No reason to fear collider experiment

This is in response to Charles Malvert Jr., who wrote that he fears an accident at the Large Hadron Collider could destroy the earth due to creating faster-than-light particles and black holes. These fears have been voiced by others but have been proven groundless. High-energy particle accelerators have been around since the 1930s. If you still have a TV with a picture tube, you are looking down the barrel of one.

We have been living next to the giant Tevatron collider at Fermilab in Batavia for decades with no ill effects. In fact, Fermilab will attempt to duplicate the Swiss experiment that recorded, probably in error, faster-than-light particle speeds. It is my belief they will find speeds no faster than light.

Superluminal speeds cause physics nightmares like the particle arriving at the destination before it left the source. As in Marty McFly in the “Back to the Future” movies, it would theoretically travel backward in time at such speed! On the subatomic level, there are black holes popping in and out of existence every second, all around us. It is called the “quantum foam,” and the smaller-than-an-atom holes have never sucked anyone or anything out of existence, ever.

Far more serious worries are that some rogue nation like Iran or North Korea will perfect their atomic weapons and lob one at their neighbors. Or that terrorist groups will steal a warhead from the poorly secured nuclear arsenal in the former Soviet Union and set it off in Times Square. These are real threats that could destroy at least part of the world. Better to address these dangers immediately than worry about the subatomic particles being studied in the Large Hadron Collider.

Brent Jessee

Hoffman Estates