WHAT SCIENTISTS SAY
In July, 1999 Scientific American published two highly-edited letters written by physicists Walter L. Wagner and Franck Wilczek in the Letters to the Editors section pertaining to theoretical particles that might be created by colliders. At that time, the LHC was still on the drawing board, and the RHIC [Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider], some 30-fold lower in energy than the LHC, was nearing completion.
This was apparently the first time that consideration was given in the scientific literature to the idea that particle colliders might create miniature black holes, as suggested by Dr. Wagner. Since then, numerous theoretical papers have been published suggesting that miniature black holes might be created under some scenarios, though with most suggesting they would quickly evaporate via "Hawking radiation", an untested theory first postulated by Steven Hawking in the early 1970s, and also suggested by Dr. Wagner as the likely result in his original letter to Scientific American.
The idea that colliders might create strangelets, as suggested by Dr. Wilczek, had been published in the scientific literature previously by other authors.
Those letters are reprinted below:
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"Madhusree Mukerjee's article on the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory ["A Little Big Bang", March] alarmed several readers, such as Michael Cogill of Coquitlam, B.C. "I am concerned that physicists are boldly going where it may be unsafe to go", writes Cogill, who worries that creating stuff that has not to anyone's knowledge existed since the early universe -- namely a quar-gluon plasma -- could result in a catastrophe. "What if they somehow alter the underlying nature of things such that it cannot be restored?" he asks. Another reader wondered whether the RHIC experiments could result in miniature black holes (below).
BLACK HOLES AT BROOKHAVEN?
Thank you for the article by Madhusree Mukerjee entitled "A Little Big Bang" [March]. In the 1970s Stephen W. Hawking postulated that in the early moments of the big bang, miniature black holes would have been present. Although they no longer exist in our region of the universe, such mini black holes could be created by smashing a proton into an antiproton with enough energy. If one were created near a large congregation of mass and if it started absorbing that mass before exploding, the black hole would reach a relatively stable half-life and thus continue to grow. If this happened on the earth, the mini black hole would be drawn by gravity toward the center of the planet, absorbing matter along the way and devouring the entire planet within minutes.
My calculations indicate that the Brookhaven collider does not obtain sufficient energies to produce a mini black hole; however, my calculations might be wrong. The only way to determine the energy density at which a mini black hole would be created as an intermediary step to the type of explosion depicted in your article is to build a collider and do the experiment. Is the Brookhaven collider for certain below the threshold?
WALTER L. WAGNER
via email
Frank Wilczek of the Institute for AdvancedStudy in Princeton, N.J., replies:
Whenever we explore new physical (or chemical, or biological) phenomena, questions like Cogill's arise regarding whether we might unwittingly trigger some catastrophe. For example, in the early days of the Manhattan Project, Fermi and others carefully considered whether a nuclear explosion might ignite the atmosphere. Scientists must take such possibilities very seriously -- even if the risks seem remote -- because an error might have devastating consequences. In the case of the Brookhaven RHIC, dangerous surprises seem extremely unlikely. First, nuclear collisions with larger energies take place regularly as cosmic rays rain down on our atmosphere -- so if a disaster were possible, it would have already occurred. Second, related regimes have been explored in detail, and so we have substantial evidence that our theoretical framework for understanding what will happen is reliable. Although we cannot calculate the consequences in complete detail, we can distinguish credible from incredible scenarios.
The idea that mini black holes will be formed, as Wagner suggests, definitely falls in the latter category. The energy densities and volumes that will be produced at RHIC are nowhere near large enough to produce strong gravitational fields. On the other hand, there is a speculative but quite respectable possibility that subatomic chunks of a new stable form of matter called strangelets might be produced (this would be an extraordinary discovery). One might be concerned about an "ice-9"-type transition, wherein a strangelet grows by incorporating and transforming the ordinary matter in its surroundings. But strangelets, if they exist at all, are not aggressive and they will start out very small. So here again a doomsday scenario is not plausible."
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It is to be noted that in 1975 Dr. Wagner discovered the tracks of a novel particle on a balloon-borne cosmic ray detector. "Evidence for Detection of a Moving Magnetic Monopole", Price et al., Physical Review Letters, August 25, 1975, Volume 35, Number 8. A magnetic monopole was first theorized in 1931 by Paul A.M. Dirac, Proceedings of the Royal Society (London), Series A 133, 60 (1931), and again in Physics Review 74, 817 (1948). While some pundits claimed that the tracks represented a doubly-fragmenting normal nucleus, the data was so far removed from that possibility that it would have been only a one-in-one-billion chance, compared to a novel particle of unknown type. The data fit perfectly with a Dirac monopole.
It is to be further noted that since the above-quoted Scientific American article, the idea that colliders might create miniature black holes has gained wide credence in the scientific community, with many theorists postulating such, but also concluding that they would likely quickly evaporate via Hawking Radiation [Dr. Wagner's initial surmise as well]. Google on the term "Black Hole Factory" for a plethora of articles.
Or go to:
http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29199
http://www.analogsf.com/0305/altview.shtml
http://www.exitmundi.nl/blackholes_lab.htm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4136/is_200405/ai_n9450305
Also see the following scientific articles published on black-hole creation by colliders:
"Black Holes at the LHC" S. Dimopoulos and G. Landsberg, Phys. Rev. Letters 87 (2001) 161602, preprint hep-ph/0106295 available at http://arxiv.org
"Black Hole Chromosphere at the LHC" L. Anchordoqui and H.Goldberg, preprint hep-ph/0209337 available at http://arxiv.org.
