Talk:Safety of high-energy particle collision experiments

/* Legal challenges */ Present Johnson's "allowed in the courtroom" quote.

I have expanded the legal 'Legal challenges' section a bit to quote Johnson's appalling statement on p. 874 of his paper, that "Given such a state, it is not clear that any particle-physics testimony should be allowed in the courtroom", which I think deserves thought and attention.

Taken seriously, it really might arrest the whole LHC project, and also seems to have the potential to stop any kind of future technical investigation demanding great specialized knowledge, if challenged by some allegedly serious danger. Yet his argument does not seem quite ridiculous, given the realities of the human world—much as I (biased as I am) wish it could be dismissed out of hand. Wwheaton (talk) 18:55, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I fail to see how an opinion of one attorney makes a case precedent or case law. It is an opinion only and a not highly valid one, as one can easily explain in a court of law that higher energy particles are measured striking the upper atmosphere of the Earth each and every day than what the LHC can produce. There are Constitutional issues as well, for prohibiting a scientist from testifying at a trial then removed that scientist's due process rights.Wzrd1 (talk) 22:11, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

First it is published in an academic, university law journal. It is not case law, but it could be argued in court, and might conceivably be upheld. It even has some internal logic (experts in particle theory are certainly mostly committed to the subject), though I agree the implications (only the ignorant can be qualified to testify) are ridiculous. Wwheaton (talk) 03:28, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Slight misrepresentation of the Ord paper

The mention of the position of Toby Ord and the rest of us co-authors of the arXiv:0810.5515 paper is slightly wrong: we are criticising the risk assessment rather than arguing that there is a relevant risk. Basically, for very low-probability risks the probability of an error in arguments trying to bound the risk overshadows the risk itself, requiring a more robust assessment procedure than has been used in the past (especially since we are talking about a potential existential risk). Since I am a co-author of the paper I will refrain from tampering with that part of the text, but it should be updated since the reading is not correct. Anders Sandberg (talk) 19:45, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

"ultra high energy cosmic rays"

This article fails to explain how it is possible to have ultra high energy particles hit the earth at speeds even close to the LHC due to the basic fact that universal expansion inherently slows them down by the red shift that occurs naturally as they travel to us. Jeff Carr (talk) 19:41, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Particles don't red shift, they are slowed by interaction with magnetic fields, matter and the cosmic background radiation when traveling extraordinarily long distances (intergalactic or greater distances). Still, we've measured a 50 J particle impacting the Earth's atmosphere, which is a lot more than anything we could ever attempt to engineer at our current technological level.Wzrd1 (talk) 15:51, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

The speed of particles absolutely "red shift". That is, they slow down relative to earth. "50 J particle impacts" are likely clusters of many particles. Jeff Carr (talk) 19:54, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Actually, approaching the Earth, they'd be blue shifted and at relativistic velocities, have a higher relative mass while still traveling, then bremmelstrung emissions would occur as the particle interacts with the atmosphere.20.137.7.64 (talk) 22:24, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

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"Boring" but real safety matters

While they don't pose an existential danger to the planet/universe, particle colliders are hazardous facilities, with risks that include high levels of ionising radiation, gas leaks in enclosed spaces (asphyxiation hazard), high-voltage equipment, working from a height, heavy crane loads (the LHC's only fatality ) and potentially flooding or tunnel collapse if located underground. I understand that the exciting science-fiction hazards receive more public attention, but it seems silly to ignore the everyday ones. — dukwon (talk) (contribs) 12:01, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

References