БЛОГ

Archive for the ‘particle physics’ category: Page 285

Mar 10, 2011

“Too Late for the Singularity?”

Posted by in categories: existential risks, lifeboat, particle physics

Ray Kurzweil is unique for having seen the unstoppable exponential growth of the computer revolution and extrapolating it correctly towards the attainment of a point which he called “singularity” and projects about 50 years into the future. At that point, the brain power of all human beings combined will be surpassed by the digital revolution.

The theory of the singularity has two flaws: a reparable and a hopefully not irreparable one. The repairable one has to do with the different use humans make of their brains compared to that of all animals on earth and presumably the universe. This special use can, however, be clearly defined and because of its preciousness be exported. This idea of “galactic export” makes Kurzweil’s program even more attractive.

The second drawback is nothing Ray Kurzweil has anything to do with, being entirely the fault of the rest of humankind: The half century that the singularity still needs to be reached may not be available any more.

The reason for that is CERN. Even though presented in time with published proofs that its proton-colliding experiment will with a probability of 8 percent produce a resident exponentially growing mini black hole eating earth inside out in perhaps 5 years time, CERN prefers not to quote those results or try and dismantle them before acting. Even the call by an administrative court (Cologne) to convene the overdue scientific safety conference before continuing was ignored when CERN re-ignited the machine a week ago.

Continue reading “"Too Late for the Singularity?"” »

Feb 10, 2011

New Implication of Einstein’s Happiest Thought Is Last Hope for Planet

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

Einstein saw that clocks located “more downstairs” in an accelerating rocket predictably tick slower. This was his “happiest thought” as he often said.

However,as everything looks normal on the lower floor, the normal-appearing photons generated there do actually have less mass-energy. So do all local masses there by general covariance, and hence also all associated charges down there.

The last two implications were overlooked for a century. “This cannot be,” more than 30 renowned scientists declared, to let a prestigious experiment with which they have ties appear innocuous.

This would make for an ideal script to movie makers and for a bonanza to metrologists. But why the political undertones above? Because, like the bomb, this new crumb from Einstein’s table has a potentially unbounded impact. Only if it gets appreciated within a few days time, all human beings — including the Egyptians — can breathe freely again.

Continue reading “New Implication of Einstein's Happiest Thought Is Last Hope for Planet” »

Feb 9, 2011

Mixed Messages: Tantrums of an Angry Sun

Posted by in categories: business, events, geopolitics, particle physics, policy, space

When examining the delicate balance that life on Earth hangs within, it is impossible not to consider the ongoing love/hate connection between our parent star, the sun, and our uniquely terraqueous home planet.

On one hand, Earth is situated so perfectly, so ideally, inside the sun’s habitable zone, that it is impossible not to esteem our parent star with a sense of ongoing gratitude. It is, after all, the onslaught of spectral rain, the sun’s seemingly limitless output of charged particles, which provide the initial spark to all terrestrial life.

Yet on another hand, during those brief moments of solar upheaval, when highly energetic Earth-directed ejecta threaten with destruction our precipitously perched technological infrastructure, one cannot help but eye with caution the potentially calamitous distance of only 93 million miles that our entire human population resides from this unpredictable stellar inferno.

Continue reading “Mixed Messages: Tantrums of an Angry Sun” »

Jan 30, 2011

Summary of My Scientific Results on the LHC-Induced Danger to the Planet

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

- submitted to the District Attorney of Tubingen, to the Administrative Court of Cologne, to the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) of Germany, to the International Court for Crimes Against Humanity, and to the Security Council of the United Nations -

by Otto E. Rössler, Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Tubingen, Auf der Morgenstelle A, 72076 Tubingen, Germany

The results of my group represent fundamental research in the fields of general relativity, quantum mechanics and chaos theory. Several independent findings obtained in these disciplines do jointly point to a danger — almost as if Nature had posed a trap for humankind if not watching out.

MAIN RESULT. It concerns BLACK HOLES and consists of 10 sub-results

Continue reading “Summary of My Scientific Results on the LHC-Induced Danger to the Planet” »

Mar 27, 2010

Critical Request to CERN Council and Member States on LHC Risks

Posted by in categories: complex systems, cosmology, engineering, ethics, existential risks, particle physics, policy

Experts regard safety report on Big Bang Machine as insufficient and one-dimensional

International critics of the high energy experiments planned to start soon at the particle accelerator LHC at CERN in Geneva have submitted a request to the Ministers of Science of the CERN member states and to the delegates to the CERN Council, the supreme controlling body of CERN.

The paper states that several risk scenarios (that have to be described as global or existential risks) cannot currently be excluded. Under present conditions, the critics have to speak out against an operation of the LHC.

The submission includes assessments from expertises in the fields markedly missing from the physicist-only LSAG safety report — those of risk assessment, law, ethics and statistics. Further weight is added because these experts are all university-level experts – from Griffith University, the University of North Dakota and Oxford University respectively. In particular, it is criticised that CERN’s official safety report lacks independence – all its authors have a prior interest in the LHC running and that the report uses physicist-only authors, when modern risk-assessment guidelines recommend risk experts and ethicists as well.

Continue reading “Critical Request to CERN Council and Member States on LHC Risks” »