Not to worry! The hypothesis proposed by Walter Wagner and Luis Sancho that the Earth will be gobbled up by black holes is impossible. Mr. Wagner and Mr. Sancho claim that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) built near Geneva, Switzerland, which aims to recreate conditions that resemble what the universe might have been like shortly after the Big Bang, could create miniature black holes that will grow and consume our wonderful planet Earth.
Professor Robert McPherson, University of Victoria, is spokesperson for the Canadian team of scientists working there. He says that "The Earth is constantly being bombarded by cosmic rays. Many of them have much higher energies than what we can create with the LHC. If something dangerous was being made in these interactions it would already have happened in cosmic ray interactions." Furthermore, the physics community has been aware of this possibility for many years and has been conducting extensive risk assessments on the LHC and earlier particle accelerators and which conclude that there is "no basis for any conceivable threat." When the LHC begins operations later this year, TRIUMF will be ready to lead Canada in unlocking the secrets of the Universe.
Please see the full story at CTV.ca.
For more information on these topics, please see the excellent discussion at CERN's website.
by Sandra Fleming
TRIUMF's Communications Assistant