Earth 'not at risk' from collider

The BBC web site, on 24th June 2008, has an article about a report that says there is no danger of the new CERN particle accelerator creating black holes and swallowing the earth. It says,

Our planet is not at risk from the world's most powerful particle physics experiment, a report has concluded.

Critics are worried that mini-black holes made at the soon-to-open facility on the French-Swiss border might threaten the Earth's very existence.

Most physicists believe the risk of a cataclysm lies in the realms of science fiction. But there have been fears about the possibility of a mini-black hole - produced in the collider – swelling so that it gobbles up the Earth.

Critics have previously raised concerns that the production of weird hypothetical particles called strangelets in the LHC could trigger the mass conversion of nuclei in ordinary atoms into more strange matter - transforming the Earth into a hot, dead lump.

The scientific consensus appears to be on the side of Cern's theorists.

The idea of the CERN project is to explore the unknown. All of the concerns about the possible dangers are based on theories and all of the rebuttals are also based on theories. It is only the scientific consensus that wins the argument. Lets all hope there are more right guesses than wrong ones.