmerryman
No, but it will destroy some gold ions.
A thousand years ago, science was trying to turn straw into gold, now we are trying to turn gold into what? Strings? What has happened to our priorities? There is no funding for strings.
Giving an explanation, if people are interested, is obviously a good idea — I would never argue against telling the whole truth, or just relying on authority. My point is that the correct answer is “No,” not “Probably not,” or “We’re not sure, but it seems unlikely.” Nothing empirical is ever metaphysically certain, but that doesn’t stop us from saying “that won’t happen” when appropriate (and in this case it is).
Moshe
Jennifer, we rely on authority and expertise of others all the time. To give just one example, when facing a medical problem, it is nice to get explanations and educate yourself, but ultimately you will decide to go through some medical procedure in large part through your trust in medical practice in general, and in your doctor in particular. Many medical facts and practices sound no less esoteric than particle physics to an outsider.
So, the issue is not so much that people are not inclined to trust authorities, it is that for some people scientists are not trustworthy authorities.
Al
Hi, I know I should have more faith in the consensus of the expert scientific community rather than in a few (crackpot) doomsday foretellers, but to ease my mind can someone please confirm whether my understanding (in layman terms) of why you guys aren’t concerned is correct?
A phase transition into a lower vacuum state is most certainly ruled out by cosmic ray collisions. Many collisions of as high or higher energy have occurred in our past light cone so if such a phase transition were possible it would have already occurred.
The production of strangelets is highly theoretical and speculative. No known mechanisms for their production exist, nor is there any evidence for stable strange matter in the universe. In addition theory suggests that strange matter would be unstable and that its most stable configuration is positive, which does not pose a threat. The most convincing argument not to be concerned about it though is that under “reasonable assumptions” for strangelet production cosmic rays colliding with molecules on Earth firmly rule out that any catastrophic event could occur.
Do I understand it correctly though that our confidence in our not being in any danger of stable microscopic black holes is based purely on theoretical grounds?
Doomsday foretellers argue that cosmic ray arguments do not put any constraints on the danger of stable microscopic black holes (MBW), since in a cosmic ray collision with a molecule in our atmosphere the resulting black hole would go flying off nearly at the speed of light and would pass right through earth, whereas over the lifetime of the LHC a significant portion of MBW would be captured by the earth’s gravity and slowly accrete matter.
Is it true that cosmic rays don’t provide any constraints on the creation of stable microscopic black holes?
Of course the creation of stable MBW in the first place is considered nonsense by most physicists, since Hawking radiation, although never experimentally confirmed, is based on very robust physical assumptions and would ensure the evaporation of the MBW almost immediately. Not to mention that the theories predicting their creation are highly speculative and according to most calculations a MBW would take millions of years to consume the earth (although I believe that the German mathematician O. Roessler came up with an estimate of only 50 months – can someone here comment on the validity of his work?)
Anyway, I would be very grateful if someone could clarify for me if we are just relying on theoretical grounds when talking about our safety from black holes, or whether the cosmic ray argument does hold for some reason. Sorry to bring these questions up, I’m just someone with a limited background in physics struggling to understand why we shouldn’t be concerned
Regards,
Al
Ellipsis
Jennifer — the problem is not that saying something like “less than 1 chance in a billion” or “less than one chance in 10^100” are things that the general public couldn’t understand. People can most certainly understand those numbers. The problem is that any limit that is set here is dependent on whatever set of “reasonable” assumptions you want to make. When you have a crazy idea, you can always make a set of essentially equally crazy exceptions to sets of assumptions. Let’s say we base our limit on the undisputable fact that the Earth has been struck for billions of years by cosmic rays with energies billions of times greater than anything the LHC will ever create. But — wait — those have a center-of-mass that is relativistically boosted with respect to the Earth! But then, um, wouldn’t we have noticed the micro black holes eating objects not necessarily on Earth, but also in space? Maybe we have coincidentally missed all evidence of this! The Sun and stars are struck by cosmic rays too, wouldn’t we have noticed at least a few of them being swallowed? Well we’ve never detected high-energy cosmic rays on anything but the Earth, how do we know absolutely for sure that they are also hitting other stars and planets?! You can see how 10 different scientists would come up with 10 different extremely tiny limits on contrived scenarios here.
