A local physicist will talk to Prescott residents tonight about a pending effort to unlock the secret of a fundamental universal force.
Scientists near Geneva are about to start up the highest-energy particle accelerator in the world, called the Large Hadron Collider. They hope the extra boost of energy from this gigantic multi-billion-dollar collider will produce the elusive Higgs particle.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University physics chair Darrel Smith will give a free PowerPoint presentation about the collider at 6 p.m. Wednesday at ERAU's Davis Learning Center. It is geared toward the general public.
Some people fear the collider also will produce a black hole that will devour the planet, and several have filed a lawsuit to stop it. But scientists are confident that will not happen.
"We don't have anything to fear," Smith said. "There are cosmic rays with much higher energies."
The Prescott Astronomy Club is sponsoring Wednesday's talk.
Smith has been intimately involved in collider research, as part of the team that discovered the W and Z particles in the 1980s. The lead researchers won Nobel Prizes.
Part of the 17-mile-long tunnel is underneath his former yard in France, Smith noted.
The Higgs is a missing link in the Standard Model of physics. If scientists can show it exists in the collider, they will have unified three of the four forces of nature, leaving only gravity. If not, scientists will have to rethink their basic theory of physics, Smith said.
Testing is to begin this month, with the first collisions in June and data collection beginning in August, Smith said.
Contact the reporter at jdodder@prescottaz.com
Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, May 16, 2008
Article comment by:
mottimorph
Nostradamus, Century 9, Number 44: "All should leave Geneva. Saturn turns from gold to iron, The contrary positive ray (RAYPOZ) will exterminate everything, there will be signs in the sky before this."
Posted: Friday, May 09, 2008
Article comment by:
Gandar55
JTanker: YOU RULE! Did you ever think of running for public office? PV needs leadership like I just know you could offer.No one would dare question anything you say!
Gandar
Posted: Thursday, May 08, 2008
Article comment by:
FestusLonley98
Now you've gone went and done it! You got me scared, real scared so scared I may have to go back to booze, cigarettes and fast women! You see I can't understan any of this black hole stuff except the time my ole woman hit me on the head with a skillet and I think I was in one! But I admit I was whiskey drunk and acting a mite mean.
So this machine would eat France first with the black holes it makes? I got no problem with that but it all don't sound "natural" maybe we shouldn't start doin odd things with mad scientists. Glad to see one reader has some answers and a handle on things maybe he can help me change my windshield wiper blade?
Festus
Posted: Thursday, May 08, 2008
Article comment by:
JTankers
CERN predicts the creation of up to 1 micro black hole per second in the Large Hadron Collider and references the 1999 RHIC safety study as proof of safety. (Rebuttal: But the 1999 RHIC safety study only ruled out any possibility of colliders creating micro black holes based on knowledge at that time.)
CERN predicts that micro black holes will evaporate.
(Rebuttal: But Hawking Radiation has been disputed by no less than 3 peer reviewed studies that found no basis in science for such conclusions.)
CERN and Steven Hawking state that much greater energy cosmic ray impacts with Earth prove safety.
(Rebuttal: But higher energy cosmic ray impacts with stationary particles have net collision speeds of almost the speed of light and send all particles created safely into space, while head-on collider collisions have net collision impact speeds at almost twice the speed of light but are designed to focus all the energy to a single point in space and particles created may be captured by Earth's gravity.)
CERN promised to create and release an new safety report before the end of 2007.
(Rebuttal: CERN's LHC Safety Assessment Group has concluded that particles created by cosmic ray impacts with Earth's atmosphere are safely ejected into space and LSAG stated that they do not assume that micro black holes will evaporate, but CERN never released any safety reports created by their LHC Safety Assessment Group.)
CERN asserts that there is no risk to the planet, even though the Large Hadron Collider will create conditions not seen in nature since the first fraction of a second after the big bang.
(Rebuttal: But the legal action contends a 75% probability of risk with very high degree of uncertainty calculated by a scientist with a masters degree in statistics, and alleges that Chief Scientific Officer Mr. Engelen passed an internal memorandum to workers at CERN asking them regardless of personal opinion to affirm in all interviews that there were no risks involved in the experiments, changing CERN's previous assertion of minimal risk.)
Professor Otto Rossler calculates that a single micro black hole could accrete the Earth is as few as 50 months and Dr. Rossler is world recognized as one of the most prestigious, most eminent, award winning scientists alive. Others including Dr. Raj Baldev, director of the Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research, are also warning of a very real, very possible, very present danger to the planet from the Large Hadron Collider.
(Rebuttal?: But CERN has not scientifically refuted his calculations that I am aware of, CERN only promised Dr. Rossler that if they create stable micro black holes that they will stop the experiment immediately. But could that be too late?)
The World might prevent a catastrophy if we delay the experiment until the promised safety studies are completed and peer reviewed.
(Rebuttal?: But then some scientists may not be the first to discover new science and some Nobel prizes may be lost?)
JTankers
LHCConcerns.com
Note: The Large Hadron Collider promises head-on collissions between protons and/or anti-protons of the same mass, all traveling at exactly the same speed, 99.9999991% of the speed of light and will collide head on with exact opposite vectors and some percent will collide exactly center mass to focus the energy to a single point to create conditions not seen in nature since the first fraction of a second after the big bang.
