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back to article Feds urge court to dismiss lawsuit protecting life on Earth

The US government has asked a court to throw out a lawsuit that seeks to stop the world from ending. Late last week, federal lawyers along with other defendants asked for summary judgment in a lawsuit designed to halt the start-up of the most powerful particle accelerator yet built. The lawsuit, which was filed in Hawaii last …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Experts?

    We've never done this before. Who's an expert? How often have we been told by scientists that "this is absolutely safe", only to find that it kills us? X-Rays, DDT, DES, Thalidomide, and on and on. What scientists say is worthless.

    Having said all that, the LHC isn't going to be doing anything that hasn't been done before. It's just going to let us have a closer look while it's happening. The black holes and strangelets and such aren't even theoretical. They're wild imaginings. Collisions of particles at these energies happened in the past and still happen. Somehow, the Universe manages to get along.

    What I *would* consider more of a potential threat is the possible harm from radiation coming from this device. We don't know what that might do. I suppose it might be a new danger, though that seems unlikely.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    house cleaning...

    can we send the black hole with barely escape velocity (so it can pick up a few things, people, etc. on the way) through D.C.?

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  3. Mark

    Re: Experts

    'We've never done this before. Who's an expert? How often have we been told by scientists that "this is absolutely safe"'

    Not scientists.

    People like the oil lobby, the tobbacco lobby, the alcohol lobby, the medical lobby tell us that sort of thing.

    And why do you ignore the absolute and observable FACT that micro black holes etc have not eaten the earth despite billions of years with hundreds of these particles each day hitting us at energies equivalent or higher to the LHC output?

    If you want to be REALLY pedantic, you could eat a bit of mashed potato, it goes down the wrong way and you choke to death. So potatoes are not 100% safe. But, unless you're an american, there aren't warning labels on mashed potato saying "choking hazzard", are there?

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