Thank you for your comments and for the link to your new publication. I shall study it in detail.

Forgive me for not providing references in my earlier comment, the one you have quoted. The colleagues I have referred to are Dr. Hermann Nicolai (see his comments here), Dr. Domenico Giulini (see his comments with Dr. Hermann Nicolai here) and Dr. Gerhard Bruhn (see his comments here).

I would like to reiterate here that I consider you a worthy academic, as is evident from your qualifications and extensive experience in various fields. Please do not take my criticism personally, it is purely professional.

Thanks for weighing in. I read your interview with Dr. Rössler on the scientificblogging site, as well as the first two articles on bigsciencenews.blogspot.com. You are undoubtedly well-read and knowledgeable, and have an enjoyable writing style. Moreover, your championing the underdogs’ cause and letting the world hear their voice is indeed commendable, especially since the work done by individuals from small institutions often doesn’t get noticed.

You are right in saying that the LHC has not be trouble-free as we had hoped, and that it is behind schedule and over budget, mostly due to the unprecedented scale the machine is being built on. The engineering team has a lot on its plate right now. It’s time they get their act together.

The engineering aspect apart, people such as Dr. Rössler have raised concerns about the safety of the MBHs and their Hawking radiation, and other particles that may be formed at the LHC. You argue that one cannot argue conclusively on safety here since both are theoretical. Why not, Alan?

If MBHs are not produced, then the LHC is safe anyway. Moreover, I have demonstrated at the end of my article (But what if micro black holes don’t decay?) that MBHs are safe even if the theory of Hawking radiation is incorrect. The LHC is safe both ways. As far as strangelets/dark matter/quark stars go, you can see the references I’ve given in my response to Paul’s comments above.

I am sure Dr. Rössler is a worthy academic, having degrees in medicine and behavioral psychology, but I am afraid he simply does not have enough authority in theoretical and particle physics. His work has been proven to be incorrect by established physicists, and there is not one physicist (affiliated to CERN or otherwise) who has come out in support of his theories. It’s not snobbery by CERN, it’s just common sense. I went through his paper “Abraham-soltution to Schwarzhild metric implies that CERN miniblack holes pose a planetary risk”. I will gladly explain in detail why this paper is incorrect, if you like.

I therefore find it hard to take Dr. Rössler’s work seriously. While it is commendable that you gave Dr. Rössler the chance to have his opinions heard, it is perhaps time you reconsidered your support for his ideas. One cannot afford to let emotions and likes/dislikes override logic and truth in physics and science.

There is no shame in being proved wrong in physics. Indeed, physics would never progress if incorrect theories did not see the light of day. It is these incorrect theories that often show us the right direction.

I was the only journalist to raise red flags about LHC design and engineering, warning CERN in advance of startup of the many potential risks they were taking in building and operating the world’s most complex machine, like extremely high loads with 12,000 amp circuits and thousands of miles of primary wiring and millions of connections. The CMS solenoid itself drains 36,000 amps. Not your average toaster. When fully operational the LHC consumes more electrical power than the city of Geneva nearby.

What happened? A major electrical accident that started an enormous cascade of equipment failures and collider damage.

Nevermind the beam energies planned, originally up to 7 TeV per proton beam, now lately revised downward to 5 TeV because of technical problems in a third of the superconducting magnets.

Prior to last September’s crippling accident and massive quench, 7 TeV energies were going to be fast-tracked by CERN or seven times greater than the Tevatron’s, but also at much higher luminosity. Then never before seen 14 TeV proton collisions? Some people were understandably nervous even at CERN. Imagine too, a conventional major accident as we’ve already had, with beams running? Now it’s beams no higher than 5 TeV for 10 TeV collisions for safety’s sake. Continuing safety reassessments are not frivolous pursuits with so many unknowns at the LHC.

Even so at 10 TeV new matter will form. But what sort? Predicted particles or something else? These accelerated protons have enormous added mass before collisions occur. Can their collision/explosion or fusion be contained at the LHC? CERN itself considers it’s opening a new unknown frontier, a New Physics.

On the mundane side of a well-known basic electrical connection, a defective heavy bus bar splice between 2 giant magnets — melted last September, luckily with no beams running, blowing a hole in one with an explosive eruption of 4 tons of superfluid helium and major damage to many ring magnets. The LHC is still down for repairs, estimated at $40
Million including some retrofitting of additional safety equipment.

There have been other important failures, including beam loss in the SPS pre-accelerator. Lately 2 vacuum leaks discovered have delayed full repairs by 2 more months, for a possible restart this October. Hardly your trouble-free collider, years behind schedule and billions over-budget.

These are serious issues, though I confess I have treated them with humor to engage the public and CERN. As far as Dr Hawking, anyone with a sense of humor would see an excellent stand-in for Dr Strangelove. The powerful photographic images of the collider also invoke very similar images from that other Kubrick film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Coincidences are sometimes significant. Was Kubrick warning us?

You might recall that Dr Edwin Teller, father of The Bomb, seriously proposed using one of his nuclear devices to blast out a big harbor in Alaska in case you thought the mad scientist theory was pure pulp fiction.

I haven’t weighed in on micro black holes or Hawking radiation. Since both are theoretical, how can you argue conclusively on safety here? I did write an article on Professor Otto Rössler’s objections to black hole theory and
safety of mBH if produced at the LHC in an interview published in ScientificBlogging,
http://www.scientificblogging.com/big_science_gambles/interview_professor_otto_rossler_takes_on_the_lhc

–Alan Gillis

Can you provide references/mathematical rigor to back up what you’re saying here? That would help us understand your point of view in greater depth.

As far as strangelets/dark matter/quark stars are concerned, you may want to see http://doc.cern.ch/yellowrep/2003/2003-001/p1.pdf and http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/en/LHC/Safety-en.html .