Ultimately, there is no tested theory of quantum gravity yet, so as far as anyone knows, when you get out of bed tomorrow you could fall into a black hole that has nothing to do with the LHC. Surprise!: we don’t have any great way of calculating what the chances of that are either. You could use that as an excuse to sleep in.
Moshe, I think that there may be an issue about whether or not people trust scientists as authorities, but the issue that I was getting at is simply one of language. When experts say “There is no believable model in which this would occur, and we can bound the probability to be less than 10^(-x),” they mean the same thing as when most non-experts say “That won’t happen.” And when talking to non-experts, experts should try their best to use words in the same way that non-experts are used to hearing them used.
Al, I think it’s like Ellipsis says. It’s a bit misleading to say we are “just relying on theoretical grounds,” as there is no theory that predicts the disaster scenario — just a set of words that use sensible theories to predict that there will be black holes, but then ignore the implications of sensible theories to ask what would happen if they didn’t decay. Cosmic rays can’t be too much help — what if the kinds of black holes that are produced at the LHC are different from those made by cosmic rays? There’s no theory that predicts that, but there’s also no theory that predicts that the black holes would be stable, either.
More realistically, the existence of cosmic rays (and, even better, the high-temperature early universe) convinces me that there’s nothing we can do at a particle accelerator that the universe hasn’t done many times over. Of course we can cook up possibilities that have not been covered, but not within any well-defined model. If someone asks, “In a world where 2+2=5, would Pythagoras’s Theorem still hold?”, what do you say? If you can start making stuff up, anything goes, but it’s not a basis for sensible risk assessment.
Moshe
Oh, I see, agreed completely. I even think that a matter of principle the expression “probability less than 10^(-x)” should be replaced by “never” for x large enough (exact value depending on context).
Read it before making over-confident statements about this question. But before reading it, ask yourself: what probability of disaster do you think is acceptable? You may be surprised by the correct answer…….
eric gisse
The correct answer is “Cosmic ray collision energies are 5 orders of magnitude larger. Shut the hell up.”
On the other hand, anti-scientific bigotry and culturally-sanctioned ignorance really COULD destroy the world.
Haha good one although I doubt they will be reading your blog 🙂
Perhaps a better answer would be to explain how it works…. Otherwise, aren’t you just expecting people to take your “no” on (::gasp::) faith? 😉
“I suppose I could part with one of these [doomsday devices] and still be feared.”
–prof Farnsworth
I thought the LA Times scenario of a black hole being created and slowly swallowing up the earth was sort of fun. Plenty of science fiction fodder, there.
yay Girl Genius!
I wasn’t aware that people here read that excellent webcomic. I’d love to see a post or two on it from you all.
Also – what else along those lines do you read?
The correct response to the question is, “What do you mean by ‘the world?'”
My favourite response to this would be to earnestly begin by explaining how the LHC have been in the works for the past 20 years, and is designed and built by a huge cadre of scientists….
and then detour into a dark conspiracy theory about how it is really secretly funded by a evil shadowy organization (which depends on my target audience, although I find the politically incorrect “Nazionist Triad” the most entertaining) as tool of world domination, as it has the capability to selectively create miniaturized black holes at any given spot and time, destroying their enemies’ past, present and future….one by one.
Do you know whatever happened to those few brave scientists who tried to raise the alarm about the LHC’s ability to destroy the world? They no longer exist….muahahahahahahhaha!
Larry Niven, “The Hole Man”, although that was Mars not Earth.
It could destroy the physics world if Higgs isn’t found.
If the LHC were to blow up the Earth, then that would mean that the world’s existence is incompatible with operating the LHC. Few people believe that this will happen.
However, the results from the LHC will eliminate/constrain certain theories. Arguably, those eliminated theories describe alternate realities. So, the LHC will effectively “destroy” those worlds for us in the sense that they become incompatible with the LHC results.
