Hansen's MagNET

“Adults take care of irresponsible children. Übermensch take care of irresponsible adults. I have no choice.” – Anonymous

This is not an article about how CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) caused the mega-earthquake in Japan. It’s about something far more important, namely what the Sendai earthquake can teach us about low probability events happening, despite scientists in the field – before the event – agreeing it couldn’t happen. This can hopefully teach us a lesson: not trusting the scientific consensus blindly. Scientists, no matter how they are portrayed, are human beings, and – naturally – fallible. And that goes for all scientists, including the ones working at CERN.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not favoring an anti-science position – far from it. I’m an advocate of science, but true science, that is; science build on evidence – not dogma or unfortunate over-generalizations, like: an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 can never occur on the east side of Japan, or a black hole can never be created in the Large Hadron Collider.

Still, I now allow myself to direct your attention some 10,000 kilometers west of Sendai, to the heart of Europe, where CERN’s Large Hadron Collider is pulsing at the French-Swiss border. Why? Because this machine might be the end of us. All of us.

What happened in Japan some few days ago was horrible. Thousands of people died, many are still missing, and thanks to the compromised Fukushima nuclear power plant it’s not over yet. Still, I now allow myself to direct your attention some 10,000 kilometers west of Sendai, to the heart of Europe, where CERN’s Large Hadron Collider is pulsing at the French-Swiss border. Why? Because this machine might be the end of us. All of us. And no, it’s not a lack of understanding of particle physics that makes me say this. No matter what the particle physics establishment would like you to believe. Not because they are evil, and intentionally wants to mislead you, but simply because they are too confident about their hypotheses and theories. The particle physicists cannot predict what’s going to happen inside the Large Hadron Collider. This is obvious if you think about it. If they could predict what would happen with certainty, they wouldn’t build a billion-dollar machine in the first place. Unfortunately – for all of us – they think they can, which makes them see their critics as fools. Maybe they should take some lessons in modesty from the seismic scientists, who in general are less arrogant about their knowledge, and lack of knowledge.

I urge you to trust your own judgement, don’t take my word for it. Reflect.

My argument is not based on particle physics (which I admittedly know little about), but as you will see; an understanding of particle physics is not needed. What is needed is a dissection of CERN’s own words, an appreciation of history, combined with an anti-gullible and anti-dogmatic attitude. With that, when you come to the last dot in this article you will – hopefully – have a little less faith in what is called scientific consensus – although scientific dogma sometimes is a more appropriate term. I urge you to trust your own judgement, don’t take my word for it. Reflect. Read everything as if you didn’t know who wrote it, evaluate what is said based on the strength of the arguments given, not on who said it. Also, be en garde when it comes to hyperbole and rhetorics. And with that introduction, let’s get down to business.

First, consider this statement regarding the Sendai earthquake: “Japanese geologists have long forecast a huge earthquake along a major plate boundary southwest of Tokyo. But the grinding plates of the earth move in mysterious ways, and Friday the largest recorded earthquake in Japan’s history hit about 230 miles northeast of Tokyo,” from The Washington Post. What does it tell us? In short: nature is unpredictable, and too much certainty can be devastating, especially when we are in unknown territory. And at CERN they are in unknown territory, as they say themselves in their safety document: “The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can achieve an energy that no other particle accelerators have reached before.” Still, CERN stubbornly claims that their Large Hadron Collider is perfectly safe.

You just need not to be gullible, and remember that what we call scientific breakthroughs (like Einstein’s relativity) are exactly what kicks a previous, well-established, theory of the throne.

In The Safety of the LHC, CERN writes: “According to the well-established properties of gravity, described by Einstein’s relativity, it is impossible for microscopic black holes to be produced at the LHC.” But is this reference to Einstein more than empty rhetorics? The short answer is no, and – again – you don’t need to be a particle physicists to understand why. You just need not to be gullible, and remember that what we call scientific breakthroughs (like Einstein’s relativity) are exactly what kicks a previous, well-established, theory of the throne. Like Einstein’s theory of relativity did with Newton’s theory of gravity. So, maybe Einstein – and therefore CERN – might be wrong. In a sense, scientists better hope Einstein can be shown to be wrong, so we can take the next step forward in our understanding of the world. And just like we cannot know for sure if a magnitude 7.6 earthquake will hit New York City in a month from now, we cannot know for sure if a black hole will be created in the LHC in the days to come. The probabilities might be close to zero, but they do not equal zero.

As reported in Science Magazine on 22 January 2010, colliding particles can make black holes – no matter what CERN’s safety document claims.

