This is the best blog post I’ve read yet that looks rationally at both sides of the issue. I’d love to read your position on strangelets as well.

Also, I’m happy that someone FINALLY addressed the following issues:

A) No collisions have been made yet. All the media is quick to say “we’re still here” as if they haven’t spent a moment reviewing what actually happened on Wednesday.

B) The collisions are NOT comparable to those of cosmic rays because of hadrons colliding at equal velocities from opposite directions.

C) Great risk IS being taken because of the unknowns involved.

I agree with Ben, the article is outstanding and represents safety concerns well.

I could not have stated the issue better myself except that I give much less credence to the possiblility that adding anti-matter to a black hole would do anything other than add energy thus mass to the black hole (anti-matter is energy, not anti-energy, clever but wrong conjecture).

This is an odd article actually. Point 3 was addressed at length by the recent LSAG report but this makes no reference to it. It is almost as if the article was written based on old information or specifically biased information. In addition, the LSAG report, as well as most scientific discussions on the subject have moved far beyond this simplistic assessment. The safety report does not rely solely on Hawking Radiation, nor should it.

I can’t see how this is a balanced article nor a very informative or informed one.

Sorry.

Read last week, while in Rome, an interesting fiction novel: Angelo Paratico “Black Hole” Mursia 2008.
First edition, they are telling me, was sold like hot cakes.
It is based on the same assumptions raised on a scientific level here by dr.Majid, even if Paratico, as far as I know, is no scientist. On the cover of the book they say that he is living in Hongkong and he is an expert in Oriental Ceramics…

Bending of heavy
Submitted by C (not verified) on 16 September 2008 – 6:20pm.
Bending of heavy light?
Supposing a mBH and a beam of light interacted through warping ie. “light wave surfing” or mBH-photon coupling or mBH-proton coupling on a light beam warping eg. a proton. The said beam of light traveling through space in the vicinity of a SMBH as the one referred to as Sgr A* The signature of the presence of a mBH coupled with a particular light wave ought to be the red shifting of that light wave…
Furthermore a hypothesis could be advanced about particular properties of a mBH-light wave or a mBH-Proton-Light wave system. The mBH being a singularity, might not some properties ascribed to singularities carry over to the light wave and vice versa from the light wave to the mBH for instance The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics suggests that in double slit apparatus experiments testing Bell’s theorem the concept of locality is not absolute.
if say the whole extension of the light beam were seen to partake of the same gravitational field “1″ as the mBH
it might follow that the interaction of field “1″ with gravitational field “2″ belonging to the SMBH at a distance of say som light minutes. The mBH-Light wave path would bend considerably more than say a Light wave path past the SMBH but without mBH coupling. Hawkins radiation may or may not be related to mBH-light wave coupling. The signature of mBH coupling to a light wave ought to be detectable by several methods, a reference light beam of synchrotron light could be obtained from and retrofitted be made to follow, in the same path and interact with the particles accelerated and auto interference patterns from reflected light obtained may show redshift anomalies.
This is to say detection is part of safety. If antimatter may be stored at CERN so may perhaps mBH. ONLY NOT at velocities lesser than the escape velocity of the gravitation well they pass through ie of The solar system if less than C.

Initial question: Why should black holes form at precisely the centre
of galaxies?
Assumptions:

1. mBH are a regular phenomenon in the Universe
2. most mBH have formation and maintained velocities close to C thus
only slightly interacting with matter
3. Focal orbits of mBH is a consequence of passing through proximity
of the galactic center SMBH volume
each revolution increasing the probability P of the mBH being accreted
to the SMBH
4. SMBH formation is in it’s initial stage resulting from mBH focusing
and mBH accretion
5. the galactic plane generates through cosmic ray and solar wind
interactions a mBH flux with a maximum density at the galactic center.
6. doubly energetic diametrical opposite vector impacts occur at the
galactic focus considerably more than elsewhere.
7. If a pair of mBH impact according to point 6. they accrete with a
much reduced resultant velocity.
The resulting orbit is therefore subject to interaction with the
ambient galactic gravity well.
8. mBH do not evaporate due to one, coupling effects”redshift warping”
with “heavy light”. and second,
the density of photons at the galactic focal point give rise to
interactions exceeding Hawkins evaporation requisite conditions.
thus a significant number of mBH do not evaporate.
9. The process is analogous to sound waves travelling from a spherical
circumference to the centre
where the various frequencies phase each other out creating a silent
point where mBH accretion may occur,
similar to implosion conditions for fission and fusion devices.
10. Particle and electromagnetic accretion according to known models ensues.