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It is also to be noted that Dr. Wilczek won a Nobel Prize in physics a few years after his suggestion that Dr. Wagner's suggestion that colliders can create minature black holes was not a "credible" scenario, for Dr. Wilczek's theoretical work on quarks.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/nobel-wilczek.html
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HERE IS THE OFFICIAL CERN POSITION ON THE POTENTIAL DANGERS ASSOCIATED WITH OPERATING THE LHC:
CERN/DG/Research Board 2003-347
Minutes-162
7 February 2003
ORGANISATION EUROPÉENNE POUR LA RECHERCHE NUCLÉAIRE
CERN EUROPEAN ORGANIZATION FOR NUCLEAR RESEARCH
____________________________________________________________
CERN RESEARCH BOARD
_______________________
MINUTES OF THE 162nd MEETING OF THE RESEARCH BOARD
HELD ON THURSDAY, 6 FEBRUARY 2003
Present : J. Äystö, J.-J. Blaising, M. Calvetti, R. Cashmore, C. Détraz, L. Evans, R. Forty (Secretary), Luis Alvarez Gaumé (replacing G. Altarelli), M. Hauschild, H. Hoffmann, J. Iliopoulos*, J. Kirkby*, K. Königsmann, P. Lebrun, L. Maiani (Chairman), J. May, S. Myers, G. Roy, J.-A. Rubio, W.-D. Schlatter, A.A. Watson*, C. Wyss, W. von Rüden, A. Zalewska
*part-time
Items
1. Procedure
2. Status Report on the Pierre Auger experiment (A.A. Watson)
3. Reports and matters arising from the INTC meeting of 25 November 2002
4. Study of possibly dangerous events during Heavy Ion collisions at LHC (J. Iliopoulos)
5. Reports and matters arising from the LHCC meetings of 27-28 November 2002
and 29-30 January 2003
6. Reports and matters arising from the SPSC meeting of 14 January 2003
7. Any other business
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4. STUDY OF POSSIBLY DANGEROUS EVENTS DURING HEAVY ION COLLISIONS AT LHC
J. Iliopoulos reported on the study made by a committee that he chaired, concerning the possibility of producing dangerous events during Heavy Ion collisions at the LHC [8]. A previous study made for RHIC had concluded that the candidate mechanisms for catastrophe scenarios are firmly excluded by existing empirical evidence, compelling theoretical arguments, or both. Following their investigation, the committee concurred with this conclusion. They studied the possible production of black holes, magnetic monopoles and strangelets. They also reviewed the astrophysical limits, coming from interaction of cosmic rays with the moon (or with each other) which, under plausible assumptions, exclude the possibility of dangerous processes in Heavy Ion colliders.
Black holes produced in theories with extra, compact, dimensions, for which the fundamental scale could be as low as 1 TeV, might be copiously produced at the LHC. However, only extremely massive black holes, beyond the reach of any accelerator, would be stable. It has been speculated that magnetic monopoles might catalyze proton decay. At each catalysis event, energy is released by the decaying proton, causing the monopole to move. They estimated the number of nucleons that the monopole would destroy before escaping from the earth, and found it to be negligibly small.
Most of the committee’s study concerned strangelets, a hypothetical new form of matter containing roughly equal numbers of up, down and strange quarks. They may become dangerous if they can be produced at the LHC, are sufficiently long-lived, are negatively charged so that they can attract and absorb ordinary nuclei, and finally if they can grow indefinitely without becoming unstable. The committee found that, from general principles, if negatively-charged strangelets exist at all, they would not grow indefinitely: they soon become unstable. Furthermore they concluded that any hadronic system with baryon number of order 10 or higher is out of reach of a Heavy Ion collider, and the LHC will be no more efficient at producing strangelets than RHIC. To be dangerous the strangelet would need to be stable from very low baryon number, where production is possible, all the way up towards infinite baryon number, a possibility that has been excluded by the stability studies.
L. Maiani thanked J. Iliopoulos and his committee for their work, and the Research Board took note of the report.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE OFFICIAL POSITION ASSUMES THE THEORY OF BLACK HOLE EVAPORATION IS CORRECT, EVEN THOUGH THERE IS NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE TO PROVE SUCH. THIS IS A FAITH-BASED POSITION IN THAT IT RELIES ENTIRELY ON THEORY THAT IS NOT SUBSTANTIATED BY EVIDENCE.
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In response to the recent, August 8-9, 2007 U.S. Coast to Coast AM radioshow with host George Noory interviewing Dr. Wagner, the following letter was received from an astute listener:
August 11, 2007
Dr. Walter L. Wagner
LHC Defense
P.O. Box 881
Pepeekeo, HI 96783
Dear Dr. Wagner,
Please accept this $10 donation (enclosed) toward your planned lawsuit to delay the start of operations of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) until a proper safety evaluation can be made by an independent committee of scientists and safety consultants. I trust that it will be joined by many similar contributions, especially as a result of your excellent interview on Coast to Coast AM this past week. In the words of one pundit, commenting on a similar problem, “A planet is a terrible thing to waste.” Echoing the concerns of Britain’s Astronomer-Royal, the same might be said for a bio-compatible universe.
