Devourer of Worlds

June 25, 2008

There's good news this week for everyone who's been fretting over whether the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will end up destroying the universe.

For those who've been blissfully ignorant of this threat to our very existence, the LHC is that gigantic atom-smasher in Switzerland slated to turn on later this year. It's the most powerful machine of its kind ever built, and naturally that makes some people nervous. A lawsuit filed earlier this year sought to delay the start-up, citing fears that the machine would create mini-black holes that would grow and grow and grow, gobbling up all matter in its path. *gasp* Oh noes! Could this be true? Is the Earth truly doomed?

In a word: no. That's the conclusion of the latest safety assessment report from the LHC Safety Study Group.  Granted, the full report is highly technical and laden with impenetrable jargon, which doesn't help those of us without PhDs in particle physics understand the import. CERN has posted a helpful summary, and there's some additional background information here and here.

For those who just want the Cliff's Notes version, I hereby give you my own "Top 5 Reasons the LHC Will Not Destroy the Universe."

1. First, let's dispense with a common misconception: black holes don't "suck."  Good thing, too. There's a black hole of more than a million solar masses at the center of our very own Milky Way galaxy, so we would have all been sucked into the singularity long ago if this were true. Ditto for most of the other large galaxies in the cosmos. Supermassive black holes are a big part of why these galaxies form in the first place. We tend to think of them as gigantic cosmic vacuum cleaners greedily devouring everything in their wake. But mostly the black holes just sit complacently at the center, biding their time like infinitely dense spiders waiting for "prey" -- odd bits of matter that get a little too close and accidentally "trip" over the event horizon -- to fall into their "webs." (And then, of course, it truly is sayonara.)

2. Second, the term "mini black hole" is a bit misleading, conjuring an image of something the size of, say, a donut hole. In reality, mini black holes would be the size of a subatomic particle. The only way physicists could tell if one had been created would be well after the fact, by analyzing the "signatures" collected by the LHC detectors. (Dirty Harry sez: "You're not afraid of a subatomic particle, are ya? Well, are ya, punk?")

3. Third, it's a bit of stretch to assume that the LHC will definitely create mini-black holes. It would only do so under certain very specific -- and rare -- circumstances, if at all. Noted Harvard physicist Lisa Randall (author of Warped Passages) said as much in a recent paper (co-authored by Patrick Meade), and really, she should know. Frankly, if the LHC creates mini black holes, it would be a very exciting thing for science, since it would mean the Standard Model is not all there is to particle physics.

4. Fourth, even if those very rare circumstances transpire, the mini black holes would be extremely short lived, thanks to a little thing called Hawking radiation, after Stephen Hawking, who first proposed it. In essence, this means that a black hole will gradually evaporate over time, at a rate proportional to its size. The bigger the black hole, the longer it takes to evaporate, and the smaller the black hole, the less time it takes to evaporate. A black hole the size of a subatomic particle would wink out of existence in fractions of a second -- long before it could pose any kind of threat to the world's continued existence.

5. Finally, the most telling argument against the notion that mini-black holes will destroy the universe is that they haven't done so yet. High-energy cosmic rays routinely bombard the Earth's atmosphere and have done so for billions of years. The collisions inside the LHC won't have nearly as much energy. What's new in the latest safety assessment report is that it considers not just the cosmic ray collisions on Earth, but on every possible body throughout the observable universe. In other words, the cosmos has already done the experiment, countless times, in every corner of its being. And yet we are all still here.

So why all the hysteria surrounding the start-up of the LHC? Well, it's partly that people don't know their physics. But even when it's explained to them, they still have doubts. Why should they trust these physicists? What if it's all just a vast conspiracy to cover up some secret nefarious purpose? There's a strong undercurrent of anti-science sentiment in this country that I personally find distressing. Far too many people have this image of scientists pursuing knowledge for curiosity's sake with no thought to the risks they incur, or the potential damage wrought. That simply isn't true.

The LHC, for instance, has taken the potential risks of its experiments very seriously indeed. There were two prior safety assessment reports before the latest one, each produced by a panel of world-class experts whose conclusions were then thoroughly vetted by other world-class experts (peer review). This is the most thorough expert testimony any court could hope to have on record, obtained at considerable expense. The conspiracy would have to be far-reaching indeed if it were all just an elaborate cover-up.

