CERN's proton collider experiment not worth the risk to humanity

By Mack Perry

OCtober 10, 2008 | The capitalist economic system is on the verge of financial collapse. Gas prices are on the rise and the energy crisis shows no signs of recourse. The political instability of the Iraq quagmire continues to be a problem with no discernible solution. A dangerously ill-equipped Alaskan governor is one national election and a 72-year-old heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

Things couldn't get much worse, right? Well, in the spring of 2009, a group of European physicists could create a black hole that would consume the Earth. Yeah, you read that last part right. According to both the scientists of the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, the organization behind the Large Hadron Collider -- and their vocal detractors, represented by individuals like Luis Sancho and Walter L. Wagner -- that is certainly a possibility.

Based in Switzerland and considered the largest particle physics laboratory in the world, the European Center for Nuclear Research was constructed in 1954 to provide physicists with the necessary equipment for high-energy physics experimentation. The necessary equipment for these types of experiments includes things like particle accelerators, electric field-conducting devices that fetch a fairly high price. Luckily for CERN and the numerous European nations that fund the organization, giving the facility top-billing has definitely paid off over the years. Since the facilities' Cold War-era inception, CERN has been responsible for several notable innovations over the last couple of decades, chief among them being the computer networking project ENQUIRE. The predecessor of the Internet as we know it today, ENQUIRE was a networking project inspired by the idea of hypertext and an electronic linking system.

Spearheaded by Sir Tim-Berners-Lee and the Belgian scientist Robert Cailliau in 1989, ENQUIRE was the natural progression of research CERN had been conducting at the beginning of the decade that was fundamental in the creation of the World Wide Web. And, as we all know, the internet eventually went on to revolutionize almost every facet of contemporary life by allowing instantaneous communication and facilitating the growth and expansion of globalization. For better or worse, we've got these guys to thank for YouTube and Facebook.

Although having a hand in the creation of one of the most significant inventions since Johannes Gutenberg's printing press is certainly nothing to scoff at, ENQUIRE isn't the only innovation that CERN has been responsible for. Since its establishment, this multinational union of physicists has discovered the existence of neutral current interaction with subatomic particles, the relationship between elementary particles and weak force, and it has gone on to create the very first anti-hydrogen atoms. In 1984, CERN physicists Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer won the Nobel Prize in physics for their discovery of W and Z bosons, and in 1992 another CERN scientist, Georges Charpak, was awarded the Nobel Prize for his involvement in the creation of particle detectors. In the realm of physics, these are fairly significant discoveries that only seem to scratch the surface of what the facility and its tenants are capable of.

The subject of all of this heated controversy is CERN's latest project, the Large Hadron Collider. Designed specifically to recreate conditions that existed prior to the big bang and the formation of the universe in its current state, the Large Hadron Collider will fire one group of protons at another group of protons at the speed of light, with the intended result being the creation of the Higgs boson. Although it exists only in theory, the Higgs boson is basically the Holy Grail of physics. The Higgs boson is the only Standard Model particle that has yet to be fully studied, and learning more about it could help scientists unearth some truly mind-blowing information concerning the origin of the universe and it could go a long way in answering questions like "what are the conditions needed to give mass to matter?"

But at what price is the decoding of this quantum Rubix Cube? Among the things that could go wrong is the possibility that a "strangelet," a hypothetical bit of "strange" matter that, when enlarged, has the potential to form a quasar star, could turn the Earth into a lifeless hunk of space debris. And then, of course, there's the possibility that the experiment could result in the creation of a small black hole and at that point there isn't really anything anyone will be able to do about it, as the Earth would be swallowed up in an instant.

According to Luis Sancho and Walter L. Wagner, representatives of the organization Citizens Against the Large Hadron Collider, these possibilities have been severely underplayed and overlooked by CERN representatives. On March 21, 2008, Sancho and Wagner filed a temporary restraining order against CERN, citing the organization's failure to make an environmental assessment and file a safety report as violations of required safety regulations. Sancho, Wagner, and their group simply want additional testing and more definitive proof that the Large Hadron Collider is safe. Who can blame them?

Unfortunately for Wagner and Co., a lawsuit filed in a Hawaiian district court is unlikely to affect work that is way outside of the court's jurisdiction, but other setbacks have served to delay the device's inaugural operation. On Sept. 19 a faulty electrical connection between two of the device's magnets caused a critical loss of helium that has pushed the date of the device's first test from Oct. 21 to sometime in the spring of 2009.

All the while, the question remains: is the device safe? And do the benefits of conducting these experiments, which in this case could involve unlocking the secrets of the universe, outweigh some potentially apocalyptic pitfalls?

Conventional wisdom says no. While it is pretty astounding that modern science has reached the point where the inadvertent creation of a black hole has become a possibility, albeit an unlikely one, Sancho, Wagner, and Co. are right to push for airing on the side of caution. I mean, this is a black hole we're talking about! You would think that something like this would be common sense. Even if the creation of a black hole is extremely unlikely, it is not worth such an incalculable risk, even if the potential payoff of using the Large Hadron Collider would push the limits of modern science farther than anyone ever thought possible.

NW
MS