From the information provided on your website, as well as some of the linked websites, it’s clear that the main renewed concern relating to the LHC stems from the fact that the assumptions upon which previous safety assurances were given have increasingly been shown to be of highly questionable validity. This surely calls for a new safety assessment by an independent body, perhaps under UN auspices.
Looking at the problem more broadly, it may well be that high-energy colliders, by their very nature, pose an unacceptable risk, especially as their energy is increased. The black-hole problem (and maybe the strangelet problem) could potentially be dealt with by making a design change to assure that the resultant collision products have sufficient residual kinetic energy to escape earth’s gravitational field. But the space-time collapse problem, while a less probable outcome, has no such “engineering” solution. Even moving the whole shebang to outer space (or an “expendable” moon) would not provide a solution.
The use of high-energy colliders to probe the structure of matter has rightly been compared with smashing a watch and examining its parts to determine how a watch works. This, while crude, may be fairly effective as long as the smashing doesn’t destroy all the watches – and watchmakers – in the world, as well as possibly destroying the time-continuum which the watch is designed to measure.
Yet I realize that you’re up against a Promethean drive toward power through knowledge. One of the callers to Coast expressed it well in citing the example of Dr. Edward Teller’s development of fusion weapons. So far, we’ve been fortunate in not fulfilling the quote, reportedly made on the eve of the Alamogordo fission bomb test, by Dr. Oppenheimer from, as I recall, the Bhagavad Gita: “I am become the destroyer of worlds.”
Put another way, Nobel’s physics prize may, in the end, wreak more destruction than Nobel’s dynamite. Unfortunately, there might be nobody left to appreciate the irony.
Anyway, good luck in your effort,
Yours truly,
John ________
Houston, Texas
[anonymous until permission from author received
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The following is a letter from Dr. James Martin, of the Center for Nuclear Non-Proliferation, addressed to Dr. Wagner:
Dear Walter,
I very strongly share your concern about existential risks. The following is
a section from my book "The Meaning of the 21st Century".
Lord Martin Rees is the President of the British Royal Society, so steeped in scientific history since 1660. He could hardly seem more civilized, living and working as he does amid the ancient magnificence of Trinity College in Cambridge, overlooking gardens sloping down to the river Cam. Despite the calm, Lord Rees has profound reasons for believing that civilization could experience "an irreversible setback." A deeply thoughtful and broad-ranging scientist, he says that we have so many dangers ahead that he rates the odds of Homo sapiens surviving the 21st century as "no better than fifty-fifty." He spelled out this reasoning in detail in his book Our Final Century. He is concerned that some big-budget scientific research will become too dangerous and that one low-budget maverick could trigger something uncontrollable. Current technologies already raise questions about whether we can control technology, and far wilder technologies are not on our radar screen yet.
If you think Lord Rees's claim sounds far-fetched, imagine the accelerating avalanche of technology continuing for a thousand years. Ultimately, it will become far too dangerous to live with. At some point in the future, humankind will not survive unless well-thought-out action is taken to ensure human survivability. That time will probably occur in the 21st century. This is the first century in which Homo sapiens could be terminated.
Risks that could terminate Homo sapiens are referred to as existential risks
(risks to our existence). Genetically modified pathogens are one. Some
decades in the future we may have problems with self-replicating
nanotechnology devices too small to see. Various aspects of future
technology could put humanity at risk. Marvin Minskey commented to us: "If we go on the way we are, we may not get through the next century at all.: When there is a clear danger in the headlights, common sense says hit the brakes, but scientists often want to keep the foot hard down on the
accelerator pedal.
When learning about the Holocaust, we shudder even to think about it. Yet when discussing a futuristic scenario in which humankind happens to be "wiped out" by an engineered pathogen, the understanding of what this means does not sink in.
The "next next" accelerator might give us a major step forward in our understanding of the universe, but the risk/reward ratio is absolutely unacceptable if the risk is the termination of Homo sapiens. Stephen Hawking, who understands the exotic mathematics better than anybody, worries that an accelerator event might conceivably wipe us out, so he advocates that we should set up a human colony on Mars to ensure the survival of Homo sapiens.
This is the first century in which we can genetically modify pathogens, or build a machine that starts an unexpected flash fire among subatomic particles that might set fire to the atmosphere. So a vital part of the meaning of the 21st century is to understand the possible risks to humanity's existence and establish controls and defense technology that ensures that Homo sapiens survives. If we survive the 21st century, we'llprobably have the procedures to survive long-term.
Humankind's long-term future will be utterly magnificent compared to our existence today. Given Lord Rees's statement about the possibility of exterminating Homo sapiens, what should our reaction be? There's only one acceptable reaction. We will do ANYTHING - anything possible - to prevent the ultimate holocaust - the extermination of humanity.
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The following is a letter dated July 21, 2007 from Dr. Paul J. Werbos [of the National Science Foundation] to Mr. James Blodgett [of the Risk Evaluation Forum], forwarded to the Lifeboat Foundation:
Thank you very much for your message, James!
How can anyone (like myself) feel genuine pleasure in seeing a message from someone arguing for a serious possibility of an end to the earth? Well, first, I wish people would remember the old dictum "Don't shoot the messenger," and really take it to heart.
Next -- the disaster I am truly most afraid of is that humans may simply not wake up in time to handle all the many things they need to handle, across many issues, simply in order to survive at all as a species.
