'Black Hole Machine' to be activated On 06/09/08 by ed
It is a staggering device, occupying a train-sized tunnel 27km long, buried 100m underground, studded with gigantic, cathedral-sized, ring-shaped detectors where collisions between packets of "heavy" subatomic particles, "hadrons", reveal workings of matter and energy.
The LHC is, arguably, the most impressive machine built by mankind.
But a few people are convinced that it should never be turned on.
A lawsuit has been lodged at the European Court For Human Rights by a small group of maverick scientists.
They claim there is a small - but not zero - chance that when the LHC is activated it will create a mini-black hole, which would fall into the ground and swallow the Earth from within (scenario one), or, more bizarrely, trigger a catastrophic chain reaction in the very fabric of space and time - ripping apart the entire universe like the skin of a bursting balloon (scenario two).
The LHC is, arguably, the most impressive machine built by mankind.
But a few people are convinced that it should never be turned on.
A lawsuit has been lodged at the European Court For Human Rights by a small group of maverick scientists.
They claim there is a small - but not zero - chance that when the LHC is activated it will create a mini-black hole, which would fall into the ground and swallow the Earth from within (scenario one), or, more bizarrely, trigger a catastrophic chain reaction in the very fabric of space and time - ripping apart the entire universe like the skin of a bursting balloon (scenario two).
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24303939-663,00.html