A two year old article here describes the nature of human folly, especially about scientific experiments. The article talks of predictions of impending doom because the LHC ( 1 , 2 ) could create “black holes”, according to some doomsday prediction “experts”. There are efforts under way to recreate the first femtoseconds after the Big Bang, which is currently accepted as being the way the universe came into existence. A major contribution of this machine could be the discovery of the elusive Higgs Boson, one of the particles predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. The Higgs boson has been called the “God Particle“, probably because a Higgs mechanism seems to have been observed without evidence of a Higgs boson.
I can imagine the misgivings of some people, given that this experiment could spawn unpleasant results, such as never-before-encountered radiation, subatomic particles in concentrations not handled before and the like. However, it is difficult to see the half-baked arguments made by sensationalist reporters, doomsday prediction nutcases, luddites, etc., pour cold water over the efforts of a generation of scientists. I was fascinated by BBC’s documentary on the Large Hadron Collider – The Six Billion Dollar Experiment. It did not deter me when the US of A took up a trillion dollar experiment, because I had some idea that CERN, having pulled off the creation of the internet, could put another feather in its cap. I had an inkling when I read first about the CERN initiative that it would be more profitable to mankind than America’s more expensive experiments in the Middle East.
The BBC’s report that the world didn’t end when the LHC first fired successfully was not much of a surprise, since the day went by like any other, except with news of a successful experiment. Although there had been negative predictions by some scientists who believed that the LHC could lead to dangerous experiments which threatened to expose people and the environment to cosmic rays and other radiation which we haven’t experienced before.
Scientific paranoia is something best left to Hollywood to capture ( 1 ) and even they have failed on occasions when their ample graphical effects failed them or catapulted situations too dangerous to achievable stunts performed with little implausibility on the silver screen by aging actors and unintelligent bimbettes, or by talented developers developing immensely well executed computer games like Half Life. Half Life features a particle physics experiment gone wrong and purports that such experiments can open wormholes (discontinuous mappings of the space-time continuum) that could even transport intelligent being from other advanced civilizations into the realms of earth. Many of the assumptions made by such games (meant solely for entertainment, but which sometimes make one think) are pseudoscientific or fit into the themes explored often in pseudoscientific popular culture. Some of these themes are anthropomorphic alien life forms, oxygen or nitrogen breathing monsters which are more intelligent, hostile and for no good reasons at all, possess destructive instruments which are fully compatible with human hands. Satire apart, some of these themes hint at similar problems to similar situations, which is how all nature works, and as a result, is not very unintelligent at all.
The Large Hadron Collider seems to have become a vent to modern’s man’s continuing illogical and sometimes paranoid nature. It is encouraging that the initial tests have gone of well, which keeps people like me excited about the possibilities of humans understanding more about the nature of the universe. It is unfortunate also that some people of eminence in the scientific community are banking on a similar paranoia about our environment to plunder one science for the apparent benefit of another but with no apparent good outcome. Thankfully, better sense seems to prevail, and at least the Europeans haven’t shot themselves in the foot like America has, as with their now abandoned Linear particle accelerator, despite their otherwise powerful particle accelerators.
2 Comments
September 16, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I had posted this link in my Tumblr in last March.
http://brokenbits.tumblr.com/post/263113/a-scientist-says-one-of-the-most-sought-after
In my own stupid childish way, I remember that when we were kids they said some asteroid was going to collide with the earth and earth was going to be destroyed. We did not even prepare for our exams that week!
*sniff*
September 17, 2008 at 9:14 pm
The LHC in my opinion is one of the most laudable feats of engineering along with the International Space Station and several other technological monuments. It deserves better than half-cooked and half-witted prediction mongers.