While I fully agree with James, and am glad to see his message... there are still some aspects of human thinking on this issue which continue to trouble me.
At 01:09 AM7/21/2007, james_r_blodgett wrote:
If the issue were that string theory might be right... well, in truth, that is one of the possibilities that I would worry least about. Occam's Razor is SUCH a fundamental principle!
To assume so many extra dimensions, without a shred of empirical evidence for them... It reminds me a lot of those folks who come up with "systems" in roulette or in the lottery, who come up with arguments that a certain twelve-digit string of numbers is just so beautiful that it must have unique powers... nothing but a 10^-12 probability in the end.
BUT: if people were less theological about it, superstring theory does have at least one important value for human thinking -- it provides at least one alternative to The Standard Model. Like a good science fiction novel, it can help wake us up to the fact that things might not be exactly like what they seem... and also to the fact that there are still some embarrassing holes and mathematical inconsistencies in the naive story of physics. We do badly need to be woken up on that score. While superstring theory (and brane theory) as such may have little probability of truth, it can have value as a REPRESENTATIVE of a very large and diverse class of theories which collectively have a high probability of truth; this works, so long as we don't take the details too religiously.
Though in fact... the Hawking prediction is not exactly Standard Model either...
THE REAL issue, from the viewpoint of rational policy, is that we REALLY DON'T KNOW to within many orders of magnitude what it takes to make a minimal black hole.
Many people would say: "We don't know, so let's be 'rational' and assume the best, and have faith. After all there were silly nay-sayers who were even worried about the first hydrogen bomb... We aren't dead yet, so why worry?"
This reminds me of the teenage drunk drivers who say: "I haven't been killed YET, so why should I worry? Drinking and driving can't possibly be really dangerous for ME... I have pressed on the accelerator before, while drunk, so why not raise it again and go 120 mph while drunk?" This is also relevant to human psychology on energy policy. I went to look for a nice picture illustrating such teenage drivers, for my slides for a talk on energy policy... but unfortunately, the only picture I found was 'way too partisan to use for Congress. Still, it left a deep engraving in MY mind... a picture of George Bush as a teenager, holding a bottle in his hand... morphing into Alfred E. Newman "What me worry?", and this time crashing a bigger pickup truck... "Well, Dad, I tried to be good this time, but there was a slight problem..." But it's not just Bush who has things to learn here. Can we develop the mental discipline to start learning BEFORE the pickup truck crashes?
The story of the small black holes DOES in fact involve Bush's science advisor, who did mount a campaign for positive thinking on the issue, which was very powerful and very effective. Political campaigns for the wrong kind of "positive thinking" (backed up with state power) are part of the problem. It may be that American versions of "positive thinking" are analogous in a way to jihadist views of unity and loyalty to God... an example of how a few minor problems in the technical formulation could kill everyone.
For what it's worth, I have posted a condensed version of my views on the black hole issue at www.werbos.com/space.htm.
"(2) Black holes were supposed to dissipate via Hawking radiation. Now two good papers question whether Hawking radiation exists [Unruh, Helfer]";
It also ... raises some hope... to see the name Unruh here. (I probably need to look up the paper and comment.)
Could there be an emerging circle of genuine human competence here somewhere? That would be really great.
I know Unruh's name from his chapter in Time's Arrow Today, by Savitt(Cambridge University Press, 1995). That was a really seminal collection, addressing some of the very most important issues in the foundations of physics. I especially liked the chapter by the philosopher Huw Price in that book -- because he described very clearly and beautifully (I thought) the mental blocks which have kept people from people able to understand what is really going on with quantum mechanics, in my view. (At www.werbos.com/reality.htm, I have posted some of my correspondence with Price.) Some people tell me that they find Price's chapter hard to understand -- but I think there is an analogy to people indoctrinated in Biblical fundamentalism finding it hard to understand what Darwin was saying; it is really quite easy, if one lets go and gets rid of the mental block. (It is sad that 'tHooft has decided to play Holy Inquisition this time. Nothing like the allure of trying to keep wearing those fancy red robes..)
The Savitt book as a whole, like Price, asks whether we can really understand the implications of the fact that the underlying dynamics of the universe are SYMMETRIC with respect to time, so far as we can tell. (More precisely: exact CPT symmetry in all know empirical physics --one kind of time symmetry -- and T symmetry which is usually exactly but on certain occasions rare on earth violated in the twelfth decimal place or so.)
Price fully assimilates the implications. Unruh provides a mathematical formalism, far more concrete than Price's work, but doesn't quite manage to express in mathematics what he was aiming for.
The fact is... I was the first person to publish (in Nuovo Cimento in early 1970's) the backwards-time "interpretation" (theory) of quantum mechanics, along the same lines which Price proposed in Savitt. But to translate that into a full mathematical formalism, capable of testable and interesting predictions, is EXTREMELY difficult. It took me many years to figure out the basics of how to do it, enough to make contact with definitive experiments. Science being what it is, I certainly couldn't make a living off the intermediate stages of that effort; thus I have mainly made money from other activities, and focused my "recreational budget for quantum theory" into the core effort to figure out the basic physics and mathematics.
I finally do think I see how the pieces fit together here... as in my two most recent papers posted in the physics section of arxiv.org.