It's their world, too, you know. Physicists are human beings, with families, and hobbies, and a deep desire not to blow up themselves and everything they love. So to suggest that LHC's scientists are cavalierly endangering us all in the name of science is, frankly, an insult to the world's high energy physics community. These hard-working men and women deserve better than our unfounded suspicion.

Photo: Simulated view of a black hole (of about 10 solar masses) in front of the Milky Way. Source: Wikipedia Commons

Comments

[Greg Laden]

Thanks for posting this, well done.

I must say I'm kinda disappointed that the black holes will not be around for very long if they do spring into existence.

I do believe that the first three points you make are, while true and interesting, not related to at least some of the concern about how this is being addressed. I don't know anyone who thinks any of those things.

The fourth item is where things get interesting. Could it be the case that black holes generated by this LHC would test this hypothesis? (and it is a hypothesis at this stage, yes?)

In the mean time, the fact that black holes are being formed everywhere could explain what is going on with my socks....

[Jennifer Ouellette]

"I do believe that the first three points you make are, while true and interesting, not related to at least some of the concern about how this is being addressed. I don't know anyone who thinks any of those things."

That's probably because you know a lot of scientists, or highly scientifically literate people. :) To the average person, those first three points are quite relevant. I have definitely encountered those issues when asked about the LHC over the past year and a half.

[Greg Laden]

Interesting. I totally believe you.

I think the "small" black hole the size of a glazed donut is a fascinating concept.

[Mike Hambidge]

Thanks for your blog. Most impressed, and glad I Stumbled upon it.

[Dave]

"In essence, this means that a black hole will gradually evaporate over time, at a rate proportional to its size."

I think this should be "inversely proportional" (just to pick nits).

I remember running some numbers a while back, and for even a black hole composed of a mass equivalent to a reasonable sized nucleus, the lifetime of the black hole (before it winked out of existence by evaporating due to Hawking radiation) would be short enough that, even traveling near the speed of light, it wouldn't last long enough to make it to another nucleus.

Now, as for a black hole the size of a donut....Umm, DONUTS!

:*)

Dave

[Dave Mosher]

I've heard bits and pieces about strangematter being generated by the LHC, which sounds scarier than any crackpot prophecy about blackholes. I think I read about it in a NYTimes piece awhile back (like any news outlet, of course, they're subject to getting the story wrong).
These bits I've read suggest that strangematter could "ice nine" everything else on Earth into strangematter. And essentially crush the planet into a nice dense ball in quick fashion.
Strangematter has never been observed before, but Jennifer do you know what - if anything - the safety report(s) had to say about it? And if not, is it just that physicists consider the existence of strangematter ridiculous?

[Jennifer Ouellette]

Excellent question, Dave. Yes, the strange matter/strangelets concern has also been addressed in the LHC report, as well as a couple of other minor issues. The report is very, very thorough, and the highlights are laid out quite nicely in the CERN summary linked to in the post.

The notion of strangelets actually first originated with the startup of a different machine: Brookhaven's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The same fears about strangelets and mini-black holes were voiced before it opened in 2000 -- and the same man, Walter Wagner, also filed a lawsuit against Brookhaven, which also produced a series of carefully peer-reviewed safety assessment reports. Deja vu!

Lots of newspapers covered the Brookhaven nonsense at the time, including the NY Times, and yes -- they tended to get it wrong. The press coverage hit an all-time low when a local reporter called Brookhaven to ask if JF Kennedy Jr's plane had not crashed, but been swallowed by one of RHIC's black holes. *sigh* My favorite quote is when MIT's Robert Jaffe told NEWSDAY, "It's more likely that a spaceship is going to land in the middle of Texas, and that aliens are going to come out and tell us that the New York Yankees are all aliens."

So, yes, some physicists consider the notion ridiculous, but not because they cavalierly dismiss people's fears (even though sometimes it might seem like that to those who don't know the history). They dismiss the notion because they've studied the possibility from every angle they can think over more than a decade. Yet most of us can't even be bothered to Google the term, click on a link, and do a wee bit of homework before panicking. No wonder they sometimes lose patience with us. :)

[Jennifer Ouellette]

Another reason these fears just refuse to die, is that no self-respecting physicist would ever say, with 100% certainty, that something COULDN'T happen, even if the likelihood is on a par with winning the lottery 10,000 times in a row (i.e., pretty impossible, even for the most diehard optimist). That just wouldn't be "scientific."

