The doomsday particle - Strangelet

It is a fascinating topic which has swung back around, that being the speculative theory about the destruction of the Earth via the Man-made particle colliders - which are designed to recreate rare matter and radiation particles (of cosmic in origin) here on Earth.  The two main Colliders operating are the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in the US, and the Swiss/European based Large Hadron Collider (LHC).  Philosophically, I personally do not believe that man should feverishly emulate nature, nor try and manipulate aspects of it's physics or power,  this is evident by research into nuclear fission more so the creation of the atom, hydrogen and neutron bombs - it seems we leave ourselves vulnerable via the destructive and volatile forces of it's unstable compounds.  That and humans have the potential to self annihilate.  A Lethal combination.  The money spent on trying to recreate the power of nature, should be spent on defying it e.g protection against climate change, energy efficient structures and design, food production/water,  buildings that can withstand seismic events - and it's detection, threats from space (asteroids), pan-epidemic outbreaks, advancement in space travel and colonization of the solar system for resources.   Essentially innovation and technology should be to maintain and protect the human race, not impede our existence.

The fears, whether overblown or not, also relate back to the Fermi-Paradox answer, or scenario, that maybe the reason a advanced civilization has not contracted us, is because they wiped themselves out.  The original thesis, on alien civilizations not making it to the next stage of existence, is based on nuclear fission discovery and then the nuclear war endgame.  But maybe, it is the meddling with unknown and unstable particles that destroy civilizations

From: International Business article written by Professors of Law Eric E. Johnson and Michael Baram: New U.S. Science Commission Should Look At Experiment’s Risk Of Destroying The Earth.

"Too little thought was given to risk from the RHIC’s beginning. In July 1999, before the collider opened, a flurry of media interest about the strangelet question prompted Brookhaven’s then-director to gather a team of four scientists to consider the issue. The resulting report, completed by the end of September, concluded the RHIC was safe and that a delay in starting it up was unwarranted. A new round of news stories wrote the controversy’s epitaph.

But after public concerns subsided, critics emerged, assailing the risk-assessment method as flawed. Dr. Rees wrote that theorists “seemed to have aimed to reassure the public … rather than to make an objective analysis.”

Federal appeals court judge Richard Posner noted in his book ‘Catastrophe: Risk and Response’ that the scientists on the Brookhaven risk-assessment team were either planning to participate in RHIC experiments or had a deep interest in the RHIC’s data. Judge Posner pointed out that “career concerns can influence judgment in areas of scientific uncertainty, and scientists, like other people, can be overconfident.”

Even putting aside the weaknesses of the original report, it is nonetheless time for an update. The original report assumed the RHIC would only run for a planned 10 years. But thanks to program extensions, the RHIC is now entering its 15th year. The machine has also been continuously upgraded since the report. After the next round of improvements, it will have increased its ability to produce collisions by a factor of 20 over the original design. Meanwhile, the state of knowledge in nuclear physics has advanced. The suitability of models and assumptions used in the original analysis might be profitably reappraised."

The main concern is a hypothetical particle called a Strangelet, produced by the particle colliders, which could, if the Collider lowers it energy output, devour the world.

From: What are the chances that a particle collider's strangelets will destroy the Earth.

"Another area that Johnson and Baram argue begs some scrutiny is that RHIC is now running at lower energies than in the past. Somewhat counterintuitively, lower energies may pose a higher risk than higher energies. In the original risk assessment report in 1999, the scientists stated that "Elementary theoretical considerations suggest that the most dangerous type of collision is that at considerably lower energy than RHIC." That assessment referenced RHIC's original design energy of 100 GeV. Over the years, lower-energy experiments were performed, and the 2014 run will include three weeks at 7.3 GeV.

Johnson and Baram are concerned that these changes might increase the possibility that the collider will generate strangelets, hypothetical particles consisting of up, down, and strange quarks. Some hypotheses suggest that strangelet production could ignite a chain reaction converting everything into strange matter.

In their opinion piece, Johnson and Baram quote Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal of the United Kingdom, who stated that the Earth would then become "an inert hyperdense sphere about one hundred metres across."

Finally the clip End Day.  BBC Doco-Drama 2010.  Part 4, final episode, last scenario; the destruction of the Earth by a man-made created Strangelet

End Day: Strangelet ultimate destruction

Another area that Johnson and Baram argue begs some scrutiny is that RHIC is now running at lower energies than in the past. Somewhat counterintuitively, lower energies may pose a higher risk than higher energies. In the original risk assessment report in 1999, the scientists stated that "Elementary theoretical considerations suggest that the most dangerous type of collision is that at considerably lower energy than RHIC." That assessment referenced RHIC's original design energy of 100 GeV. Over the years, lower-energy experiments were performed, and the 2014 run will include three weeks at 7.3 GeV.
Johnson and Baram are concerned that these changes might increase the possibility that the collider will generate strangelets, hypothetical particles consisting of up, down, and strange quarks. Some hypotheses suggest that strangelet production could ignite a chain reaction converting everything into strange matter.
In their opinion piece, Johnson and Baram quote Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal of the United Kingdom, who stated that the Earth would then become "an inert hyperdense sphere about one hundred metres across."


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-02-chances-particle-collider-strangelets-earth.html#jCp