"End of the World" LHC Lawsuit Tossed Out

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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"End of the World" LHC Lawsuit Tossed Out


A lawsuit against the Large Hadron Collider has been dismissed because, according to the judge, it won't be the Americans' fault if the French and the Swiss suck the world into a black hole.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research [http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/LHC-en.html] (CERN) with input from thousands of scientists from over 100 countries, and is expected to open a whole new realm of scientific understanding to the world. Unless it blows the joint up first, that is.

That's the concern of Hawaiian man Walter Wagner, who filed a lawsuit in 2008 in order to keep the LHC from going live and bringing about the destruction of the planet through the creation of artificial black holes, strangelets or other such apocalyptic phenomena. The suit was dismissed on the grounds that the court had no jurisdiction over the project, but with the very future of humanity at stake, Wagner persisted.

Unfortunately (especially if he's right), his appeal his now been dismissed as well, for essentially the same reason. A United States District Court Appellate Judge has ruled that Wagner has failed to establish any "credible threat of harm," writing, "At most, Wagner has alleged that experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (the 'Collider') have 'potential adverse consequences.' Speculative fear of future harm does not constitute an injury in fact sufficient to confer standing."

And even if he had established a credible threat of harm, the judge noted that the U.S. has no control over the operation of the LHC, which is owned, managed and controller entirely by CERN. "The U.S. government enjoys only observer status on the CERN council, and has no control over CERN or its operations," the judge wrote. "Accordingly, the alleged injury, destruction of the Earth, is in no way attributable to the U.S. government's failure to draft an environmental impact statement."

This isn't Wagner's first attempt to stop the collision of particles in the name of physics. In 1999 he expressed concerns about the Brookhaven National Laboratory's similarly reassuring reading [http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/] for the LHC.

Readers who wish to stay abreast of the Large Hadron Collider's impact on the future of the planet are invited to monitor www.hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com [http://www.hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/] for updates.

Source: Symmetry Magazine [http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/08/26/lhc-lawsuit-dismissed-by-us-court/]


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Cherry Cola

Your daddy, your Rock'n'Rolla
Jun 26, 2009
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IT IS A SIGN FOR OUR JUDGMENT! 2012 WILL KILL US ALL! REPENT! REPENT!

Science does not care if we live or die!
 

Danpascooch

Zombie Specialist
Apr 16, 2009
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Hubilub said:
IT IS A SIGN FOR OUR JUDGMENT! 2012 WILL KILL US ALL! REPENT! REPENT!

Science does not care if we live or die!
yeah, science is an asshole! I still like him better than nature though
 

Forgetitnow344

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Jan 8, 2010
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You can bring more of an existential point-of-view to this and ask, would you care if the world simply ended? You wouldn't be around to know! If a black-hole did bring about the end of the world, I would imagine it would take anywhere from an instant to an instant-and-a-half. You probably wouldn't even realized something happened until you were dead. Then what happens to your consciousness really decides if it even matters at that point.

Also, if I remember correctly, Stephen Hawking's official stance on the LHC ruining the world, "No, ******."
 

AngryMongoose

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Jan 18, 2010
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Even if it does create stable black holes they won't gain enough mass to destroy the Earth for AT LEAST 100000 years; we'll be FINE.
 

Gildan Bladeborn

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Aug 11, 2009
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Andy Chalk said:
Readers who wish to stay abreast of the Large Hadron Collider's impact on the future of the planet are invited to monitor www.hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com [http://www.hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/] for updates.
I find the entire concept of that site hilarious, thanks for reminding me about it.
 

uppitycracker

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Oct 9, 2008
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ilovemyLunchbox said:
Also, if I remember correctly, Stephen Hawking's official stance on the LHC ruining the world, "No, ******."
That's the stance of pretty much every scientist on the planet.
 

npath

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Apr 2, 2010
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The Daily Show did a wonderful interview with this guy a few years ago. My favorite quote (paraphrased): "There is a 50% chance the LHC will destroy the Earth... either it will or it won't, and since we don't know which, the odds are 50/50."