“http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~reid/sgra_position.html
“Surprisingly, none of the infrared stars corresponds to Sgr A*! While this solves a long-standing problem in astronomy, the result raises perplexing problems, challenging astronomers to explain how a super-massive black hole in the dense environment of the Galactic Center can be so dim”"

Concerning point 2), even assuming evaporation of BHs stops near the Planck mass because of QG effects, how could these ultra tiny BHs, which e.g. could not eat up the earth, possibly be a safety risk? Can you explain?

Concerning point 3), your critics is very handwaving, as LHC BHs are “mostly fast” and cosmic ray BHs can also be “sometimes slow” and we have also to sum over livetimes of planets for the latter, so only a computation can say if the comparision is good or bad. Can you make this precise?

Professor Dr. Otto E. Rössler sent the following comment:

“Shahn Majid did a very nice job. He only does not know yet that electrons cannot be compact since then they would have to be black holes (and as such would be uncharged by virtue of the gothic-R theorem). So they are non-compact already – “strings.” Hence strings already exist empirically in physics. This added-on footnote greatly increases the weight of Professor Majid’s statements. Please, give him my heartfelt compliments!”

Hi Ben, as you seem worried I’d like to clarify that even IF black holes were
created and left Planck-scale sized remnants, the science still indicates that these should be completely harmless. As I said in the blog, it’s very hard to see how they could add up to a threat, but let me elaborate. Firstly, if they did collide with each other or with other matter and start to grow, they should quickly evaporate back down to their hypothetical stable size well before they had a chance to collide with anything else. You would need an extremely high rate of collision to overcome that and we are many orders of magnitude below that in this experiment. Incidentally, being extremely small the rate of collision between themselves would be even tinier than with other matter. Secondly, if they were electrically charged then I suppose some rogue experimenter might be able to collect and focus them them in some way, but if such objects were going to be produced with electric charge we’d surely have seen indirect signs of them produced from cosmic rays (even if the conditions are very different). Hence, being neutral in charge, I suppose they would drift down into the Earth, interacting occasionally but harmlessly with other matter. I do agree that if such objects were produced in the LHC we would be entering `unknown territory’ for theoretical physics and this was the point of my post, but I think we can be sanguine about it even in this case.

As for strangelets the official line is that the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in the US has been looking for these since 2000 and not found any, I don’t have anything against that. I do have views about the standard model of particle physics and will return to it in a later blog.

Hi RobDegraves,

you are right. It wasnt my intent to get sucked into the full analysis of the safety issues, just to respond to the
(oversimplified I grant you) points made in the media last week. These are points that members
of the public may have been exposed to and my personal take on those points.

I also want to use this as an opportunity to engage the public in truly fundamental science — IF black holes are created they might well form stable remnants and this would be a fascinating scenario for research in quantum gravity. This would still be
consistent with the Earth being here in spite of cosmic ray collisions in the atmosphere.

For anyone who wants to dig deeper into the actual safety, I do recommend the LSAG report. A precis for the public which represents the current safety position is on

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/Safety-en.html

Concerning point 3) the cosmic rays on earth, this was indeed an older point but it has been raised in the media. The counterargument is that one can still look to cosmic rays colliding with very massive objects such as neutron stars, and this is a valid argument if you have a bit more background in astronomy.

Certainly such objects are still there up in the sky so from the observational point of view there is compelling evidence that the LHC is safe. If we argue observationally like this then this probably points to black-holes not being formed in the first place, which is where I would agree for theoretical reasons explained in the blog.

In answer to LL

Note to point 2
It should be easy to model two or more posited LHC related mBH that like the suggested mBH-SMBH interaction would engage in mutual orbiting with systemic spin as an added factor after a point 6 event generating a system with lowered exit velocity. Much like electron clouds the volume covered would increase the likelihood of chance interaction with particles or decaying charged particles, emitting light waves in their wake. Feynman diagrams could be drawn up to describe the possible energetic interactions.

Note to point 3
The assumption is that the average cosmic ray induced mBH, not occuring as a swarm event would have an at least 50% higher exit velocity on formation than hypothetical LHC ones until the former extant mBH collide in a second stage in the vicinity of the SMBH in a point 6 event after which the exit velocity would be much the same in both cases allowing for mutual orbiting of mBH.

Hi LL,

concerning 2), I guess I answered this in my reply to Ben. If you mean have I got in mind a specific scenario that has measurable probability and that involves the Planck-scale black holes growing to macroscopic size, the answer is no. I didn’t intend that. I said it was hard to imagine any such scenario. But is it completely inconceivable that a scenario might exist even if we can’t imagine it at the moment? Bear in mind that very little is known about such objects, if they exist. Also, these ones are unusual as they are hypothecated on speculation that reduces the effective Planck scale to the LHC scale, but what else does it do to the physics of such objects? My point is that we would be entering theoretically unknown territory.

