Although not from the criminal underworld, death threats are still being sent to scientists in Switzerland ahead of the turning on of a Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The plan is to smash particles together at near light speed, helping to solve some of the universe's mysteries. But chinese whispers created a rumour that this could create a black hole, sucking the world and all existence into it. Next Wednesday, if you're wondering.
Death threats
Frank Wilczek, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has received death threats, said Prof Brian Cox of Manchester University to The Telegraph, saying in as frank a manner as possible: "Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat."
The head of PR James Gillies, the public's contact for info on the £4.5 billion machine, apparently is inundated with people fearing for their lives.
"There are a number who say: "You are evil and dangerous and you are going to destroy the world."
"I find myself getting slightly angry, not because people are getting in touch but the fact they have been driven to do that by what is nonsense. What we are doing is enriching humanity, not putting it at risk."
Nature more of a danger
The whole issue has been validated as completely safe, with more dangerous cosmic rays constantly found in nature than could ever be produced by the machine.
The Safety Assessment Group, which has conducted an in-depth study into the potential impact of the machine, writes, "Each collision of a pair of protons in the LHC will release an amount of energy comparable to that of two colliding mosquitoes, so any black hole produced would be much smaller than those known to astrophysicists."
And we've seen mosquitoes colliding. Not a lot happened. Even they didn't seem to notice.
Your comments (5) Click to add a new comment
stewsofdoom
September 8th 2008
5. Dear rcopeh, your position is typical of someone who takes what they have today for granted. All technology you see around you, TV, computers, internet, transportation, power plants, air conditiong, medicine, etc etc etc, that make your life comfy and easy, exists because at some point in history, science was at work on the fundamentals that made these things possible. If everybody was like you we'd still be digging the dirt searching for worms to eat...
What have YOU done today to help that starving tribe you pity so much?
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dgerard
September 6th 2008
4. My theory is that the LHC is Dr Evil holding the world to RANSOM! http://tinyurl.com/6kfezl
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jmace86
September 5th 2008
3. Actually, rcopeh, the knowledge that we could potentially gain from the experiments to be conducted using the LHC could lead to massive advances in physics, possibly even allowing scientists to create a unified theory of everything, which would uncover a whole new universe of physics, some of which would almost certainly lead to the creation of new technolgies or new, more efficient power sources and that would certainly enrich humanity.
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rcopeh
September 5th 2008
2. I don't believe that they are threatening the world at all with this equipment. But neither are these experiments going to enrich my life.
Enriching humanity? Give me a break.
Maybe this ego-on-legs would like to explain to a starving tribe or even a poverty-stricken family on a council estate that his bashing of particles at near the speed of light is going to enrich their lives?
Interesting? You bet.
Humanity-enriching? What a ****.
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jtankers
September 5th 2008
1. Scientists are almost uniformly good and descent people who work very hard for the betterment of society.
Unfortunately scientists are also human and sometimes make poor judgements and act on group think even when group think is dubious and sometimes wrong headed.
Never the less, personal threats of any kind are absolutely unacceptable.
That said, I'm not sure how credible former band member Dr. Cox is, he also calls his opponents "*****" according to articles.
Got LHCFacts.org?
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