Risk Evaluation Forum
Recent developments in physics suggest the possibility that an experiment, scheduled to begin at the European research facility at CERN in the summer of 2008, will destroy the Earth. CERN is installing a new high-energy particle collider, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is expected to produce particles scientists have not seen before. Two of these particles could be dangerous.

Black Holes
Several string theorists have published papers predicting (if their theories are true) that the LHC will produce mini black holes. In the worst case, a mini black hole could swallow Earth.

Strangelets
Strangelets, another potential collider product, might catalyze conversion of normal matter into more strangelets, turning Earth into a small ball of strangelets.

Safety Factors
CERN has published a paper asserting several safety factors. Black holes are supposed to dissipate via Hawking radiation. A collection of strangelets is supposed to be electrically positive on its surface, and therefore not attract other matter. However, new studies have put these safety factors in question. New physics papers question the existence of Hawking radiation. A recently published paper finds that a collection of strangelets can be negative on its surface. Other safety factors also seem subject to question. For more details, see our discussion and reference sections.

Risk Management
Proper risk management requires a formal risk assessment. CERN has done this for radiation in their tunnels, but not for black holes and strangelets. Further, a proper risk assessment requires updates when new information becomes available. We encourage CERN to do a formal risk assessment. Recently CERN established a new, mainly anomymous group to "monitor current speculations" and produce a new safety study.

What You Can Do
Readers can help by thinking about, discussing, and publicizing the issue. Contact us to help with our initiatives. We also encourage more physicists to work on the issue, and we encourage funding to help them to do so. (Physicists quickly see model limiters. Consider if candidate model limiters are reliable enough to protect something as valuable as Earth. If you think you have found a sufficiently reliable model limiter, please let us know.)


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Discussion of the problem
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References and links to published articles
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