If all these might’s and maybe’s doesn’t convince you the LHC at the French-Swiss border must be stopped, maybe this will: it has been shown that black holes can be produced in the LHC, and CERN is now admitting they are looking for them. As reported in Science Magazine on 22 January 2010, colliding particles can make black holes – no matter what CERN’s safety document claims. As said in the article: “Curiously, though, nobody had ever shown that the prevailing theory of gravity, Einstein’s theory of general relativity, actually predicts that a black hole can be made this way. Now a computer model shows conclusively for the first time that a particle collision really can make a black hole.” Wait a minute. Doesn’t this contradict (from CERN’s safety document): “According to the well-established properties of gravity, described by Einstein’s relativity, it is impossible for microscopic black holes to be produced at the LHC”? It certainly does. If CERN’s claims about black holes are wrong, what else did they get wrong? I wonder, and I hope you do to.

Further, CERN is now publicly contradicting themselves.

Further, CERN is now publicly contradicting themselves. In the innocently titled Reuters story CERN particle collisions resume, from a week ago (14 March 2011), a leading physicist at CERN, Oliver Buchmueller, said: “top priority in 2011 and 2012 would be finding evidence of super-symmetry, extra dimensions, dark matter, black hole production and the elusive Higgs boson.” Yes, among their top priorities is black hole production. How can that be a top priority, if – as their safety document claims – black holes cannot be produced in the LHC? Searching for something they “know” cannot be produced sounds like a waste of tax money. So now the question is: should we all place our faith, and the faith of all future generations, in the hands of people so confused and inconsistent? I’d rather not, what about you?

CERN might be jeopardizing humanity, by smashing particles together in their Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on the border between France and Switzerland. According to critics of CERN’s LHC experiment there is a chance that a black hole might be created, and that this black hole could swallow Earth. CERN dismisses this with these words “According to the well-established properties of gravity, described by Einstein’s relativity, it is impossible for microscopic black holes to be produced at the LHC” (from The safety of the LHC). Unfortunately plenty of people are swayed by a statement like this, and all too often it’s enough to convince them there is no need to worry. But there might be, and you don’t need to be a physicist to understand why. You just have to escape the dogmatic belief in the authority of science we have been taught to accept. It might not be the easiest thing to do, but I hope you’ll try.

I’ll get back to CERN’s statement in a bit, but first let me give you a quote from The curvature of spacetime: Newton, Einstein and gravitation by Fritzsch and Heusch: “In the late nineteenth century, classical physics was seen as the very model for the natural sciences. It was dominated by Isaac Newton’s classical mechanics. The laws of mechanics were interpreted as unshakable laws of nature; their validity was unquestioned irrespective of whether an investigation concerned the motion of rigid bodies on Earth or the orbits of planets and stars in the universe.”

Please notice how this quote began; “In the late nineteenth century,” in other words two hundred years after the publication of Newton’s 1687 masterpiece Principia. And still these well-established laws were shown, by Einstein, to be far from unshakable, about a quarter of a century later. Before Einstein, Newton’s laws had ruled, and physicists pedestaled them – just as CERN now have pedestaled Einstein’s theory of relativity. Seemingly they have forgotton how history, again and again, have show what was considered unquestionable to be questionable – or indeed plain wrong. Newton’s laws is just one of many examples. And with that said, now back to CERN’s statement.

It read: “According to the well-established properties of gravity, described by Einstein’s relativity, it is impossible for microscopic black holes to be produced at the LHC,” but – with our awareness of how Newton’s unshakable and unquestionable laws were later replaced by Einstein’s theory – might we not (with good reason) wonder how CERN can be so sure? Couldn’t it be that Einstein’s relativity is wrong?

Imagine a sentence like this, “According to the well-established properties of gravity, described by Newton’s theory, it is impossible for x (something, your choice) to be produced at the French-Switz border,” written sometime between Newton and Einstein. Let’s say 1 January 1801, just to have something concrete in this little piece of writing. Such a statement would most likely have convinced the majority, thanks to the clever use of pompous hyperbole and a reference to someone perceived to be infallible. But now we know better. A statement based to Newton’s theory would – rightfully – be looked upon with lifted eyebrows. Especially, if humankind was on the line.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the statement concerning Newton was borrowed from CERN’s safety document, simply substituting Einstein with Newton. This was to show how we – obviously – cannot, and should not, take something on face value. If Newton was wrong – and he was – then Einstein might be wrong as well. If he is, CERN’s safely argument falls to the ground with a loud bang. “Luckily” we might not hear it, cause we might not be here anymore.