One of the reasons why it is hard to disentangle what is going on here is that there are at least four major mainstream formulations of what quantum field theory (in the standard model) IS. (None of them has been proven to "exist" in a rigorous mathematical sense, which has led to a lot of hand-waving in discussions about whether they are equivalent or not.)
The two most important, for the black hole discussion, are the "Feynmann path" version and the canonical Schrodinger picture.
My impression is that Hawking’s arguments for black hole radiation (which saves us from the earth being gobbled up) is based on the major (1/2)hw kinds of stochastic effects in the Feynmann picture. BUT: ON THIS POINT I DO NOT REALLY KNOW! Please feel free to correct me... but please keep in mind that I have done a WHOLE lot more due diligence on the other points here, and in the recent papers on arxiv!!!
If this impression is correct... there is a link here to the zero point energy (ZPE) arguments that folks like Puthoff have been propagating (including a recent paper published in International Journal for Theoretical Physics, IJTP). The notion of (1/2)hw zero point energy in the universe, and the ZPE interpretation of the Casimir effect, have been advocated not only by Hawkings, but in the authoritative text on QFT by Zinn-Justin, and even in sympathetic if cautious footnotes in Weinberg's text on QFT.
Much as I respect illuminated Texans like Puthoff, and would now seriously consider the possibility that they MIGHT be right, it does scare me to think that current policy is willing to stake the very survival of all life on earth on the truth of their ZPE stuff! And people think that the Iraq war was a gamble....
The Feynmann path picture is not the only credible mainstream formulation of quantum field theory. In fact, the original Nobel Prizes for the discovery of quantum field theory were given for the original formulation, the CANONICAL formulation. To make contact with empirical reality, quickly, the fastest way is to read the respected text QFT by Mandl and Shaw. (Weinberg also presents the canonical formulation, but is less compact. Real mathematicians respect compact -- it expresses the axioms relatively clearly.) In fact, 99% of our precise empirical knowledge of physics still involves quantum electrodynamics (QED), the mathematics of electricity, magnetism, and particles with charge and magnetism. The mathematics used in modern electrical and photonic engineering, where people still truly care about empirical reality.
But guess what folks -- standard QED (canonical or Feynmann) doesn't work. It doesn't fit empirical data. Before you send out the thought police (who are legion these days), take a quick look at Semiconductor Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics (CQED) by Yamamoto, Tassone and Cao. And while you are at it, look up what the condensed matter people said about the initial versions of quantum computing proposed by David Deutsch. It is against the HighChurch of physics these days to engage in revisionism, and say that we are actually learning something new -- but these folks are too busy making money to waste time on Confession. And they have theory, CQED (expressed with density matrices) works.
Why is that relevant to black holes? Because CQED works as a modification to the CANONICAL version of QED. A variation of the CANONICAL form of QED works.
And... the difference between the canonical version and the Feynmann version is extremely important to the black hole issue.
If you look at Mandl and Shaw, you will see immediately that they do write down an initial Hamiltonian which does have the famous (1/2)hw terms. BUT THEN THEY THROW THEM OUT. All empirical predictions of QED comes from use of something called the normal form Hamiltonian, WHICH HAS NO (1/2)hw terms in them!
By the way... to really understand what is going on here, people should not only read Mandl and Shaw, but should read the short and beautiful
classic (1977?) paper on the sine-Gordon model by Coleman... and the related paper by Mandelstam. You can see the normal form Hamiltonian at work... and its essential role in making things work. And many other important ideas.
And so... if the NORMAL FORM Hamiltonian is what explains empirical reality... and Occam's Razor (as well as mathematical rigor) tells us not to believe in the (1/2)hw terms... should we stake our lives on predictions of unproven theories about quantum gravity which require that these terms exist?
Lately, I see some justification for considering a MODIFIED, more mathematically meaningful version of the zero point energy idea... but it is 'way too early to ASSUME that it would validate the Hawkings predictions. We simply do not know the true story yet.
I just hope humans are strong-minded enough to FIND OUT before we do the experiment of pointing a gun at our heads and just seeing what happens... I wish I could see more grounds for optimism... as I see the holy parade singing joyous hymns of unshakeable faith walking straight towards the English channel at Dover...
References:
J.-P. Blaizot, J. Iliopoulos, J. Madsen, G.G. Ross, P. Sonderegger, and H.-J. Specht, "Study Of Potentially Dangerous Events During Heavy-Ion Collisions At The LHC: Report Of The LHC Safety Study Group" CERN, 2003
W. Busza, R.L. Jaffe, J. Sandweiss, and F. Wilczek; "Review of Speculative `Disaster Scenarios'” Brookhaven, 2000
Steven Giddings and Scott Thomas, "High energy colliders as black
hole factories: the end of short-distance physics," Physical Review D 65(5) (2002) 056010.
Adam D. Helfer, "Do black holes radiate?" Reports on Progress in Physics. Vol. 66 No. 6 (2003) pp. 943-1008.
G. X. Peng, X. J. Wen, and Y. D. Chen, “New solutions for the color-
flavor locked strangelets” Physics Letters B 633 (2006) 314-318.
William G. Unruh and Ralf Schützhold, "On the Universality of the
Hawking Effect," Physics Review D 71(2005) 024028.
