Com tots ja saveu, aquest estiu es posarà en marxa el LHC, l’accelerador de particules més poderós fins ara. Algunes de les promeses incluen el descovriment del Higgs Bosson que hauria de completar el Model Estandard amb els gravitons i per tant corroborar la unificació de les actuals grans teories de la física, la prova experimental de l’existencia de extra micro-dimencions espaials que la teria de supercordes preveu o l’existencia de s-partícules, les parents simètriques de les actuals que confirmarien la hiòtesis de supersimetria en els models teòrics actuals. Tot això està molt bé, però cap científic et negarà que no existeixi una remota (ptetitíssima) possibilitat que passes algo inesperat com … que s’acabés la Terra sobtadament, i el Sistema Solar ja de pas. Tot per un ardat de nyèbits a suïsa, disparant particules a tort i a dret. Us poso aquí els “Safety Concerns” trets de la Wikipedia:

Safety concerns
Concerns have been raised that performing collisions at previously unexplored energies might unleash new and disastrous phenomena. These include the production of micro black holes, and strangelets. Such issues were raised in connection with the RHIC accelerator, both in the media and in the scientific community; however, after detailed studies, scientists reached such conclusions as “beyond reasonable doubt, heavy-ion experiments at RHIC will not endanger our planet” and that there is “powerful empirical evidence against the possibility of dangerous strangelet production”. One simple argument against such fears is that collisions at these energies (and higher) have been happening in nature for millennia without hazardous effects, as Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays impact Earth’s atmosphere and other bodies in the universe. CERN’s review concludes, after detailed analysis, that “there is no basis for any conceivable threat” from strangelets, black holes, or monopoles.
Micro Black Holes
Although the Standard Model of particle physics predicts that LHC energies are far too low to create black holes, some extensions of the Standard Model posit the existence of extra spatial dimensions, in which it would be possible to create micro black holes at the LHC at a rate on the order of one per second. According to the standard calculations these are harmless because they would quickly decay by Hawking radiation. The concern is that Hawking radiation (which is still debated) is not yet an experimentally-tested phenomenon, and so micro black holes might not decay as rapidly as calculated, and accumulate inside the earth and eventually devour it.
Strangelets
Strangelets are a hypothetical form of strange matter that contains roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks and are more stable than ordinary nuclei. If strangelets can actually exist, and if they were produced at LHC, they could conceivably initiate a runaway fusion process (reminiscent of the fictional ice-nine) in which all the nuclei in the planet were converted to strange matter, similar to a strange star.

També ve a l’ocasió aquesta conferència de TED.com on un personatge bastant graciós analitza 10 maneres probablement signficatices en que el món podria acabar de cop. Molt interessant, en serio, me la vaig mirar ahir a la nit.

This entry was posted Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 14:27 and is filed under Ciència i Tecnologia, Epistemologia, Filosofia. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.