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Originally Posted by jolinar of malkshor

First off I just want to say I am not a physicist nor have I had any academic training in physics. I do however read a lot of articles on physics. So much that my friends throw my scientific america into the camp fire when we are camping. Any how, yes we do have good theories, but that is all they are theories. And we also have several theories that go against each other not like you are suggesting that they all agree with each other.

I am not saying we shouldn't seek out knowledge, but in cases like this it whould be done very very carefully. I don't think it is being done carefully because most people are not aware of this experiment and the risks are merely being shrugged off as "well if this is going to happen it already would have happened." Way to defend a position.

So you admit you aren't in a position to assess the risk of this experiment but then post a thread questioning the risk of this experiment?

(BTW Scientific American is fine, but I wouldn't call it a quality source of scientific information, it's more along the lines of Popular Science than Nature. So I wouldn't use info from there as a guideline. That said I read it myself sometimes.)

Saying that it isn't being done carefully because people aren't aware of it doesn't make any sense either. I would argue probably better care is being taken because it isn't a popular (thus political) issue. As you point out, 99.99% of people aren't equipped to even understand anything about it let alone assess the risk, so they'd fall back on the "destroy earth bad, so stop doing it" position.

I have no doubt that minds far greater than ours have been all over it enough times.

Yes, cosmic rays collide all the time at much greater speeds, that doesn't mean that this something wont go wrong during the experiment. Clearly it happens in the universe. There are black holes and there are neutron stars. So it can happen.

Of course it can. Like I said it's also possible that gravity stops working or that you quantum tunnel your way outside without opening the door. But if the chances are so low that you'd have to wait far past the heat death of the universe for it to happen, how much do you let that risk influence you?

That is reassuring.

It's easier to address irrational fears with irrational responses.

You ask people who play the lotto and they always say I will never win it. But they know that they can't win unless they try. You also talk to people who don't play the lotto and they say it will never happen to me. Same idea here. They say it could happen but the odds are it won't.

That doesn't say anything about the risks of this experiment however. Are you saying that even though the risks are vanishingly small, we shouldn't throw the dice simply because the possibility of something bad happening exists?

With that reasoning, nothing would ever have been invented for fear of burning the planet down (fire), punching a hole in the earth's crust (nuclear explosions) or killing us all with a new plague (any kind of medical research).