Concerning 3) you make a fair point. My point was only that without appealing to further analysis taken on faith, it was not a logical argument as the conditions are different. Therefore for the purpose of the reader getting stuck into and following the reasoning we should focus on 1) and 2). I think now that this was perhaps a bit of a red herring. For a circumstantial argument one can just avoid the issue by looking at very massive astronomical objects. For the theoretical analysis also, if the things are uncharged I’m not sure it makes much difference at the end of the day as even if they remain nearby by macroscopic standards they are still zillions of Planck lengths apart.

Hello Shahn Majid.

Thank you very much for your reply. I certainly do look forward to the rest of your articles and to the book that is coming out.

My only concern was that, in this time of anxiety, the real facts be known to all. Your article has been taken up by a number of anti-LHC activists to indicate that you believe that the LHC is a dire threat to mankind. That is not to mention the press which loves making headlines based on very loose interpretations of scientific ideas.

I was simply making sure that all the facts were looked at before it could be used to generate more fear than already exists.

BTW. I do somewhat share your doubt that the LHC will produce micro black holes but only time and experimentation will tell.

Again, thank you for responding, I appreciate it greatly.

@ Shahn,
Thank you for the answers. Unfortunately your statements especially on point 2) are kind of ambiguous and easily misunderstood. The next sentence “I’m only not worried…” seems to imply as if the previously mentioned Planck sized BHs could be dangerous, which they are not. You are quoted on that already on the Armageddon pages and the esteem by Rössler speaks for itself. As for 3), it is the inherent right of physicists to be imprecise, not of mathematicians :-)

@ JTankers
The statement that BHs are uncharged seems to be in plain contradiction with general relativity and any extensions of it. Any serious scientist would think twice before making such a statement. A little question: if BH would be inherently neutral, how could they grow in earth, which is made of charged particles. No cheap answers plz

and @LL If I may
And conversly if mBH were charged how could they grow in a neutron star, it seems neutron stars not evolving into BH
makes the argument that mBH are charged. Hence that the cosmic ray – neutron star safety argument might just be irrelevant. I should like to upset things a bit more. To those of you who would study the electron and it’s charge motion by means of photon interactions. You may end up in a bit of a resolution problem due to particle magnetic bipolar size not exceeding half a wave length. Should you however devise an observation method based on phonons you may even detect neutral particles and yes topology …

Hi LL,

Hmm, sure, I could better have written “I’m only not the least bit worried” to be clearer. I hope people won’t be hung up on one sentence. I guess my message is subtle and could be misrepresented, I hope not and I do appreciate your warning as well as RobDegraves’.

With your warning in mind, in case anyone is unclear at this point, I think my message by the end of the piece is:

1) I don’t believe the strings-related theory that predicts that black-holes could be created in the LHC.

2) IF we did take the strings-related prediction to its theoretical conclusion I would be very slightly concerned (please note the hypothetication `IF’) because stable Planck-scale objects might result and we honestly have no theory of quantum gravity needed in that regime. I think its reasonable to point this out even if its hard to imagine any kind of threat at the moment.

3) This is not me doomsaying as I am not putting forward this hypothesis, I am just elaborating what I think the hypothesis might entail.

Thats what I covered in the piece, where I was thinking through the theoretical side of things. The update should clear up that the experimental (i.e. observational) side meanwhile shows that even if we don’t know what’s going on for sure, stable Planck scale remnants must either not be produced or they must be safe as they would already be produced in plenty by natural processes if they were to be produced in the LHC. These kinds of circumstantial or semi-anthropic arguments are much better for safety considerations because they are independent of theory. It’s how we know that many things around us are safe.

BTW one can speculate that such Planck-scale remnants might be the dark matter that astronomers have deduced as an invisible dust all around us. I hasten to add that this does not really square with the observed data but I am not sure that the idea is totally dead. Anyhow, more about dark matter and dark energy in a later blog.

A friend told me this joke: what are balck holes in space?
the remnants of ancient civilazations who had managed to build a LHC

Here’s another black-hole joke: what happens if you put a mini-black hole in an indestructible dustbin?
It takes off

(to understand this joke you have to think about the air and conservation of momentum)

Friends,

I offer the following thoughts on the current debate regarding the safety of the experiments currently being conducted at the Large Hadron Collider (”LHC”) being operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (”CERN”), invite your earnest consideration of them, and welcome any replies you may wish to post.

