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Conspiracy theorists are obsessed with the idea that the large hadron collider might invoke a black hole – or open a door to hell itself, allowing demons to try.
And now, a serious scientist has pointed out the hidden dangers of particle accelerators like the LHC (even if you should not get into the bunkers at the end of the year yet).
The Royal Astronomer, Martin Rees, describes the (theoretical) risks in a new book called On The Future: Perspectives for Humanity.
The Telegraph reports, "Maybe a black hole could form, then suck everything that surrounds it. The second frightening possibility is that quarks are grouped into compressed objects called strangelets.
"This in itself would be harmless, but under certain assumptions a stranglel could, by contagion, convert everything he encounters into a new form of matter, transforming the entire earth into a hyperdense sphere of a hundred meters in diameter. . "
The restaurant "tried to charge a victim of an acid attack for water" when he went to get help.
It sounds a little cramped – but wait, it could be even worse, Rees says.
Rees said, "Empty space – what physicists call emptiness – is more than nothingness. It's the arena for everything that's going on. It contains, in it, all the forces and particles that govern the physical world. The current vacuum could be fragile and unstable. "
"Some have speculated that the concentrated energy created by crushing particles could trigger a" phase transition "that would tear apart the structure of space. It would be a cosmic calamity and not just earthly. "
However, the LHC Safety Assessment Group (LSAG) has stated that in practice the collider does not pose "any danger".
The LSAG says, "Whatever the LHC does, nature has done so many times during the life of Earth and other astronomical bodies."
Far from trying to kill us all, scientists at CERN hope that discoveries in tunnels could really change the world.
More: World
In a 2014 interview, Dr. Harry Cliff, a scientist at CERN, said that discoveries of seemingly obscure particles can profoundly change the world.
"About a hundred years ago, when the first particle – the electron – was discovered, it was considered the toy of scientists with little practical use," says Dr. Cliff.
"Today, most of our technology is based on understanding the electron – from microchip to medical imaging. In a few decades, what we find at the LHC could lead to enormous technological advances, but it is difficult to know what they will be ahead.
"The construction of these huge machines requires you to develop new technologies, which have already led, for example, to more effective forms of cancer treatment that use particle beams to kill tumors."
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