-Caveat Lector-
Big Bang machine could destroy Earth
Source: The Times
Published: 7-18-99
Author: Jonathan Leake
not for commercial use
A NUCLEAR accelerator designed to replicate the Big Bang is under
investigation by international physicists because of fears that it
might cause "perturbations of the universe" that could destroy the
Earth. One theory even suggests that it could create a black hole.
Brookhaven National Laboratories (BNL), one of the American
government's foremost research bodies, has spent eight years
building its Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) on Long Island
in New York state. A successful test-firing was held on Friday and
the first nuclear collisions will take place in the autumn,
building up to full power around the time of the millennium.
Last week, however, John Marburger, Brookhaven's director, set up
a committee of physicists to investigate whether the project could
go disastrously wrong. It followed warnings by other physicists
that there was a tiny but real risk that the machine, the most
powerful of its kind in the world, had the power to create
"strangelets" - a new type of matter made up of sub-atomic
particles called "strange quarks".
The committee is to examine the possibility that, once formed,
strangelets might start an uncontrollable chain reaction that could
convert anything they touched into more strange matter. The
committee will also consider an alternative, although less likely,
possibility that the colliding particles could achieve such a high
density that they would form a mini black hole. In space, black
holes are believed to generate intense gravitational fields that
suck in all surrounding matter. The creation of one on Earth could
be disastrous.
Professor Bob Jaffe, director of the Centre for Theoretical Physics
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is on the
committee, said he believed the risk was tiny but could not be
ruled out. "There have been fears that strange matter could alter
the structure of anything nearby. The risk is exceedingly small but
the probability of something unusual happening is not zero."
Construction of the �350m RHIC machine started eight years ago and
is almost complete. On Friday scientists sent the first beam of
particles around the machine - but without attempting any
collisions.
Inside the collider, atoms of gold will be stripped of their outer
electrons and pumped into one of two 2.4-mile circular tubes where
powerful magnets will accelerate them to 99.9% of the speed of
light.
The ions in the two tubes will travel in opposite directions to
increase the power of the collisions. When they smash into each
other, at one of several intersections between the tubes, they will
generate minuscule fireballs of superdense matter with temperatures
of about a trillion degrees - 10,000 times hotter than the sun.
Such conditions are thought not to have existed - except possibly
in the heart of some dense stars - since the Big Bang that formed
the universe between 12 billion and 15 billion years ago.
Under such conditions atomic nuclei "evaporate" into a plasma of
even smaller particles called quarks and gluons. Theoretical and
experimental evidence predicts that such a plasma would then emit
a shower of other, different particles as it cooled down.
Among the particles predicted to appear during this cooling are
strange quarks. These have been detected in other accelerators but
always attached to other particles. RHIC, the most powerful such
machine yet built, has the ability to create solitary strange
quarks for the first time since the universe began.
BNL confirmed that there had been discussion over the possibility
of "perturbations in the universe". Thomas Ludlam, associate
project director of RHIC, said that the committee would hold its
first meeting shortly.
John Nelson, professor of nuclear physics at Birmingham University
who is leading the British scientific team at RHIC, said the
chances of an accident were infinitesimally small - but Brookhaven
had a duty to assess them. "The big question is whether the planet
will disappear in the twinkling of an eye. It is astonishingly
unlikely that there is any risk - but I could not prove it,"
he said.
###
How about the really important question. Is this gizmo at
Brookhaven Y2K compliant? --Ditto
Was this project funded by the same people who banned
firecrackers for our safety? --enough is enough
.
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