THE FOLLOWING WAS POSTED IN RESPONSE TO A BBC ARTICLE
The BBC on the LHC
Mark at 1:04 am, January 4th, 2006
The BBC has a nice article about CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Richard Reddyon Apr 11th, 2006 at 11:22 am
1. Killer black hole?
I like the real world view, where parades of scientists develop consensus around the ideas of a few. For example, the earth is completely flat, and the center of the universe. It’s easy to forget how our whole species believed this, with the same conviction we believe black holes will evaporate with a puff of Hawking Radiation.
CERN is the first device with enough energy to create an artificial black hole. Unfortunately, there are those who object to all the new colliders, creating the impression of a paranoid fringe, proven to be scientifically ignorant. CERN is a very big gun, able to probe matter on the scale of the weak force, the first device with this level of energy. I honestly wonder if physicists are better informed than the paranoid fringe–it’s absolutely new territory.
If everything goes according to plan, black holes created in the matter stream will quickly evaporate as Hawking radiation. Though we have confirmed the existence of black holes, we have never observed Hawking Radiation, so there does seem to be a risk that a black hole might be stable.
I guess we will find out. Such is the way of the world, with big science and big money, gathering solid political support. We freak-out if Iran has a nuclear program, but dismiss the minority report on dangers in high-energy particle physics, as crying wolf. Will the real fanatics please stand up? Probably not. Self-awareness is just what fanatics lack.
I don’t think cosmic rays are good model for what will happen at CERN. At CERN we have much lower momentum, inside a closed system. If a stable black hole were formed, we could see the demolition of our planet in less than ten minutes–the most efficient weapon ever tested, or the final industrial accident.
The current accepted theory is one where no proposed experiment is dangerous, and experimenters have a green light for any experiment they wish to conduct at high-energy.
I am also enjoying this adventure, but believe France should be much more serious in matters of risk assessment. It is risk assessment–not risk–that is nonexistent. Leading scientists should reflect on the history of science, where a minority of one, frequently leads to a breakthrough in scientific thought, by individuals who reject accepted theory. They should admit we have never been able to tell the difference between blowhards and geniuses, before a particular view of nature runs its course–which often takes decades.
We have years before CERN’s collider is operational. Why not assemble teams of teams of physicists to play the devil’s advocate? There are certainly credible scientists who worry about the risks of probing matter at these energies. We should listen attentively to the minority view, given what is proven knowledge on black holes (self-propagating collapse of matter), and what is theory (Hawking Radiation never observed, cosmic ray interactions never observed).
The brute force approach of big money, big names, big theory and a project of unprecedented scope, runs over opposition like a steamroller. I would like to see CERN go forward as much as anyone else–but waving our arms to dismiss the minority reports is reckless and irresponsible. Sometimes, what we don’t want to hear–ideas can only delay or harm the CERN project–are exactly what we should hear. For a few dollars more–a very small cost in relation to CERN’s budget, and allow ourselves the benefits of open-minded debate.
Could this kill the project? That’s the whole point of risk assessment! CERN would not be stopped by objections that don’t hold water, but we might find chilling reasons to proceed with caution, or not at all. We really don’t know if the reflex is censorship, and anyone expressing concerns is perceived as a menace to progress. In examining all the risks, we only employ more scientists, engineers, mathematicians–just what drives CERN in the first place.
What could definitely kill the project is the public perception that CERN experiments are recklessly irresponsible. Censoring those who urge caution and reflection certainly creates this impression. The risk we dismiss so easily is the utter destruction of our planet. If there was ever a good time to listen, it is right now.
There is another danger. Suppose a group of scientists develop a resolutely convincing model for stable black holes when CERN is operational? Any state or nation is well within it’s rights to nuke the facility, if they believe they are in grave danger. So, should scientists present their objections to CERN, or should they present their findings to host governments and military establishments? We don’t know what discoveries will happen before 2010–CERN could very well be shut down at gunpoint, by states or nations who think the risks are too great. No nation, including France, has the right to put everyone in jeopardy.
For working scientists, what would you do with new research assigning a 92 percent probability of stable black holes forming in the particle stream? How about a 1 percent probability? CERN is not listening, so who gets your paper?
Every war in history is based upon smaller issues than complete destruction of our planet. I really think we need greater consensus and less pomp in matters of risk accessment.
While reading Steven Hawking’s excellent book “Universe in Nutshell”, I was struck by how he characterized science in the information age. In his field, papers are being published at a continuous rate of 7 per minute. In terms of raw information, a professional physicist is marginally better informed than janitors who mop the floor. The bias towards accepted theories, which are often wrong, is simply enormous.
I would love to see Dr. Hawking get a Nobel Prize when small black holes in the CERN particle stream disappear with a puff of Hawking Radiation. He’s really a wonderful guy. If we get a stable black hole, all life on earth–and the planet–would evaporate instead. The CERN project is certainly among the wonders of the world, but refusal of the French government to explore and manage possible risks could be called insanity. I think every nation supporting CERN should insist upon exhaustive assessment of risks, and examine ALL relevant theories as if our lives depended on it (this might very well be true).
Lacking momentum, a heavy object like a stable black hole, would simply sink to the earth’s core, where it would do what black holes are proven to do: Eat all the matter the crosses an expanding event horizon. The CERN experiment will mass-produce black holes, which we hope will be unstable and disappear in nanoseconds, or less. If they do not, it will be our final experiment.