“No. The calculations are very precise in their indication that we will destroy the whole universe. Stop being so anthropocentric!
On the other hand, it’s still an open question whether or not it will destroy the multiverse.”
Eugene….Eugene….????
OMG they got him too…..
e.
I’m honestly divided about how to address this issue. My feeling is that — tempting though it may be — you can’t just respond “No — because I said so!” People don’t like being treated like children, as a general rule; they want to know why they should trust you. And as another commenter pointed out, we’re always telling them not to take stuff on “faith,” but to look at the evidence. When do you demand proof, and when do you opt to trust greater expertise?
The problem is that the evidence in this instance is pretty esoteric in nature. These are not issues that can be easily grasped by anyone lacking a PhD in particle physics or related area. For that matter, the average person’s grasp of “probability” isn’t quite up to snuff, either: a non-zero possibility for a physicist is pretty much equivalent to “none,” but John Q Public just hears “small probability.”
The cosmic ray argument has proven ineffective, in part because we have to explain what cosmic rays are (they sound scary! we’re being bathed in radiation! Eeeee!). Thus far, these are best examples I’ve heard on equivalent probabilities: about the same as winning the lottery 1000+ times in a row, and dropping a pencil and seeing it fall straight through the floor rather than bouncing off it.
I’m not sure there’s an easy answer. Maybe “No” with one or two pithy examples like above?
“Only if it’s part of God’s plan.”
The Titanic was unsinkable, the Titanic sank! Or was it the Olympic? Don’t open Pandora’s box, the theory of the universe is a burden you are not ready for!
Do not look at me for I do not exist! I am a ghost! It was a Whale that sank the Titanic, It was a torpedo that sank the Olympic and the Britannic split into two.
No, but it will destroy some gold ions.
A thousand years ago, science was trying to turn straw into gold, now we are trying to turn gold into what? Strings? What has happened to our priorities? There is no funding for strings.
Giving an explanation, if people are interested, is obviously a good idea — I would never argue against telling the whole truth, or just relying on authority. My point is that the correct answer is “No,” not “Probably not,” or “We’re not sure, but it seems unlikely.” Nothing empirical is ever metaphysically certain, but that doesn’t stop us from saying “that won’t happen” when appropriate (and in this case it is).
Jennifer, we rely on authority and expertise of others all the time. To give just one example, when facing a medical problem, it is nice to get explanations and educate yourself, but ultimately you will decide to go through some medical procedure in large part through your trust in medical practice in general, and in your doctor in particular. Many medical facts and practices sound no less esoteric than particle physics to an outsider.
So, the issue is not so much that people are not inclined to trust authorities, it is that for some people scientists are not trustworthy authorities.
Hi, I know I should have more faith in the consensus of the expert scientific community rather than in a few (crackpot) doomsday foretellers, but to ease my mind can someone please confirm whether my understanding (in layman terms) of why you guys aren’t concerned is correct?
A phase transition into a lower vacuum state is most certainly ruled out by cosmic ray collisions. Many collisions of as high or higher energy have occurred in our past light cone so if such a phase transition were possible it would have already occurred.
The production of strangelets is highly theoretical and speculative. No known mechanisms for their production exist, nor is there any evidence for stable strange matter in the universe. In addition theory suggests that strange matter would be unstable and that its most stable configuration is positive, which does not pose a threat. The most convincing argument not to be concerned about it though is that under “reasonable assumptions” for strangelet production cosmic rays colliding with molecules on Earth firmly rule out that any catastrophic event could occur.
Do I understand it correctly though that our confidence in our not being in any danger of stable microscopic black holes is based purely on theoretical grounds?
Doomsday foretellers argue that cosmic ray arguments do not put any constraints on the danger of stable microscopic black holes (MBW), since in a cosmic ray collision with a molecule in our atmosphere the resulting black hole would go flying off nearly at the speed of light and would pass right through earth, whereas over the lifetime of the LHC a significant portion of MBW would be captured by the earth’s gravity and slowly accrete matter.
