Young Writers Society

DOUGLAS BIRCH, Associated Press Writer wrote:Sat Jun 28, 3:08 PM ET

MEYRIN, Switzerland - The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August.

But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists' wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump?

Ridiculous, say scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French initials CERN — some of whom have been working for a generation on the $5.8 billion collider, or LHC.

For the full story look here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080628/ap_ ... y_collider

I don't see how this could produce anything with enough force to destroy the planet. It's all theory and until I see a blackhole swallowing earth, I'm not worried.

It's very possible that they can create a blackhole but, unlikely that it would grow large/powerful enough to destroy the Earth. Unless the scientists created more than one blackhole - out of there enthusiasm, then we have a problem. As for spitting out particles that could turn the planet into a hot, dead clump... I don't think that's likely either. I think experimenting with CERN is worth the risk. If it means we can make more scientific discoveries, such as proving string theory, finding the matter in mass, or just finding more dimensions, than we should go for it.

A black hole occurs when an object has an incredibly high density, so high that not even light can escape its gravitational pull.

An extremely large sun collapsing in on itself can cause a black hole.

A smashed atom, however, can't.

The article does mention that collisions caused by the accelerators can create micro black holes - subatomic versions of black holes, as the article states. It also suggest that such 'micro black holes' produced by a collider could be trapped inside the earth's gravitational field, therefore causing a threat to the planet. Although, I do realize that an extremely large star can cause a black hole, I believe it is possible to collide particles together to create the required amount of density to create ablack hole, or at least a mirco black hole.

Micro Black Holes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_black_hole

It is theoretically possible for such things to exist, but, if they do exist, they decay very quickly.

Yeah, I've read about micro black holes. Wherever I read about it - I can't remember now - mentioend that it's entirely possible that we've already produced a whole bunch of them in experiments, but they've always had such a short life time (only a tiny fraction of a second) that it's hard to really tell if they are a micro black hole, or something else. EDIT: I just realised they're mentioned in the wiki article, under 'fireball analogy'. Looks like I got [s]some[/s] nearly all the facts wrong too.

Above I actually meant black holes in the traditional sense (you know, the all eating monster). I probably should have be clearer.