Johnson’s article is actually about the LHC, which was in the early (and over budget) stages of construction in 2001. So the doomsday debate, which MSNBC.com’s Alan Boyle has tracked in number of blog posts over the last two years, has been garnering publicity for the collider for a long time. With that in mind, the most important question about the current cornucopia of coverage is not, is all publicity good publicity for CERN, but rather: Has the press actually helped public understanding of particle physics or just perpetuated old worries?
Fortunately, unlike black holes, a lot of light escaped from the world’s news holes over the last few days (though the best piece of writing on the subject may still be last year’s Elizabeth Kolbert’s exposé in The New Yorker). There have been many excellent features, analyses, photos, interviews, and interactive graphics. But fun time is over. One disappointing aspect of the straight news coverage of the LHC’s first beam test was that, depending on whom you read, it cost anywhere between $4 billion to $10 billion. Anyway you slice it, that’s a lot of money, and proof of two things: that CERN will have to earn its publicity from now on, and that journalists have responsibility to explain how its fancy new collider does or doesn’t pay off.
I'm not sure if I'm nitpicking or what, but this stroke me as a poor choice of words:
"It is expected to accelerate protons to nearly the speed of light "
It's not expected; it's /designed/ to. It will; it has. The only way it would not would be if a war broke. On the other hand, I'm expecting a phone call tomorrow, but there's a slight chance that the person be unable to call.
It's that kind of wording that made people give way too much credibility to the doomsday scenarios. Let's be clear: it's not just unlikely that a black hole be created and swallows the earth. There's just no way it can happen, because black holes do not work that way. A micro black hole cannot grow by itself. And it will dissipate anyway within a femtosecond per Hawking's radiation.
Posted by NM on Thu 11 Sep 2008 at 04:45 PM
Good eye. Designed is the right word and I changed the column accordingly. My own note of caution, however, about the phrase, "black holes don't work the way." Scientists aren't sure about how black holes work exactly. For obvious reasons, Hawking's radiation has never been tested experimentally. Fortunately, it is only one reason most physicists aren't worried about creating small black holes. Another is that cosmic radiation collides with Earth's atmosphere at energies similar to those that the LHC will produce, and so far no planet-gobbling holes have occurred.
By the by, many science buffs have complained over the years that Stephen Hawking has never received a Nobel Prize. The main reason for that is most of theories are just that, theories, which can't be tested empirically. He gave the BBC (linked in my column) a great quote, though: "If the LHC were to produce little black holes, I don’t think there is any doubt I would get a Nobel Prize, if they showed the properties I predict. However I think the the probability that the LHC has enough energy to produce little black holes is less than 1 per cent - so I’m not holding my breath."
So here's to hoping for unexpected results!
Posted by Curtis Brainard on Thu 11 Sep 2008 at 05:13 PM
The main problem is that journalists aren't doing their due-diligence. The nightly news said something along the lines of "and we are all still here", but apparently they didn't take even a moment to research the fact that no collisions had been made. They just sent a beam around in a circle. Once the collisions take place, that's when the fireworks fly, and it's not right to leave it at this.
Posted by Ben on Fri 12 Sep 2008 at 04:16 PM