If France does not provide an atmosphere of careful risk-assessment, that doesn’t mean nobody else will. Our bias, proven to be enormous, for the entire history of science, could be our undoing. It is especially disturbing when we favor theory and seem to ignore established facts–or act as though working scientists are just trouble-makers, because they urge caution.
I guess I’m a little worried . . . (blab, blab, blab). Let me leave you with this thought for reflection. How many physicists, who believe that risk of a stable black hole is zero—also believe the universe was created a point of zero volume and infinite density? If you believe that, contrary to conservation of mass/energy, it’s possible to believe in most anything. If physics is an experimental science–which is what CERN is all about–then we should base our perception of risk on experimental facts, not popular or accepted theory, having no empirical validation.
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The following is a sworn affidavit filed in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, Walter L. Wagner v. Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC,Case No. 00CV1672 [2000]:
I, H. Kimball Hansen, Ph.D., declare under penalty of perjury as follows:
I am a Professor, emeritus, of astronomy in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. I was a member of the faculty there between 1963 and 1993, and from 1968 through 1991 I was also Associate-Editor of The Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
I have read the First Amended Complaint, the Affidavits of Drs. Richard J. Wagner and Walter L. Wagner, the Safety Review[1] referenced therein, and the science article on strangelets by Joshua Holden, and am familiar with the issues therein with respect to operation of the RHIC.
I concur that the so-called 'supernova argument', used in the Safety Review to ostensibly show the safety of the RHIC, is wholly faulty. It presupposes the stability of small strangelets, with life-times on the order of centuries or longer, long enough to travel great distances through space. The authors had previously asserted, that to be dangerous, strangelets only needed to have lifetimes on the order of a billionth of a second, just long enough to travel a few centimeters and reach normal matter outside the vacuum of the RHIC.
There are a number of theoretical arguments that show that strangelets might be dangerous, and there are faults in the arguments presented, to date, to show the safety of the RHIC. I am of the opinion that it would be wise to avoid head-on collisions in the RHIC until a more thorough safety review, preferably before the physics community as a whole, has been obtained. However, the fixed-target mode of operation for the RHIC would be acceptable.
DATED: May 17, 2000
[signed]
H. Kimball Hansen, Ph.D.
[1] Review of Speculative "Disaster Scenarios" at RHIC
On May 14, 2007, Ms. Elizabeth Kolbert published an article in The New Yorker about the LHC entitled “Crash Course”, which described her visit and interview with the LHC management. Excerpts of her article are below.
www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/14/070514fa_fact_kolbert?currentPage=1
CERN’s chief scientific officer, Jos Engelen, is from the Netherlands. He serves under the director general, who is from France, and alongside the chief financial officer, who is from Germany. … Among his responsibilities is dealing with the frequent calls and letters CERN receives about the possibility that the Large Hadron Collider [LHC] will destroy the world. When I asked about this, Engelen picked up a Bic pen and placed it in front of me.
“In quantum mechanics, there is a probability that this pen will fall through the table,” he said. “All of a sudden, it will be on the floor. Because it can behave as a wave, it can go through; we call that the ‘tunnel effect’. If you calculate the probability that this happens, it is not identical to zero. It is a very small probability. But it never happens. I’ve never seen it happen. You have never seen it happen. But to the general public you make a casual remark, ‘It is not identical to zero, it is very small,’ and …” He shrugged.
Worries about the end of the planet have shadowed nearly every high-energy experiment. Such concerns were given a boost by Scientific American – presumably inadvertently, in 1999. That summer, the magazine ran a letter to the editor about Brookhaven’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, then nearing completion. The letter suggested that the Brookhaven collider might produce a “mini black hole” that would be drawn toward the center of the earth, thus “devouring the entire planet within minutes.” Frank Wilczek, a physicist who would later win a Nobel Prize, wrote a response for the magazine. Wilczek dismissed the idea of mini black holes … but went on to raise a new possibility: the collider could produce strangelets, a form of matter that some think might exist at the center of neutron stars. In that case, he observed, “one might be concerned about an ‘ice-9’-type transition,” wherein all surrounding matter could be converted into strangelets and the world as we know it would vanish. …
“I know Frank Wilczek,” Engelen told me. “He is an order of magnitude smarter than I am. But he was perhaps a bit naïve.” Engelen said that CERN officials are now instructed, with respect to the LHC’s world-destroying potential, “not to say that the probability is very small but that the probability is zero.”
I asked Engelen how he would explain the project of particle physics to a non-physicist, or if he thought such an explanation was even advisable. “We simply want to know what the world is made of, and how,” he said. “What is in here” – he rapped on his desk with his knuckles – “and how these particles in here constitute a table.”
The day that I met with Engelen, I also spoke with deputy head of CERN’s physics department, Michael Doser. … Depending on how the universe is constructed, extra dimensions, mini black holes, and the source of so-called “dark matter” may all be revealed at CERN. Any black holes created, Doser was quick to assure me, would be entirely benign.
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[Note: It is not possible to calculate the probability of creating a mini black hole, a strangelet, or any other theoretical particle. Such calculations would require empirical data to draw upon, and none exists presently.]
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The following was posted by a physicist at the Misunderstood Universe website:
Let me see if I understand this right. The Black hole is supposed to last 1e-27s and would take a minimum of 1e-10s to reach the vessel walls. That implies a vessel of about 30cm in radius (about 2 feet in diameter).
