Strangelet

[Nogbad]

What the feck is a strangelet? CERN is going on line next month and I read that some concerned individuals from Hawaii were trying to stop this happening through the European courts because CERN would emit a strangelet and matter on Earth would shrink. The Court told them to beat it but I have never heard of strangelets. :boggled:

[nathan]

What the feck is a strangelet? CERN is going on line next month and I read that some concerned individuals from Hawaii were trying to stop this happening through the European courts because CERN would emit a strangelet and matter on Earth would shrink. The Court told them to beat it but I have never heard of strangelets. :boggled:

Have you heard of google or wikipedia though?

[Dancing David]

Um, it is hypotesized to be a possible state of matter, up, down and strange quarks. Allegedly it might happen to neutron stars.

And allegedly if some is made in the LHC, it will consume the earth.

Seems unlike to me, the earth could have hit this stuff before and all that.

[sol invictus]

Don't worry - I'm sure all the stranglets the LHC produces will be eaten by small black holes before they can instigate a catastrophic phase transition in the state of all matter on earth.

We're perfectly safe. :)

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Don't worry - I'm sure all the stranglets the LHC produces will be eaten by small black holes before they can instigate a catastrophic phase transition in the state of all matter on earth.

We're perfectly safe. :)

Perfectly true. My understanding is that a notstrangelet (aka an anti-strangelet) is produced when every strangelet is created and that within picoseconds they recombine releasing zero energy. :D

[Confuseling]

The argument I heard against the doomsayers is simply that anything happening in the LHC happens many times a second in the upper atmosphere. We are constantly bombarded with high energy particles, cosmic rays and so forth - and if they produced Particles of Death we'd be for it anyway. The only thing different here is the Blooming Expensive Camera.

[ETA: this is slightly complicated by net velocity - if a high momentum particle creates a weakly interacting Particle of Death in the upper atmosphere, it will probably just shoot straight through Earth and out the other side. The LHC might make ones that are hardly moving, goes the hysteria. However, if they're created in collisions all over the solar system and then escaping, we'd expect one to eventually land in Earth. We're still here, so it looks safe...]

[Elizabeth I]

Perfectly true. My understanding is that a notstrangelet (aka an anti-strangelet) is produced when every strangelet is created and that within picoseconds they recombine releasing zero energy. :D

Homeopathic physics!

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Homeopathic physics!

So we are doomed after all?

<Gord rushes to get a second helping of Mrs Toronto's lamb curry before it and the World are destroyed> :D

[Elizabeth I]

[Suit yourself - I just finished a plate of fettucine Pompeii, which has mushrooms, artichoke hearts, and about a pound of butter garlic sauce. I can go to that restaurant only one or two times a year.

I suppose this is a derail and now we'll get modded.]

...um, NO. The world is NOT doomed. We'll just channel that reaction into the matter-antimatter combination chamber and use it to power warp ships.

[MetalPig]

\My understanding is that a notstrangelet (aka an anti-strangelet) is produced when every strangelet is created and that within picoseconds they recombine releasing zero energy. :D
Shouldn't that be: releasing the amount of energy that went into creating them?

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Shouldn't that be: releasing the amount of energy that went into creating them?

Damn. I knew that this forum was such that someone would catch me on that! :o

My only defence is to point out that that energy needed for their creation is zero as well. These are the ultimate virtual particles. They cannot be detected in any manner what-so-ever . . . by defintion. :D

[X]

I still say science would be far more interesting if such things as CERN could cause cataclysms.

[Tubbythin]

The argument I heard against the doomsayers is simply that anything happening in the LHC happens many times a second in the upper atmosphere. We are constantly bombarded with high energy particles, cosmic rays and so forth - and if they produced Particles of Death we'd be for it anyway. The only thing different here is the Blooming Expensive Camera.

[ETA: this is slightly complicated by net velocity - if a high momentum particle creates a weakly interacting Particle of Death in the upper atmosphere, it will probably just shoot straight through Earth and out the other side. The LHC might make ones that are hardly moving, goes the hysteria. However, if they're created in collisions all over the solar system and then escaping, we'd expect one to eventually land in Earth. We're still here, so it looks safe...]

I can't be bothered to do any calculations, but I'm thinking there must have been a fair number of near head-on collisions between cosmic rays in our atmosphere over the Earth's 4.5 billion year history.

ETA: Having said which, the number with near identical energy will be somewhat smaller. Having said which which its generally going to be quark-quark collisions. Which makes it somewhat more complicated.
Conclusion: there's easier ways of debunking this stuff.

