LHC may not be as safe as we thought

The vnunet.com website, on the 29th of January 2009, comments on new research that shows the calculations made on the LHC could have been wrong and it may be more dangerous than first thought.

New research by three physicists has raised concerns over the safety of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is due to restart this summer.

Before the LHC’s first operations began concerns were raised that the activities within the 27 km particle accelerator could create black holes, which could in turn destroy the planet. A lawsuit was even filed to prevent the LHC from operation and sparked ribaldry from internet users.

CERN, which operates the LHC, commissioned an extensive study that concluded that if black holes were formed by the LHC then they would last for only milliseconds before extinguishing themselves.

However, a new study by Roberto Casadio of the University of Bologna in Italy and Sergio Fabi and Benjamin Harms of the University of Alabama has concluded that the black holes could survive for more than a second.

The danger would occur if the black holes stayed in existence long enough to absorb material and become self sustaining but the three say it is more likely that they would either collapse or stabilise at a very small level and drift out into space.

The LHC has been tested but it was never working fully and it did not smash any particles together. Therefore the past fears that were made when the LHC was first turned on have not gone away. We will not know if the LHC will kill us all until it is fixed and full working later this year.