How certain are you of Hawking's theory and what is your confidence on that first number?? What if a steering magnet fails and the beam collision occurs a few centimeters off axis? What if the mass is a little higher than expected and the hole doesn't evaporate for 1e-11s? How good is your vacuum? Maybe it picks up just enough mass to fall out of the chamber before "evaporating"? Well I really hope that the CERN guys are right and I am wrong, because the whole thing looks pretty scary to me, and I am a Physicist. Way too many "maybe”s for my comfort level. If I were Alfred E. Neuman I'd say "Yes, me worry!!"
If it were up to me I'd tell them if you want to play with Black Holes then go play outside (of the solar system!!!) They're toying with over six billion human lives, plus a lot more nonhuman ones. Unfortunately, I don't have the clout to put a stop to this insanity.
Posted by Teresa E Tutt, Ph.D. www.MisunderstoodUniverse.com| 8/12/07 5:06 PM
http://www.misunderstooduniverse.com/France_Builds_Doomsday_Machine.htm
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The following was posted on the Misunderstood Universe web-site by its authors:
On Tuesday, March 27, 2007, there was a devastating explosion deep in the tunnel at the CERN particle accelerator complex that actually blew a 20 ton magnet right off its mountings. The explosion filled the tunnel with helium and forced a mass evacuation of the facility.
While the facility was supposed to go online during the summer of 2007, the new startup is tentatively summer of 2008 after 17 miles of magnets have been repaired or replaced. This explosion, to those of us who count ourselves among the worried masses, appears to be an ominous foreshadowing of what could eventually become the Second-Coming of the Big Bang...
Even Dr. Lyn Evans, who heads the accelerator project at CERN, said the explosion had been potentially very dangerous. "There was a hell of a bang, the tunnel housing the machine filled with helium and dust and we had to call in the fire brigade to evacuate the place," he said. "The people working on the test were frightened to death but they were all in a safe place so no-one was hurt."
An investigation by the researchers found that basic math flaws had caused the explosion -- which gives one pause in contemplating how much faith can be bestowed upon 6,000 scientists who can overlook basic math mistakes. Not only was this mistake made in the original design phase, but it was also missed on four engineering reviews carried out over a period of four years. The director of Fermilab, Pier Oddone, blithely wrote about the disaster stating that they had caused "a pratfall on the world stage". A “pratfall”? Should these Keystone-scientists be entrusted with the fate of the world in their hands?
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The following are some suggested alternative work strategies for physicists at the LHC pending proof of the LHC's safety:
Suggested Alternative physics research for CERN physicists while awaiting proof-of-safety for the lhc
Nuclear Energy Research
Deuterium-Deuterium fusion has the potential to solve all energy problems of mankind. Two routes have shown some success – namely magnetic confinement fusion, and inertial confinement fusion [aka static, or ‘cold’ fusion]. Currently, these areas have too few physicists working on those lines. This should be a high-priority for dedicated physicists.
Pebble-Bed Reactor technology is in its infancy, and extensive development of this science would allow for far more usage of nuclear reactors in lieu of fossil fuels.
Thorium Reactor technology is in its infancy and extensive development of Thorium capability would allow for current Source Material mines to fuel mankind for centuries.
Nuclear Medicine Research
Tunable, discrete-energy photon beams are in their infancy, and have a wide application potential in the medical physics sciences. Current bench-top models have demonstrated that by shining a visible-light laser at a 30 MeV electron beam, the Compton back-scattered photons are of a discrete energy in the 30 KeV range. By tuning the electron beam energy, one tunes the back-scattered photons to any desired discrete energy. Medical applications include replacement for traditional “x-ray” photon beams that are of broad energy range, in spite of ‘filtering’. Opaqueing agents could be developed that are sensitive to discrete energies of the photon beam for enhanced, low-radiation-dose internal imaging.
Cyclotron-produced and linear-accelerator-produced medical isotopes are extensively used in nuclear medicine, and physicists are always needed in those fields.
Nuclear Experimental Research
Magnetic Monopole searches for naturally-occurring magnetic monopoles would lead to innovative areas of theoretical research. Past evidence for moving magnetic monopoles suggest that more extensive cosmic-ray detection would lead to more extensive evidence. A large moon-based or space-station-based array of detectors would likely find further evidence, leading to methods of possible capture. This moon-based or space-station-based detection could also be applied to searches for naturally occurring strangelets, which might also exist, and the detection of which might ease some of the uncertainties regarding their malignant/benign status.
30 Meter Telescope
The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project is a public-private partnership that fulfills the goals of a concept called the Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT) which was identified in the National Academy of Sciences report “Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium” as the highest-priority new ground-based facility for the first decade of the 21st century. See http://www.tmt.org/
Mining of Asteroids
Raw resources and minerals could be mined from an asteroid in space using a variety of methods. Even a small asteroid with a diameter of 1 km can contain billions of metric tons of raw materials. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining
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ISOTOPE SCIENCE FACILITY (ISF) http://www.nscl.msu.edu/future/isf
A new rare isotope science facility would greatly strengthen U.S. research capabilities with an upgrade of the research capabilities at the NSCL by the replacment of the current CCF (Coupled Cyclotron Facility) with a more powerful facility that can be built with minimum disruption of the ongoing research and education program. NSCL has prepared a detailed whitepaper describing plans for such a facility at Michigan State University. The working name of the proposed project is the Isotope Science Facility, or ISF.
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... To be added upon ...
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