[Confuseling]

:D There may be easier ways, but I still like that one. It's intuitive, and speaks straight to the "But how do they know? Their theories could be wrong!" crowd fairly effectively. Nonetheless, if you have a better argument, I'd like to hear it.

[sol invictus]

Nonetheless, if you have a better argument, I'd like to hear it.

There is absolutely no theoretical or experimental reason to think that the LHC could produce anything dangerous. That's the real argument.

Sure, you could make something up - and people have. But you could also make something up which says not starting the LHC is dangerous. Why should the first be taken more seriously than the second?

[AgeGap]

Armando Ianucci had a great take on this. He said that recreating the conditions of the Big Bang is the most extreme Historical Reactment Society ever.
Also two things could happen. The first is that the world would be sucked inside out and the second is that it would be really boring.:D

[Tubbythin]

:D There may be easier ways, but I still like that one. It's intuitive, and speaks straight to the "But how do they know? Their theories could be wrong!" crowd fairly effectively. Nonetheless, if you have a better argument, I'd like to hear it.

Not knowing very much about strangelets I had to wiki it ('http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelets'). Apparently lots of neutron stars would actually be strangelet stars if the strangelet hypothesis was true. Which doesn't agree very well with our observations of X-ray bursters.

Sol's answer is better though.

[Confuseling]

I thought that most physicists accept that there is some level of risk, and I assumed they were talking about black holes and strangelets (though the former more likely than the latter). Sure, strangelets are slightly fringe, and black holes would have to not evaporate, aren't these acknowledged possibilities?

ETA: sorry, cross posting. But still, I thought the general consensus is that the black hole threat is accepted, but extremely unlikely?

[Tubbythin]

I thought that most physicists accept that there is some level of risk, and I assumed they were talking about black holes and strangelets (though the former more likely than the latter). Sure, strangelets are slightly fringe, and black holes would have to not evaporate, aren't these acknowledged possibilities?

ETA: sorry, cross posting. But still, I thought the general consensus is that the black hole threat is accepted, but extremely unlikely?

I'm not sure there is a clear demarkation between being accepted but highly improbable and not being accepted.

[Confuseling]

That's true enough. I've just seen physicists who I believed to be uncranky say openly "In my opinion there's a 0.00001% chance it'll destroy the planet" or some such. And yes, there's also a chance not turning it on will kill us - I would say the most significant threat, in fact, is extinction of most Earth life by an asteroid because we've failed to get our act together by learning new physics.

But nonetheless, that isn't no risk.

[sol invictus]

But still, I thought the general consensus is that the black hole threat is accepted, but extremely unlikely?

There are some (quite unlikely to be correct) theories in which the LHC might produce extremely small BHs. In those theories the BHs evaporate immediately.

There are no theories in which the LHC can produce black holes and they don't evaporate, or in which they pose any threat of any kind whatsoever. Of course that doesn't mean there is zero risk - we might not have thought of something - but precisely the same logic applies to not starting the LHC, and to every other action we might or might not take under any circumstances at any time.

[PingOfPong]

These facts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray) about cosmic rays should have already nailed the coffin shut for LHC fears. If high energy collsions were going to destroy the world, it would have happened long ago. Note that the LHC's power will be about 10^15 eV. By my calculations, 3 billion particles arrive at Earth per year with power equal to what the LHC can do.

[MattusMaximus]

The only danger is from the very people who are using such scare tactics to stop the LHC startup. This is because their brains are the densest matter in the known universe, thus leading to the spontaneous generation of world-eating black holes ;)

[Ziggurat]

This is because their brains are the densest matter in the known universe

One pound of which weighs one million pounds! :D

[Dancing David]

One pound of which weighs one million pounds! :D

Shouldn't that be metric....

;)

[dahduh]

What the feck is a strangelet?

Strange matter happens just before naked charm and bare bottom inside a degenerate white dwarf on its way to becoming a black hole.

[Soapy Sam]

Surely the location of the LHC being practically next door to Bavaria, home of the NWO Illuminati can't be coincidence? Quick- a conspiracy theory!

[Nogbad]

Strange matter happens just before naked charm and bare bottom inside a degenerate white dwarf on its way to becoming a black hole.

That seems feasible to me. :)

Thanks to those that replied (and Nathan ;) ) I now am well versed in Higg's bosun and other esoteric ideas. I shall watch with interest the results of the experiment in the coming months.

[maxfrost]

Strange matter happens just before naked charm and bare bottom inside a degenerate white dwarf on its way to becoming a black hole.

So, that's why they need a Large Hardon Collider...

(I'm sorry. I want to apologize for that. It's been a long day.)