In conclusion: please don’t allow rhetorics and hyperbole to sway you, especially in matters of this magnitude. We all have a responsibility here. A responsibility to stop the experiments at CERN – at least until they come up with something more convincing than their current trust-the-dogma-argument.

If you want to know more, you can read my mathematical proof showing why CERN’s LHC must be stopped. It’s simple to understand. You can also read about one of CERN’s major critics, Otto Rössler, and sane risk management at CERN.

There is plenty of debate back and forth concerning the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, and the possibility that it might create a black hole that will swallow earth – and end humanity. Most of this debate is rather technical, and impossible for laymen to understand. Luckily, I’ve found a simple mathematical proof rid of technical jargon, with the unquestionable conclusion that CERN’s Large Hadron Collider must be stopped.

To understand my proof, it’s necessary to understand the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning. So, first textbook definitions of these terms, from the widely used textbook “Introduction to Logic” by Irving M. Copi, Carl Cohen and Kenneth McMahon:

• Deduction: “Every deductive argument either does what it claims, or it does not; therefore, every deductive argument is either valid or invalid. If it is valid, it is impossible for its premises to be true without the conclusion also being true.”
• Induction: “In the realm of induction, as we seek new knowledge of facts about the world, nothing is beyond doubt. We must rely on arguments that support their conclusions only as probable, or probably true.”

Further, you should know that empirical science is in the inductive domain. In other words: all scientific claims are – by definition – never true or false, but only more or less likely. And that goes for claims made by CERN, and their critics, as well. So, the idea that a black hole might be created in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider cannot be ruled out, even if the probability might be approaching zero. Notice, it can only approach zero, it cannot be zero – in accordance with the definition of induction above.

Let’s call the probability of a black hole imploding earth p. Then, in mathematical terms, we now know that:

• 0 < p < 1.

Or, in everyday language, p is somewhere between 0 and 1, but neither 0 nor 1. By the way 1 means 100 %. So far, so good.

Next, we need to quantify the potential loss. This is simple. If earth implodes it will be the end of us. It will be game over. We risk losing everything. In mathematical terms, the loss is infinite, written as ∞. Let’s call the potential loss L, and state it mathematically:

• L = ∞.

If you are having trouble with the concept of infinity, I can tell you it’s the number you get no matter what number you divide by zero. If you try it on your calculator, you’ll get an error.

Having defined the probability of the event (p), and the potential loss of the event (L), we can now calculate the risk (R) using the following formula:

• R = L ×  p

Knowing that L is infinite (∞) and p is somewhere between 0 and 1 (0 < p < 1), we can – with mathematical certainty – deduct the following:

• R = ∞

In other words the risk (R) of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider experiment is infinite – no matter how little the probability (p) of a black hole imploding earth is.

Naturally, that makes the conclusion self-evident: the LHC must be stopped, sooner rather than later. For every second the Large Hadron Collider is turned on, the chance of an end-all black hole is increasing, something we – mathematically – have proven cannot be justified.

I have no more to add.

There is a post on S C E N A R I O, a magazine by Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies, titled “in 50y“. The post contains a string of short videos with interviews of experts in various fields, from cybernetics to chaos theory. It’s the interview with the chaos theorist Otto Rössler about sustainability and the future that triggered me to write this post.

Otto Rössler talks about the possible dangers of the collisions about to be carried out inside CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). According to Rössler, his calculations show that there is a 50 percent chance that a micro black hole might be created in the Large Hadron Collider, and in about 50 months swallow earth into a black hole the size of a hazelnut. Naturally, that would be the end of us. All of us.

CERN not conCERNed

At CERN they don’t worry about the micro black holes. They say that the safely of the LHC is solid, and that “the fact that the Earth and Sun are still here rules out the possibility that cosmic rays or the LHC could produce dangerous charged microscopic black holes.” Further, CERN writes that Rössler’s argument isn’t valid, and that it has been refuted by professors Nicolai and Giulini. Additionally, CERN lists a string of scientists who support the case that LHC collisions are not dangerous. So, who are we to believe?

Well, we could make the easy choice, and simply believe the majority, the scientific consensus, taking their claim – that the Large Hadron Collider is perfectly safe – on authority. Or, we could do what any responsible skeptic would do: ponder the issue a little further. After doing so, we might end up opposing the CERN collisions. So far, I do, and I think you should as well. Let me explain why.