As we know, the experiments being conducted at the CERN LHC seek to recreate, for the first time in human history, the conditions existing milliseconds after the big bang. As you also know, theses experiments have been the subject of considerable anxiety and debate by the public and by a vocal segment of the scientific community. The most prevalent concern is that it may be possible that the LHC could produce a microscopic black hole which escapes the LHC, possibly undetected, and grows in size until it ultimately accretes the entire earth. Another concern expressed with some frequency is that it may be possible for the LHC to produce a stranglet that could escape from the LHC and convert adjacent matter into strange quarks and ultimately convert the entire earth to strange matter. Other concerns such as bubble nucleation and the creation of magnetic monopoles also have been identified as possible unintended consequences of the LHC experiment. None of the physicists expressing these concerns claim to know that the LHC experiments will in fact result in any of these doomsday scenarios. Their argument is that, applying some current theories in physics, and taking into account alternative possible sequences of events that conceivably could occur during the experiment, there is a possibility, albeit a small one, that the experiments could result in one of these catastrophic events, and that therefore, before proceeding with those experiments, we should determine whether there may be steps that can be taken to make sure such an event will not occur.

Numerous well-respected physicists, however, are participating in and otherwise are supporting the CERN LHC experiments. Based upon complex mathematical calculations and advanced theories in subatomic physics, these physicists argue the LHC experiments are reasonably safe. In addition, they argue that nothing will take place in the LHC experiments which does not occur regularly in nature when cosmic rays strike the earth or each other, and that since cataclysmic events such as planet-consuming black holes are not observed in nature it is reasonable to conclude that no such event will occur at CERN. All scientific experiments, they argue, involve some degree of risk and, because risk can never be eliminated entirely, the relevant inquiry is not whether there is risk in the CERN experiments, but rather how much risk accompanies those experiments. According to supporters of the LHC, the risk is negligible, and the experiments provide scientists an important new opportunity to detect the Higgs boson, or “God particle,” as they call it, which is theorized to give mass to subatomic particles. They dismiss those seeking to halt the experiments as being alarmists.

I am struck by one particular aspects of this debate. It appears that many physicists involved in this debate, but especially those pushing the CERN LHC experiment forward, have forgotten one of the most fundamental of all facts, namely, that none of them actually “know” what happens, or what will happen, in the subatomic world. Certainly, there are many things we can safely claim to “know” about our everyday world. For example, it is fair to say that we “know” that placing a lighted match in a glass of water will extinguish the fire, while placing the same lighted match in a glass of gasoline will have the opposite result. We can even say we “know” the chemical reactions that cause the interactions between the fire, the water, and the gasoline. We cannot, however, legitimately claim such knowledge about the subatomic world. The existence of subatomic particles such as protons and their constituent quarks, for example, has been inferred from scientific observations, and under many situations their behavior can be predicted quite well using mathematical models derived from those observations. Mathematical modeling, however, is not knowledge; it is theory. It is perhaps natural that physicists who spend their lives seeking to unravel the mysteries of the subatomic world, using mathematical models which are incomprehensible to the average person, might come to regard the theories to which they adhere as facts. Intellectual honesty as well as faithful adherence to the fundamental principles of scientific inquiry, however, requires that all scientists, including physicists studying these issues, remember that theories, not matter how reliable or predictive they may seem, remain theories, and later may be found to be wrong or incomplete.

With this in mind, I believe everyone must ask three simple but profoundly important questions.

First, no matter how confident we may be in our theories, can we really say that we know what will occur when the LHC causes a head-on collision of hadrons travelling in opposite directions at almost the speed of light? More importantly, do we really know what will not happen? Do we know with certainty, for example, that the collision will not result in the formation of a stable microscopic black hole which cannot be contained within the LHC? Because subatomic physics is inherently theoretical, this question must be answered in the negative.

Second, if our answer to the first question is that we cannot rule out the possibility of a catastrophic event, then what is the likelihood of such an event? More importantly, how sure are we that we can accurately assess that probability? How confident are we that the probability is one in one million, on in one thousand, one percent, or ten percent? And if we cannot accurantly quantify the probability of a catastrophic event, should we choose to disregard the risk and move forward with the experiments?

