Killer Stranglets?

[sunshaker]

I have heard about the possibilities of mini black holes being created at cern, just came across this about killer stranglets

 

Strangelets are hypothetical subatomic lumps of strange matter made up of almost equal numbers of up, down and strange quarks, which according to theory would get more stable as they grow larger.

One theory suggests strangelets should change to ordinary matter within a thousand-millionth of a second, eventually destroying the Earth by turning it into a single giant killer strangelet.

But Sevior says this is unlikely to happen.

"This is really the exciting phase of the LHC looking for physics beyond what we know" says LHC Atlas detector research scientist Dr Martin Sevior of the University of Melbourne. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/03/11/4194124.htm

I had a look on wiki to see what was said about these particles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelet

 

If the strange matter hypothesis is correct and its surface tension is larger than the aforementioned critical value, then a larger strangelet would be more stable than a smaller one. One speculation that has resulted from the idea is that a strangelet coming into contact with a lump of ordinary matter could convert the ordinary matter to strange matter.^[13][14] This "ice-nine"-like disaster scenario is as follows: one strangelet hits a nucleus, catalyzing its immediate conversion to strange matter. This liberates energy, producing a larger, more stable strangelet, which in turn hits another nucleus, catalyzing its conversion to strange matter. In the end, all the nuclei of all the atoms of Earth are converted, and Earth is reduced to a hot, large lump of strange matter.

Dr Martin Sevoir Atlas detector research scientist

"I'm not the least bit concerned because Earth and other planets have been bombarded by extremely high energy cosmic rays, and if this strange matter does convert ordinary matter into strangelets then we would have already been destroyed billions of years ago.

 

But then wiki says

This is not a concern for strangelets in cosmic rays because they are produced far from Earth and have had time to decay to their ground state, which is predicted by most models to be positively charged, so they are electrostatically repelled by nuclei, and would rarely merge with them.^[15][16] But high-energy collisions could produce negatively charged strangelet states which live long enough to interact with the nuclei of ordinary matter.^[17]

 

 

Fools rush in

So if stranglets from cosmic rays decay before reaching earth, what Dr Sevoir said that we would already be destroyed is incorrect, So theorectically some time in april we may be a large lump of strange matter?.

 

 

 

 

[Endy0816]

There is really no reason to be concerned about an unproven hypothetical.

[Spyman]

Dr Martin Sevoir's statement is about high energy collisions creating strangelets when cosmic rays hit Earth today and your Wikipedia quote is about the hazard of strangelets that was created far away and then much later reach Earth.

 

In fact if we read a little further on after your Wikipedia quote we will find:

 

The danger of catalyzed conversion by strangelets produced in heavy-ion colliders has received some media attention, and concerns of this type were raised at the commencement of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) experiment at Brookhaven, which could potentially have created strangelets. A detailed analysis concluded that the RHIC collisions were comparable to ones which naturally occur as cosmic rays traverse the solar system, so we would already have seen such a disaster if it were possible. RHIC has been operating since 2000 without incident. Similar concerns have been raised about the operation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN but such fears are dismissed as far-fetched by scientists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelet#Dangers

 

So Wikipedia and Dr Martin Sevoir are in fact in agreement with each others.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Spyman

[sunshaker]

 

So Wikipedia and Dr Martin Sevoir are in fact in agreement with each others.

Dr Martin said, "cosmic strangelets" would have destroyed earth, wiki says cosmic strangelets would not destroy earth.

 

RHIC

But since the heavy ions in RHIC collisions are so small, the actual impact of the speeding ions on each other is about the same as the impact of a mosquito hitting a screen door on a summer evening. And, RHIC collisions last only a few billionths of a second.

RHIC collisions may be super-fast and super-hot, which makes them interesting to physicists, but they're too small and too brief to be dangerous. http://www.bnl.gov/RHIC/physics.asp

"I hope we find these strangelets, as it would be extremely interesting," says Dr Sevior.

So just because RHIC did not find these strangelets(at much lower energy levels than at Cern) does not mean we will not find them when Cern turns up the power this year. And they will be looking for them.

However remote there is still a chance that if these strangelets are produced they could destroy earth.

We do not understand strangelets enough, to me it is like playing russian roulette with Earth.

I think that we may of created our universe with an experiment like this chicken/egg paradox.

I just wondered who decides in the science community to put Earth at risk however small that risk is.

I am not against Cern, I follow most of what comes out of there, I am eagerly looking forward to the start up. And hopefully still here to look at the new data.

[swansont]

Dr Martin said, "cosmic strangelets" would have destroyed earth, wiki says cosmic strangelets would not destroy earth.

 

 

The two bits are looking at different scenarios. Cosmic rays made up of strangelets would have decayed, but strange matter being created by collisions with cosmic rays is what is being compared to the RHIC. In effect, it's as if the RHIC has been running for billions of years. If we haven't been destroyed by now, it's exceedingly unlikely to happen.

 

This is reminiscent of the mini black hole brouhaha from a few years ago. Conjecture piled on top of an untested hypothesis, blown out of proportion by some credulous folks. "It's not impossible" is not cause for alarm.

[Spyman]

Dr Martin said, "cosmic strangelets" would have destroyed earth, wiki says cosmic strangelets would not destroy earth.

No, you didn't understand what I was trying to say. They are talking about two different origins for the strangelets. Cosmic rays could carry with them strangelets that was created far away but cosmic rays may also create strangelets when they hit Earth's atmosphere.

 

In addition to head-on collisions of cosmic rays, ultra high energy cosmic rays impacting on Earth's atmosphere may create strangelets.

 

If there are strangelets flying around the universe, then occasionally a strangelet should hit Earth, where it would appear as an exotic type of cosmic ray.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelet#Natural_or_artificial_occurrence

[MigL]

Who says cosmic rays don't cause strange matter ?

Maybe its been happening for millions of years

 

There's a lot of strange people out there !

[Strange]

There's a lot of strange people out there !

 

Citation needed.

[swansont]

Citation needed.

"People are Strange" Robby Krieger, Jim Morrison (1967) Strange Days Track 7