Is it true that cosmic rays don’t provide any constraints on the creation of stable microscopic black holes?
Of course the creation of stable MBW in the first place is considered nonsense by most physicists, since Hawking radiation, although never experimentally confirmed, is based on very robust physical assumptions and would ensure the evaporation of the MBW almost immediately. Not to mention that the theories predicting their creation are highly speculative and according to most calculations a MBW would take millions of years to consume the earth (although I believe that the German mathematician O. Roessler came up with an estimate of only 50 months – can someone here comment on the validity of his work?)
Anyway, I would be very grateful if someone could clarify for me if we are just relying on theoretical grounds when talking about our safety from black holes, or whether the cosmic ray argument does hold for some reason. Sorry to bring these questions up, I’m just someone with a limited background in physics struggling to understand why we shouldn’t be concerned
Regards,
Al
Jennifer — the problem is not that saying something like “less than 1 chance in a billion” or “less than one chance in 10^100” are things that the general public couldn’t understand. People can most certainly understand those numbers. The problem is that any limit that is set here is dependent on whatever set of “reasonable” assumptions you want to make. When you have a crazy idea, you can always make a set of essentially equally crazy exceptions to sets of assumptions. Let’s say we base our limit on the undisputable fact that the Earth has been struck for billions of years by cosmic rays with energies billions of times greater than anything the LHC will ever create. But — wait — those have a center-of-mass that is relativistically boosted with respect to the Earth! But then, um, wouldn’t we have noticed the micro black holes eating objects not necessarily on Earth, but also in space? Maybe we have coincidentally missed all evidence of this! The Sun and stars are struck by cosmic rays too, wouldn’t we have noticed at least a few of them being swallowed? Well we’ve never detected high-energy cosmic rays on anything but the Earth, how do we know absolutely for sure that they are also hitting other stars and planets?! You can see how 10 different scientists would come up with 10 different extremely tiny limits on contrived scenarios here.
Ultimately, there is no tested theory of quantum gravity yet, so as far as anyone knows, when you get out of bed tomorrow you could fall into a black hole that has nothing to do with the LHC. Surprise!: we don’t have any great way of calculating what the chances of that are either. You could use that as an excuse to sleep in.
Moshe, I think that there may be an issue about whether or not people trust scientists as authorities, but the issue that I was getting at is simply one of language. When experts say “There is no believable model in which this would occur, and we can bound the probability to be less than 10^(-x),” they mean the same thing as when most non-experts say “That won’t happen.” And when talking to non-experts, experts should try their best to use words in the same way that non-experts are used to hearing them used.
Al, I think it’s like Ellipsis says. It’s a bit misleading to say we are “just relying on theoretical grounds,” as there is no theory that predicts the disaster scenario — just a set of words that use sensible theories to predict that there will be black holes, but then ignore the implications of sensible theories to ask what would happen if they didn’t decay. Cosmic rays can’t be too much help — what if the kinds of black holes that are produced at the LHC are different from those made by cosmic rays? There’s no theory that predicts that, but there’s also no theory that predicts that the black holes would be stable, either.
More realistically, the existence of cosmic rays (and, even better, the high-temperature early universe) convinces me that there’s nothing we can do at a particle accelerator that the universe hasn’t done many times over. Of course we can cook up possibilities that have not been covered, but not within any well-defined model. If someone asks, “In a world where 2+2=5, would Pythagoras’s Theorem still hold?”, what do you say? If you can start making stuff up, anything goes, but it’s not a basis for sensible risk assessment.
Oh, I see, agreed completely. I even think that a matter of principle the expression “probability less than 10^(-x)” should be replaced by “never” for x large enough (exact value depending on context).
This question has been investigated in a very interesting paper:
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0009204
Read it before making over-confident statements about this question. But before reading it, ask yourself: what probability of disaster do you think is acceptable? You may be surprised by the correct answer…….
The correct answer is “Cosmic ray collision energies are 5 orders of magnitude larger. Shut the hell up.”