Third, if we can accurately quantify the probability that the experiments will cause a catastrophic event, then we must decide whether the potetial scientific gains from the experiment justify the risk. The scientific gains could be significant, since there would be value in either finding or not finding evidence of the Higgs boson.
The consequences resulting from a catastrophic event under any of the scenarios discussed above would be, quite simply, the end of all life on this planet and, in the black hole scenario, the end of the planet itself, over a period of time which has been described as lasting anywhere from months to centuries or longer. Therefore, for example, if the probability of a catastrophic event occurring during the CERN LHC experiments is one one-hundredth of one percent (I pick that probability solely for purposes of illustration), then the question is whether a one one-hundredth of one percent likelihood of ending life on Earth is a risk we are willing to accept in order to determine the existence of the Higgs boson through the CERN LHC experiments.

I am keenly interested to learn of any evidence that CERN has attempted to assess the risks of the LHC experiments using this analysis. Based upon the 2003 CERN report “Review of the Safety of LHC Collisions” and other literature and releases from CERN, it seems clear CERN has not done so. Instead, CERN chooses to address only the first question — which asks whether it can be sure that a catastrophic event will not occur — and answers that question in the affirmative.

In view of the theoretical nature of subatomic physics, that answer is plainly untenable. Taking the most charitable view of CERN, one may conclude that CERN’s analysis is the product of intellectual arrogance by well-intentioned physicists. A less charitable explanation would involve the fact that enormous sums of money have been spent building the LHC, and the fact that finding the LHC unsafe could severely damage the reputation and standing in the scientific community of CERN and the physicists who support the LHC. Whatever the true explanation for CERN’s position may be, it is clear that intellectual honesty demands that CERN recognize the limits of its own knowledge, and concede that no one can rule out the possibility that a catastrophic “doomsday” event could occur as an unintended consequence of the LHC experiments.

If CERN were to make this concession, as it should, then the LHC experiments would have to be stopped until the second and third questions in the risk analysis are answered.

Because of its scientific complexity of the second question and the importance of answering it accurately, that question should be studied and answered by the scientific community as a whole, rather than by CERN alone. That fact, of course, creates a powerful disincentive to CERN allowing the analysis to proceed past the first question, and may explain why CERN has attempted to freeze the inquiry at the first question.

In view of global importance of the third question, that question also should not be left to physicists at CERN or elsewhere, and instead is more appropriately answered by the governments of the world. This, of course, leads to the very difficult issue of how the governments of the world could come together to arrive at this answer. Hopefully a “world government” is not something that would even be considered, even if it were possible. The United Nations probably is neither equipped nor capable of serving as the vehicle for answering the third question. Because the LHC is located partly in France and partly in Switzerland, the sovereignty of either country (regardless of any agreement into which it may have entered as part of the European Union) would entitle that country to require that the portion of the LHC located on its soil be shut down, and would give each country an indisputable right to participate in answering the third question, but in view of the global nature of the risk, neither country, nor the European Union, would be entitled to unilaterally deciding that the risks of the LHC experiments are acceptable. Answering the third question indeed poses practical challenges, which likely would require some time to work through. That may be a further reason CERN seeks to avoid the third question by freezing the inquiry at the first question.

We all recall the childhood story of Chicken Little, who is hit on the head by something falling from the sky and so runs to tell the king the sky is falling. The supporters of the CERN LHC experiments tend to apply that caricature to those of us who are concerned about the safety of the LHC experiments. It is worth remembering, however, that there are a number of different versions of the story of Chicken Little, each of which has a different ending. In one version, the sky was not falling, and Chicken Little and her friends are eaten by a wolf who she meets along the way to see the king. In another version, Chicken Little runs back to her house after her friends are eaten by the wolf, and she never sees the king. In yet another, she does see the king, but the king tells her what fell on her head was just a pebble. And in one version, the sky actually was falling, and but she ended up not having to see the king because, before she got there, the sky fell on the wolf. Whichever version of the Chicken Little story you heard as a child, when you heard it I am sure you thought Chicken Little should have been more careful to make sure she knew what hit her on the head, and should have been more careful to avoid the dangers along the way, before she set out to see the king. In regard to the LHC, the lessons of Chicken Little apply much more aptly to CERN than to those of us who are urging caution. CERN needs to stop and think things through much more carefully before it rushes into its journey to see the king, or to find the God particle.

“What we know from spin, in relation with the x y and z axis stems basically
from measurements with concatenated Stern-Gerlach apparatus.
The (a) mathematical description found that works leads us to the Pauli matrices.”

