Its official: We’re not going to be blown up, smothered in stranglets, sucked into a black hole or turned into ooze by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). To put any concerns to rest, CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) has concluded in another approved safety report that the LHC is harmless and will not hurt us, our planet or the Universe. This new investigation builds on previous findings that the LHC is safe, reiterating what scientists have been telling us for years. Besides, the LHC isn’t doing anything that nature isn’t already doing every second…
I actually thought the LHC safety reports were done and dusted (the original report was actually completed in 2003), but it seems, to be thorough, CERN wanted to re-confirm their previous conclusions that the LHC was safe and ready for use later this year.
The LHC is understandably under intense scrutiny and will be subject to a range of audits from safety to environmental impact. This new report commissioned to investigate whether any of the theoretical particles created in the LHC collision chamber could pose a threat, not only to the cows and sheep in the Swiss countryside, but to the Earth and the Cosmos. Strengthened with experimental and observational research, the new report prepared by a team of physicists at CERN, UC Santa Barbara and the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has covered all the factors from previous safety investigations, and again concluded that the LHC is… safe.
As with any high-energy experiment, scientists and governments are under increased pressure to ensure every step is being taken to safeguard against any catastrophic accident. The LHC, soon to be the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, has seen more criticism than most physics experiments. For one, it is expensive (£2.4 billion or $4.7 billion), so collaborating governments and institutions want to know where their money is going, but second, CERN wants to avoid public misconceptions about what harm the LHC could do. This is epitomised in a recent lawsuit a Hawaiian man filed against CERN, citing the new accelerator might generate a black hole (that the Earth would get sucked into) or create a chain reaction, unleashing exotic “stranglets” on the planet. This is an extreme case of a misconception about what the LHC is capable of, so it seems essential that in-depth studies into LHC safety must be carried out continuously.
Listed is the safety reports perceived LHC threats (with likelihood of occurrence in parentheses):
Is that all there is? Surely there are more new and inventive ways to destroy the planet? Oh well…
So, it looks like we are in the clear for the grand switch on of the LHC! And now, you can have a ring-side seat, watching all the operations at the LHC via the array of webcams CERN has up and running:
Source: CERN
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