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-april-30-2009/large-hadron-collider
 

Forgetitnow344

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uppitycracker said:
ilovemyLunchbox said:
Also, if I remember correctly, Stephen Hawking's official stance on the LHC ruining the world, "No, ******."
That's the stance of pretty much every scientist on the planet.
Hah, thought so. Didn't stop me from giving the willies to everyone in my Current Events class two years ago. I did a small presentation on a fanatic article, and one girl started crying. My teacher held a mixture of laughter and contempt for the report.
 

uppitycracker

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ilovemyLunchbox said:
uppitycracker said:
ilovemyLunchbox said:
Also, if I remember correctly, Stephen Hawking's official stance on the LHC ruining the world, "No, ******."
That's the stance of pretty much every scientist on the planet.
Hah, thought so. Didn't stop me from giving the willies to everyone in my Current Events class two years ago. I did a small presentation on a fanatic article, and one girl started crying. My teacher held a mixture of laughter and contempt for the report.
hahaha, awesome. yeah my brother is currently teaching at some university in michigan, and was telling me that the physicists there pretty much just laugh at the idea of it creating a black hole moving slow enough to actually grow at any rate. the level of energy required just isn't possible with the hadron collider, and if any black holes were to be created they would be so tiny and lacking in energy that they'd quickly disappear. something like that anyway, i'm not gonna pretend to know how it works, but that's what i remember him telling me.
 

GruntOwner

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Feb 22, 2009
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How long until the US Court changes the lawsuit application so there's a small box at the bottom saying "Tick here if your idea is fucking retarded"? Actually, how long until that box goes right at the top?
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
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Thats hilarious - Love the reaction from the judges.

This guy needs to have his head examined
 
Jun 26, 2009
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ilovemyLunchbox said:
Also, if I remember correctly, Stephen Hawking's official stance on the LHC ruining the world, "No, ******."
Only we Brits would say something like that...
OT: It will not kill us! We are more likely to be all killed by a uprising of sheep!
 

tkioz

Fussy Fiddler
May 7, 2009
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Personally I think we shouldn't be playing with crap like that... it's kind of like playing with dynamite in your lounge room... I believe the scientist that say it's something like a 1 in 10 billion chance that it could do something drastic (like creating big old crater shaped sea where Switzerland is..)... but FFS there is one planet that we know of capable of supporting human life, and the only one we're on so you don't go about playing with crap that can blow it up, even if it's a 1 in a quadrillion chance.

Wait 50 years and do it on an Asteroid or something you tossers, I happen to like breathing and having the air to keep doing so, so get to work on making warp drive (and where are those damn flying cars I was promised when I was a kid? Beyond 2000 my ass...) or something and stop mucking around with stuff that can kill us all.
 

Sebenko

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Dec 23, 2008
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Andy Chalk said:
"Accordingly, the alleged injury, destruction of the Earth, is in no way attributable to the U.S. government's failure to draft an environmental impact statement."
Wait, doesn't that mean "If the world blows up, it's not our fault"?
 

icyneesan

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Feb 28, 2010
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danpascooch said:
Hubilub said:
IT IS A SIGN FOR OUR JUDGMENT! 2012 WILL KILL US ALL! REPENT! REPENT!

Science does not care if we live or die!
yeah, science is an asshole! I still like him better than nature though
Yeah that ***** never calls ahead and tells us what shes doing :p
 

sunburst

Media Snob
Mar 19, 2010
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tkioz said:
and where are those damn flying cars I was promised when I was a kid?
Why do people keep bringing up flying cars? We already have them. They're called helicopters. We also have jets that can take off and land vertically. They're just not widely used by civilians because they're expensive and hard to fly. I have enough trouble accepting that so many dumbasses are allowed to drive regular cars. I'd never get any sleep if they were all suddenly pilots instead.

Also, the only thing I've heard from credible sources on how likely the LHC is to destroy the world is 0%. There is no chance it will kill us all.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Jan 22, 2010
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Well, we have to be careful with the LHC. With this guy working there, there is no telling if a resonance cascade will happen.