I'm reminded of a scene in DUMB AND DUMBER, where Jim Carrey's character asks the female love interest if she would ever consider getting together with him. Her answer is something along the lines of, "Maybe if we were the last two people on earth and the gorilla was really ugly..." What she's really saying, in as nice a way as possible is, "No. Not ever. No way." All he hears is, "THERE'S A CHANCE!!!"

And so it is with the mini-black holes scenario. :)

[Dave Mosher]

Thanks for the response(s) - I feel way smartr ;)

One thought is that it's hard to get too angry at reporters - advanced physics is incredibly difficult for most people to get straight (I'm one among them). I mean, Stephen Hawking used a few books to convey the simplest ideas of quantum physics. And I know you've got a couple under your belt, too.

As for the JFK Jr. question? Sort of blows away the notion of "there's no such thing as a stupid question"...

[BJN]

The hard-working men and women at (Exxon, Microsoft, the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Energy Solutions, General Public Utilities Corporation, etc., etc.) deserve better than our unfounded suspicion.

The notion that scientists are above venal self-interest, overblown self-confidence, or simple human error is simply ridiculous. A Ph.D. isn't a ticket to high-minded morality.

When the stakes are high, there's nothing at all wrong with taking a cynical approach to assurances that come from a community with vested interests. It's not acceptable to tell the 99.9 plus percent of the world's population who don't have an intimate understanding of high energy physics that "we're good hard-working folks with families, trust us". The whole reason to do a project like the LHC is to test theory and make discoveries. If they had all the answers there would be no LHC.

[Jennifer Ouellette]

BJN's biases are showing, just by what he is reading into the original post. I am not advocating blind acceptance, or saying that physicists don't make mistakes or don't have venal attributes -- that, too, is part of being human. And no scientist would claim to have all the answers -- far from it! They do know more than the rest of us about their area of expertise, however, and expertise does matter. Unless you're willing to earn a PhD in high energy physics yourself and spend 10+ years acquiring the same level of technical expertise, at some point you HAVE to trust the consensus opinion of the experts -- assuming there is a consensus. (Sometimes there isn't; in the case of the LHC, there is.)

It's great to adopt critical thinking, and by all means, questions about LHC safety should have been asked, and strenuously investigated. They have been.

Cynicism just for the sake of cynicism helps no one.

[jmh]

What I find particularly annoying about this matter is that a case brought US citizens in a US court is even entertained. As a European I feel that it is the height of hubris, given that the LHA is located in Switzerland and France, both of which are sovereign nations over which a US court has no jurisdiction.

[David Chandler]

Just a quick response to the comment from Dave, up above:
Actually, Jennifer had this right in the first place, the lifetime of a black hole is *directly* proportional to its size, not inversely proportional as Dave suggests.
That is, very small black holes last a very small amount of time, very big ones last for a long time.
As for jmh's comment that US courts shouldn't have any jurisdiction, well, this is kind of an unusual case in that respect. If there really *was* a chance of this destroying the whole planet, that kind of expands the notion of who has a direct interest in the outcome.
Let's just say, for example, that country X decides, just for the heck of it, to send a mission to an asteroid to deflect it so that it will slam into the Earth. Is that just an internal matter for country X, or do the rest of us have a say in the matter?
Very interesting post Jennifer, by the way, with a nice summary of the history of the question.

[rpenner]

jmh

Who says it is being "entertained?" Wagner and Sancho have filed a complaint, which cost them USD $350 and have served court papers on the U.S. Department of Energy. The DOE has filed lengthy papers on the many problems with lawsuit and has asked for the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

One of the problems, is of course, that the US is not a voting member of CERN. Another problem is that all the construction funds which the US allocated (4% of LHC budget), have been spent. So withdrawing US support now could not have the effect of stopping the LHC. Another problem is that the US decided to spend these funds over eight years ago, and the time for suits to be filed to stop such funds has expired.

Wagner's response so far is a baseless claim that the US "has constructed most of the superconducting magnets for the Large Hadron Collider [LHC] via its contracting through Fermilab." [Court papers filed June 6, 2008]

But Wagner's personal incomprehension of US law or physics or the nature of the LHC project is not his biggest failing.

My biggest problem with Wagner's legal strategy is that he publicly solicted funds for this lawsuit and then represents himself PRO SE. Were I one of the deluded people who contributed money to this effort, I would feel betrayed.

[Jim]

Shucks, if anybody is going to blow up the world it's going to be the goofballs down at LLNL with the NIF project.