(Feynman’s “Lectures on physics part III” and Sakurai’s “Modern Quantum
mechanics”)

Chiros is hand or “Hand of the lord ?”
In and out and in are the point vectors, Planks constant is spin.
On the principle of minimization of the action quantity (the natural unit of it is generally known as Plank’s constant)
From Chiral Asymmetry to spin
chirality and reflection as 2 operators on nothing that is 10 -34 cm i.e. Prior to space and prior to Time i.e. Cycles of rotation(spintime).
process: dispersion of rotation in a medium of rotating nothing as opposed to static nothing through axial reflection resulting in a field of eddies consisting of counter-rotating spins and rotating spins i.e. Positive and negative spins balancing out generating Omniaxiality through infinite spin planes in the singularity i.e. Spin interaction becomes possible between equal rotations on aligned planes of rotation. The concept of nearness evolves as similarity of spinvelocity delta S. and reciprocal spinplane orientation. So called quantum soup. From Angle velocities exceeding C i.e. Negative inertia to sub C angle velocities leading to inversion of the singularity in other words it’s inside becomes it’s outside i.e. Expansion of space and sub C angular momentum i.e. Time. And spinvelocity equalisation i.e. Light. Also of interest is noting balance through isoplanar spincoupling (with top and bottom) spinning in opposite directions.(Reflection)
Falling out of singularity by increasingly unbalancing Chirality asymmetry i.e. The connection between the direction of propagation with spin.
C right – C left > 0
Circular logic beaten by circular theory.
Why does spin of nothing occur in the first place? Because nothing is what remains as the zero entropy of an earlier cycle collapse was reached leaving a remainder of chiral unbalance, limes 0 > 0. Hence the process of chiral reflection initializing spin, limes 0.
Repulsive gravity of the inflaton or space particle.
“The neutrinas exists just only in left-handed helicity”

Joining Cantorian infinit sets of points to
genesis of form consideration. From point to sphere
Plank scale:

In the universe the original point or inverted singularity is everywhere i.e rather than the local inception. Non local distribution reigns.
“Werner Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle comes into play: the more accurately the momentum of a quantum particle is known, the less accurately can the particle’s position be known. If the particle is scarcely moving at all, therefore, its position ceases to be a well-defined point in space but expands to an uncertain region of relatively enormous size.”
The universe is the inside of the point 2π x lim 0 möbius transformations of the point inside to outside to inside to outside …

The universe may be hunted by an inverted point in a community of möbus transformable points vaciliating between 2 states 2π x lim 0 : 2π x lim ∞ metastructured In a double continuum surface fabric Dx -4 > 0
axial spin mirroring of vectors through the point.
Vacuum gravity created by inversion proportional to volume of the universe negative space versus positive space. Analogue to topology of energy distribution or algebraically states 2π x lim – 0-n : 2π x lim -∞-n

Self reference in the set of space time
or the silent point

- Making rotation of nothingness a possibility
Quantum theory, on the other hand, can predict how the universe will begin. Quantum theory introduces a new idea, that of imaginary time.

Primordial is chirality and reflection leading to spin motion in imaginary time manifesting wobble inverting the point möbially

Mirroring through the point or what didn’t get through accounts for an interaction leading to spin motion of every aspect (within the point) i.e of the expanded universe
Among the things that did’t make it through the gateway of point inversion are for example superluminal spin rates however these make up a unified field with a gradient of supraluminal angular momentum. Slowing down to subluminal C angular momentum is the denominator of limes C -> 0 as opposed to limes C->∞ the content of the universe whereas omniaxiality escapes into D3+1 at that juncture of C.
The observed microwave anisotropy is:
An analogously reflection of the wobble in the unified field. Or opposing spin interaction of mass + gravity and point mirrored axially opposite spins occurring in the unitary field limes C at ultra short distances. Beginning of time in 3D +1 is sub C spin velocity
Larger transfinite cardinal numbers:
The number of steps you may take around the edge of a circle are arguably an infinite set
The number of steps around a sphere would be arguably a larger infinite set.
The angular spin planes around a point would be a larger infinite set because the step’s radius of any sphere size would rally orthogonally to such a spin plane.
A yet larger set includes the inversion of such an invertible point multiplying by 2 the number of spin planes. Giving rise to spin plane parity
A yet larger set is obtained from doubling by spin reversion and spin alternations showing spin to be the primordial set generator.
Yet chirality and reflection are present also in the static state making them primordial to even spin. Hence there is not one string theory that does not presuppose either chirality or reflection
The origin is chirality and reflection as a pair, or mutual origination. Or originators of duality.

Hi Ray,

thank you for taking the time to make a thoughtful post. I would like to make the following analogy with reference to your terms question 1, question 2. Biology is also an area where we often have very little idea how things actually work. Yet we can make safety assessments i.e. move on to your question 2 without understanding the actual mechanisms behind how the damage might be caused or not caused (your queston 1).

