Quote:
Originally Posted by grumpyolddude
The detonation of the first nuclear warhead was supposed to set off an unstoppable chain reaction, burning off the atmosphere and destroying all life on earth. If true, it's an awfully slow chain reaction.
Breaking the sound barrier was supposed to be catastrophic.
The use of microwaves for communication should have boiled our bodily fluids.
Colliding particles at near light speed will surely destroy us all!
The sky is falling!
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I actually doubt whether any of these claims are true. Can you provide any sources, please?
As to the original article, I'm shocked to say that, in principle, this fear is justified, even if it's not justified for this particular accelerator.
The idea is that accelerating a particle to a sufficiently high speed will increase the density of said particle past the
schwarzschild limit and turn it into a
black hole. You can imagine how disastrous this can be...
Luckily enough, not only is it exceedingly difficult to accelerate particles to such speeds but even if we managed to do it somehow,
Stephen Hawking's theory on
hawking radiation would have to also be wrong in order for the created black hole to pose any danger to us...
Still, Stephen could be wrong so if we ever did create a black hole...