Hadron Collider Controversy
By Joseph McGreen
In keeping with the buzz sweeping the scientific community, many people may have heard of the new and enormous particle accelerator, known as the Hadron Collider, under construction near Geneva, Switzerland. The collider spans the border between Switzerland and France approximately 300 ft. underground where many tests will be conducted by a team of scientists from all around the world. There will be around 2,000 physicists from 32 different countries working on the project.
Physicist Walter L. Wagner has made claims that this experiment is unstable and cites that there are several issues with the team’s safety report. He believes that the Collider could create miniature black holes, or theoretical particles know as stranglets; of which there has never been any evidence of their existence. His outcry of ignorance eventually led to poor media coverage, with reporters focusing on the controversy of the issue and not the facts.
A recent article published by Douglas Birch on the Associated Press convoluted one scientist’s statement that the chances of the “collider producing a global catastrophe to be one in 50 million.” Birch noted after this that “those are long odds, to be sure, but about the same as winning some lotteries” trying to play upon a natural fear in the reader.
This kind of reporting led to 61% of people saying they didn’t think that the accelerator was worth the risk. Also, 72% of people said they believed that human actions would be a more likely threat to the existence of Earth than a natural disaster according to an AOL News poll. Those polled were given a biased, fear-driven fantasy story, not journalism.
The Hadron Collider will be used to determine the possible existence of pocket dimensions, invisible matter, and other experimental matter, and has the potential to revolutionize the way we think about our world and the universe.
The standard model for our understanding of physics currently has aided scientists for years, but it is being discovered that this model breaks down when higher energies are encountered in the universe. This massive high-energy particle accelerator seeks to rectify that by giving scientists the data needed to develop a new model. There are dozens of data receptors located all along the super -cooled ring of magnets. Cameras of the highest craft and weighing several tons, they will produce millions of bytes of data a year.
Men like Wagner seek to end this revolution in theoretical physics because his sensationalism leads him to fear. It is likely he knows nothing of the project, and his belief in the existence of theoretical stranglets is comparative to the faith of the religious man. People who are inclined to stagnate the waters of science have no place in the new world of ideas. Our world is rapidly changing and progressing for the good, and should not be interrupted due to fears rooted in pure speculation.