Who started this nonsense about the Large Hadron Collider destroying the world?

Non-scientists are always willing to trust rumor over expert opinions. That's how the world works.

The same sorts of rumors happened when the atomic bomb became public. People like sensationalism. It's flashy. They don't care about Higgs bosons or gravitons or the discovery of new dimensions or progress towards finding a unified theory; they care about whether there're going to be fireworks tomorrow. And if it turns out fireworks means the end of the world, they're going to be heroes and campaign against it.

I'm just waiting for someone gullible enough to make a bet with me over this. Five grand that the LHC won't destroy the world! Any takers?

There are four phenomenon going on here. First, some real honest scientists were speculating on the possible creation of a micro black hole that might happen at higher energy collisions. Second, science is an open, collaborative process, so this speculation was public. Scientists discussed it, calculations were made, and some said that while safe, it would be really cool if such objects could be detected. That was pretty much it for science. Third, there are some anti-science people, and i include Creationists, right wing politicians, and so on. These people scan the scientific literature for any ammunition that the public might easily buy. Even better if they can get a direct quote - even if out of date - from a real scientist. They act as if this is fair game. But since they obviously know better, and don't quit when corrected, it's just a lie. And finally forth, half of all people on Y!A are below average.

This last bit is just math. It's probably worse. There are quite a few people on Y!A who are under 15, and have not had time to have much exposure to science. If they're asking on Y!A, they're probably above average for their age. And, since they've been on Y!A for several minutes at most, they don't know to search previous answers first. I have extremely poor luck with Y!A searches.

So here's your mission as someone who answers. Outreach. It's perfectly OK to save your previous answers in a text file and paste them in each time. At least as long as it actually answers the question.

In the science community, we have one thing in common with, for example, Christians. In Christianity, outreach is called evangelism. And most Christians don't like to do it. In fact, it's mostly the totally Biblically ignorant and misinformed fundamentalists who seem to get involved. At least for science, even PhD scientists get involved.

I think, somebody who prefers to stay unknown.

The most scientific critic, I can name is Professor Otto Rössler from Germany. An acclaimed biochemist, who writes theoretical papers about particle physics as hobby. The publication where he extended general relativity and which he used as foundation for his trail on the ECHR, was already found to contain many misconceptions and errors.

Also, people should be really scared, if they would know that the search for the god particle (Higgs-Boson) is still harmless, compared to the existing Oh-my-god particle (A cosmic proton which had 300,000,000 TeV or 50 J energy, measured in 1991 and one of 15 measurements in the last 50 years of cosmic radiation exceeding the power of the LHC)

The media, various religious groups and possibly energy companies who fear cheaper and more sufficiant energy solutions could be developed from it. They could have paid the crazies who tried to shut it down to do this on their behalf. Anything is possible apart from this machine causing black holes & other doomsday crap. Don't listen to bible bashers, because thats most likely where this came from, when science and religion meet it's never pretty and "doomsday" fears are a great way to get public backing for your twaddle.

The LHC is funded via many civilised democracies who would have stopped it in an instant should they have veiwed it as at all dangerous.

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Don't quote me on this, the details are a bit hazy but I think the top court of Hawaii issued an injunction against CERN starting the thing a year or so ago after a case brought before it by a bunch of f7ckwits got through. There have been cases brought before other US courts saying similar things but none or only one or two of them got up.

Sorry to remind Americans of this, but even your Supreme Court has NO jurisdiction outside the borders of the USA. State courts? Don't make me laugh.

I know someone who had panic attacks. The main thing is people like to feel precious and nothing makes life quite as precious as a "limited edition" strapped to it.

Seriously I'm not sure anyone is interested in learning and debate anymore.

I wonder whether CERN are taking these people too seriously. They made a branch dedicated to safety, they give it countless fail-safes and emergency shut-downs, set up a forum dedicated to assuring people and people just hear "BLACK HOLES! BOOM!"

Actually on Wednesday they ARE going to use it. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) It is just hyped by the rumors of the end of the world. The black holes people are wondering about are only the size of micro holes. Not a danger, so the scientist say.

The rumor starter was Burgdorf McFlibe Schnickettyboo, a Scandanavian spatula-maker who was concerned about the collider interefering with his view of the Amazon. It just caught on from there.

It's probably like Chinese whispers. The internet has enabled these ridiculous rumours to spread like wildfire, despite the best efforts of the CERN scientists. Just be glad that we'll soon see an end to this hysteria, unlike the 2012 questions. Another three and half years of them, I'm afraid.

What concerns me the most is why so many people are so damn gullible. It doesn't take much to go on the net and EDUCATE yourself about the LHC. For crying out loud, you can watch the BBC horizon documentary about it on Google video. WATCH IT, SIMPLETONS! EDUCATE YOURSELVES AND STOP WORRYING.