I find it encouraging to see the difference between the responses in this thread and the responses in other threads which spoke of the supposed danger behind the LHC. It appears that either people really are starting to become more informed, or perhaps those who are less informed are taking pause and starting to listen.
As has been mentioned, the LHC presents no particular danger. The energy of the impacts it will produce are below the energy of impacts which occur naturally in the atmosphere on a daily basis. Were the acceleration of the sub-atomic particles (hadrons), to be sufficient to provide them with a dramatic gain in mass, within their reference frame, the instant this happens, the mass would cause the inversion of the process which provided the mass. The result is that any sub-microscopic black hole would wink out of existence as quickly as it formed.
As for the Mayan Calendar; it's a man-made tool with a finite limit. Think of it like the odometer on your car. It's there to help you track the number of miles the car has traveled. The fact that it will reach its limit at 999,999.9, does not mean that if the car were to travel that far, and then another tenth of a mile, that the car will suddenly explode or vanish into nothingness.
Doomsday predictions have been around for as long as superstitions have existed. And that pretty much means, for as long as man has existed. Every few decades we're inundated with another claim of impending doom. The vast majority of these claims are based in primitive thought processes which should be regarded as holding no merit because they are devoid of logic. The more we exercise the responsibility to debunk such ideas and adhere to objectivity and logic, the more we serve our own needs to advance.
How sad is it that in a time when;
- computers and Internet access are common-place
- probes are traveling to Mars and even beyond our solar system
- science is detecting particles so small they become lost within the volume of an atom
- instant communication is possible via tiny devices carried by most people in developed nations
- the concepts of radio, television, x-rays, facsimile
machines, microwave ovens and LCD displays are seen as mundane and boring...
... we still have people subscribing to primitive superstitions and ancient myths and becoming deeply concerned that they might be true?
Numbers are a man-made tool which can help us construct models which assist us in our attempts to understand nature. Numbers are not nature, they're a tool. Tools all have limitations. If the display on your calculator has room for only 8-digits, it doesn't mean the device will explode if a 9th digit is entered. It won't end the world. It simply means that 8-digits was considered sufficient for the intended purpose and presented a lower cost than would a display with more digits and a processor able to handle larger numbers.
I see it as our duty to separate ourselves from the ancient, primitive processes of looking for mystical patterns rather than observing logic and objectivity. We live in an advanced world and yet, many insist on continuing to hold thought-processes consistent with those of the Dark Ages and earlier. There is a price to be paid. The more people who subscribe to such irrationality, the more it affects man as a whole and retards our development. Stagnation is nothing of which to be proud. We can help ourselves to advance or we can digress. Advancement requires effort and the willingness to release failed ideas. Digression requires lazy adherence to ignorance and the desire to linger in emotionalistic thought.