For example, microwave ovens have been used for some decades now and it can be considered safe to eat the food that comes out of them because of the sheer statistics of how often they have been used. There will always be people who worry about what happens to those molecules of water being jiggled about, what effects that might have on a cell and how that might impact you if you eat the food. Given how much we dont know about the human body there will always be room for doubt from the theoretical or `following the chain of the cause and effect’ point of view. One can try to figure out all the steps in the chain and guess that it should be harmless. But much more incontrovertible is the sheer statistics of usage. From these statistics you can go on to answer your question 2 (the risk assessment) without answering your question 1.

This principle is used for drugs, for radiation levels, all sorts. Thus, low levels of radiation in the lab are clearly safe if say ten times lower than levels that occur naturally in places where people have lived without unusual health problems for generations. In the radiation example we can even point to theoretical damage but live with it.

When you do the stats for the LHC, with the LHC running 10 years there are an estimated 10^17 proton-proton collisions. But cosmic rays from space (most of which are protons) of much higher energies (to allow for relativistic effects on consider ones of 10,000 times or more than the energies in the LHC) collide with hydrogen nucleii in the sun (basically protons) all the time and over the last 4000 million years one can estimate about 10^27 such collisions. So for every `microwave oven use’ in the LHC there have already been 10 billion (10^10) safe `microwave oven usages’ as it were. The safety factor is estimated as 1:10 billion.

These numbers can be found in http://arxiv.org/pdf/0805.4528 Now, the author does have links with CERN but the thing is that this is not rocket science. Its just estimating the relevant number of cosmic rays that already went into the Sun from standard flux data (known from a variety of other contexts) and comparing with the relevant number for the LHC. Unless you deny even the most basic facts about our world such as the size and age of the sun, existence and composition of cosmic rays known for decades, etc. I mean there is a broadly everyday level of science involved in the ballpark number.

The details can still be technical and I’m not saying that we can all do it. But the main thing is that this has nothing to do with your question 1 about understanding the theory behind the creation of black holes, strangelets etc. or what happens to them. It does not require string theory or quantum gravity or even of advanced theories particle physics of the level that the LHC is testing, higgs particle etc. All of that can is treated above as a `black box’ not needed for the safety factor calculation. So in your terms one is answering your question 2 without depending on question 1. Of course our best understanding of question 1 is that it should be safe, just as our best understanding of biology suggests that eating microwaved food should be safe. But the counting exercise is telling us what is/has been the case independently of what should be the case. I think in the critique there is a tendency to mix and confuse these different levels of `science’ and tar them both with the same brush.

Also please note that the above is just one example of the kind of `bound on the risk’ that one can make. There is every reason to believe that the odds are even far far greater.

@ Ray
Your layman’s strategy sounds solid for daily use, but it is completely misguided for science.

First question: by definition any prediction of the outcome of an experiment is based on theory. This is always true. You can not even rule out that the glass of water explodes when you put a match in it. Remember that matches do not exist in nature, so the conditions for the experiment are reproduce only when performed by manhood. There is no cosmic evidence that such a thing can’t happen and statistics and variation of conditions is poor. From the very beginning and for every experiment there is a small but nonzero probability that something “new” happens and theory must be rewritten. You can put statistically an upper bound on the probability because so far the fire always went out. But in reality once you perform the experiment again, you do not know exactly whether you have precisely the same setup as in the previous experiments. You have a theory that says that this experiment is exactly the same as the others before and from observation and theory you extrapolate that this time this or this happens.

Second question: for the same reason you can never answer this question and give a number. Again you can only compare to other outcomes of experiments and put a reasonable upper bound on the probability that something will not happen at the LHC. Same business as always. There is no alternative and the situation is not worse as always. If you consider this as insufficient and “risky”, stop using any artificial chemistry products or electronics.

Third question: you can even less answer this question, because in addition to the risks you have now also to estimate the chances. No way. For example in medical science there was a risk to experiment with bacteria and immunization. One could explain why the risk to wipe off humans from the planet by these experiments was extremely small, but it was certainly nonzero. Since then millions of people have been saved by the benefits of these experiments which were not foreseeable at that times. The upshot is that science pays off large but in a way that can not be computed in advance, because to compute in advance you would need the knowledge that you can only reach by performing science. No way.

On a larger scale switching on LHC is not different from the first caveman making his own artificial fire. Stay forever in the dark with no risk and no idea about what is around you. Or lighten up your life and perhaps see the sable-tooth lion behind you in time and react.

@ C
Bill, the Santa Claus bot was better.

