Is 50,000,000 to 1 too big of a risk..? (in Off-topic)

The specific division of the company I work for boasts a high concentration of weird intelligent people with doctorates for this and that all over the place. The majority of topics discussed over a morning cup of tea and a roll on bacon often wouldn't be out of place in some dusty old university staff room and is generally not my thing. Heh, no kidding...
This morning however I was an interested participant in a discussion over the pros and cons of the "LHC" in Switzerland.

Question:
Should the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva in Switzerland be "switched on"?
Many scientists have concerns that this huge (over 17 miles circumference) particle accelerator is not safe. Some are even predicting that over a 10 year operating spell there's a 1 in 50,000,000 chance the LHC will cause the creation of a stable black hole or one of several other earth ending catastrophies.

Should we chance it, and do the benefits outweigh the risks?

Risk it!

if i were a gambling man, and i am, i would :)

But the creation of magnetic monopoles is bad? I thought they were trying hard to create one? Great for anti gravity thingies?

Totally too big of a risk. Seriously, i'd bomb the place. The chances of catastrophe CANNOT be simply calculated like that, and never will you be certain that 1 to 50 000 000 is the real probability of disaster. It may be more, or less. It's an arbitrary number for sure.

That and black holes frighten me.

and i quote 'Since the much higher-energy collisions provided by Nature for billions of years have not harmed the Earth, there is no reason to think that any phenomenon produced by the LHC will do so.'

with my reply being 'murphy's law' cause we're humans

I flipped a penny. The penny says do it.

This sounds like the beginning of a really cheesy sci-fi film where humans stumble on to some technology that destroy themselves...

This thread happens a week after I've seen a pretty 'B' short film on said accelerator destroying earth :)

But my opinion is not based on that, I swear.

cosmic fire...cleansing...mmm

What's wrong Colonel Sanders, chicken?

The big question here of course is: clockwise or counter-clockwise?

Always to the left =)

This is just one of those things you'll never know unless you try.

Would that girl like me if I asked her on a date?
Don't know, let's find out.

If I were one of those technicians over there at the LHC, I'd put up a sign saying"Try before you die".

I think they should go for it. There's a huge demand for anti-matter, so the cost of destroying the earth with a giant black hole would be made up for by the sale of all the extra anti matter.

Remember, Many of the scientists that were a part of the Manhattan project thought that the atom bomb would ignite the atmosphere.

Not to mention particle accelerators are are best chance of understanding how alot of things work int he world, including gravity, i say of course turn it on.

I'm going to have to reiterate the IMPORTANCE of the following statement:

"I flipped a penny. The penny says do it."

Who dareth deny the penny it's wish!?!

But, to be real, black holes scare the heck out of me. The one a few billion light years away made me lose sleep for a week. So let's keep the little cuddly bundle of warmth off for awhile, until we can ship it to Mars.

94% of all statistics are made up, so we may never know.

I thought they already turned it on and all they got was a little explosion

That was just a "pratfall" during test. It's start up isn't scheduled until November.

The world ending via a black hole is more appealing to me than being wiped out by a nuclear war/global warming. :P

404 on that link, Yukk. G, what's a pratfall?

Global Warming is just Al Gores way of getting back at the people for not voting for him... Its not really gonna happen, although its hot as crap in my bedroom right now! lol.

Pratfall: an embarrassing or humiliating mistake or failure

The company responsible for the manufacture and installation of the magnets made a basic mathematical error and as a result there was an explosion during test.

PS. The link works for me.

smallpau1, global warming is happening as we speak, there is no denying the average global temperature is at an increase (factoring in the fact it does fluctuate). ;)

im getting an access denied on that link, policy denied, which is strange since im at home with full internet access to everything

Large Hadron Collider Sparks 'Doomsday' Lawsuit