Odds and consequences

Let’s say I offer you a bet. I’ll roll a dice once, if it shows 1, 2 or 3, I’ll give you $1, if it shows 4, 5, or 6, you’ll give me $1. Would you take the bet? I don’t know, only you know. I now offer you a new bet, this time you win $1 if the dice shows 1, 2, 3 or 4. Only if it shows 5 or 6, you’ll lose your $1. Certainly a better bet, so no matter whether you took the first bet, there’s a higher chance you’ll take this second bet – unless, of course, if you are utterly irrational. And, naturally, if I offered you $1 if the dice showed 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5, and you only would lose if the dice showed a 6, again the chances of you taking the bet increases. Nothing new here. But what’s the point, you might wonder. What does all this have to do with black holes in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider? Well, not much. Not yet, at least. But it soon will. But first a little more talk about dices.

Let’s assume you decided to take the last bet I offered, the one where you would only lose if the dice showed a 6. Most people would. But what would happen if we changed the $1 bet to a bet for $10, $100, $1,000 or $1,000,000? Although your odds of winning remains unchanged, at 83 percent (5/6), you might think twice before accepting the bet. But why not take a bet where the chances of winning a million dollars are 83 percent? Obviously, because the risk – of losing one million dollars – is too high, although there is no more than a 17 percent chance of this happening. It other words: whether or not to take a bet doesn’t depend on the odds only, it also depends on the size of the possible win, and on what is at risk. And that leads us back to the talk about microscopic black holes inside the Large Hadron Collider, and Rössler’s warning that earth might be swallowed.

Odds and consequences related to CERN’s Large Hadron Collider

Now that we are aware that choosing to play not only depends on the odds, but also what we can possible win/lose, let’s consider the collision experiment at CERN. If Rössler is right, then there is a 50 percent chance we will all die in a black hole. That’s the risk, if we lose. If we win – and are not sucked into a black hole – we might have learned something about how it all began. For now, let’s assume Rössler is right. Should we play? Should we carry on with the experiment, knowing there is a 50 percent chance of killing all human beings on earth? I guess all sane people would agree that we shouldn’t carry on, that the risk and the chance of losing is too high. We are not playing with matches here, humanity is on the line, and for what? For the hope that our curiosity about the beginning of the universe will be satisfied. No, thanks.

I admit, I’m curious too. I would like to know what this experiment could tell us, but not when there is a 50 percent chance of jeopardizing humanity. So, the question arises: how slim does the possibility of killing us all need to be to justify this experiment? At it’s core, this is an epistemological question (what’s the value of knowledge?), while also a moral question (what’s the value of human life?) – and there is no easy answer. However, I’ll try, and I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

I assume you, dear reader, is sane. So, I also assume you agree that this experiment shouldn’t be carried out if there really is a 50 percent chance of destroying us all. I also assume you are curious, like most. So, if there were no risk at all, I guess we could agree that the experiment could be carried out. So far, so good. Now it’s “just” a matter of putting a value stamp on knowledge – and on humanity. I will continue this exploration assuming that we cannot know for sure. All science is in the domain of inductive reasoning, where – by definition – there are no certainties, only degrees of probability.

Putting a number on our sanity

The question now is: where do we draw the line? If a 50 percent chance of destruction is unacceptable, and a 0 percent change is acceptable, then what about 25 percent, 10 percent, 1 percent, 0.1 percent, 0.0001 percent and so on? How high a chance of total destruction of humanity will we tolerate to satisfy our curiosity? This is essentially the question we are facing, and in a sense, what we are doing is putting a number on our sanity. The insane would carry out the experiment no matter the consequences, even at a 100 percent chance of killing us all. But what about you, dear reader, where do you draw the line? Is the question the collision experiment might answer really so important that even the slightest chance of destroying all humanity would be acceptable?

What if Rössler was no more likely to be right than anyone else, and if he was the only one on earth saying there is a 50 percent chance of ending it all? With 7 billion people on the planet, the chance that we would all be swallowed by a black hole would then be 1 in 14 billion. That’s a slim chance, but considering the potential consequence – killing us all, and all future generations – isn’t even this chance too high? In other words: would you be willing to gamble the whole of humanity – in the hope of answering a question about the universe – with these odds?

To be or not to be – and to know or not to know

I’ve asked some people this question, and they didn’t think twice: “No, absolutely not!” they said, “No question is that important to answer!” Even if you don’t agree, I would be surprised if you would play this game if the odds were measured in percentages, rather than in millionths of a percentage. And that’s more likely what they are. Unlike most of us – non-scientists – Rössler is a scientist with hundreds of scientific papers to his name, in the fields of mathematics, chemistry and physics. So, he is definitely much more likely to be right than most of us. I therefore suggest that we listen to this gentleman, and ask for a full halt of CERN’s planned collision experiment – before it’s too late.