@LL Acknowledged… OK Glad you liked it.
But does this mean none of You think that mBH coupling to the particle zoo and Em waves matters, or should be covered by Science in this context?
There are some problems with the Rössler model according to those who wish to refute it,
and maybe interaction modes could pave ways around the objections. e.g. “mBH-e coupling” would give rise to a very strong magnetic field, according to prof. Rössler. What are the warping properties in different media for that specific pair
Media: neutronstar:/withe dwarf/planet/ etc. Coupling: mBH-electron-Gamma ray, mBH-positron-Gamma ray / mBH-myon-positron-Gamma ray etc. a combinatorial approach so to speak showing in the set of various media, why the media would be non interactive. Quantum tunneling effect for instance etc. Would some of the couples be excluded in a specific media ? What about solar wind interaction for instance is it possible the solar wind would on an approach or exit trajectories break up some couples rather than others. Do certain astronomical objects e.g. white dwarfs have processes that would transport coupled mBH-e from the core and accelerate them through magnetic acceleration to eventually discharge them in a Coronal Mass Ejection before the mBH would have time to become too massive. A planet of course would not…
I am told there is a new crater on the moon the size of a caravan: hadrons and other particles have been warped on a very powerful laser to test wether the acceleration would exceed C While hopeful at first the scientists in charge of the measurements later noticed that they hadn’t taken initial inertia into account when calculating impact velocity…

The LHC will not work until April 2009.

This means that there will be ample time to evaluate results obtained from the The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope/Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope formerly known as GLAST and take any results into account that may have implications for the LHC.

I also am a layman and, although I believe my 20+ years as a terrorism analyst inherently leads me to skepticism relative to any threat, I believe I am a rational person who tries to find the fact, or in this case the science, of a problem vs focusing the emotional aspects. But I can’t help being apprehensive with this series of experiments…after all, with other threats, whether nuclear weapons, global warming, meteors, etc, we have a reasonable assurance that humanity itself will probably survive. With this scenario, if the scientists are wrong, and even Stephen Hawking has been dramatically wrong on issues he felt very strongly about in the past, we have no recourse. Your explanation was indeed the best retort to the fear of destruction by a rogue black hole, but the real question in my mind is why these scientists feel the right to risk my children’s lives or the billions of other lives because they feel the risk is acceptable. At the least, I believe there should be more public forum such as that which Shahn Majid provides, but with the intent to alleviate the fear that laymen could find palatable vs sparring about religious or socio-political ramifications of the final outcome. Another question I have…where does it stop…what will the next experimental risk factor be for the human race? Who provides oversight for these people?

Regardless, I am still not convinced the risk, however small, is thiers to assume. I deal in a world of analyzing risk of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction and have previously been in pivotal roles dealing with securing nuclear weapons and resources…we used to tell the politicians that the expense of protecting these assets was well worth it because, although the risk of them falling into bad guy hands was incredibly small, the consequences were unacceptable. I think there should be a better vetting process for these experiments, although I can’t provide a reasonable option for that process.

Thank you Shahn Majid…I would appreciate more words that can alleviate the exceptional anxiety of my young son who is intelligent enough to understand the basic science of the experiment and therefore the potential results but can’t grasp the rationale offered to mitigate concern…all he knows is the scientists can’t ensure he will survive to grow up if this experiment is carried out. In fact, I can barely accept it because, with all my combat and antiterrorism training, I can’t protect my family against this and I have no venue to influence others to hear and mitigate my concerns.

This is most likely posted far too late to warrant attention but any response would be welcome…thanks.

Fox News has caught on that there may be more to this than originally predicted…can anyone tell me if they are accurate in their report?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,483477,00.html

No, Fox News is not accurate in their report.

The paper they cite examines the behaviour of mini black holes in a
specific theory. They clearly conclude that, for the model they studied,
“the growth of black holes to catastrophic size is not possible.” This
conclusion even holds if they let the parameters of the model take
values which are excluded by experiment.

The thing that Fox jumped on is that the lifetime of the black holes in
this model is longer than in other models (although certainly not of the
order of seconds, as speculated by Fox. In fact, the times in the paper
are well below milliseconds).

One should note that the LHC Safety Assessment Group, amongst others,
have taken into account even the production of hypothetical stable mini
black holes. For example, Giddings and Mangano
[http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.3381] rule out that stable black holes
produced by the LHC — if possible at all — could have an effect on the
earth on timescales shorter than the sun’s lifetime, by investigating
the effect that cosmic ray induced black holes would have on other
objects such as neutron stars and white dwarfs.

So Fox news both mis-cited the paper and greatly exaggerated its
relevance for the safety discussion.