hujiaqi_beijing
Hu Jia Qi (Beijing,China)
The World Is Totally Crazy
The European Hadron Collider Experiment will start at the end of July this year. The experiment with the most investment in the history of science has suffered a lot. Many people opposed it before it started on September 10th last year; after it started, it was attacked frequently by hackers. Soon a small failure occurred, and after that, a large helium leak happened, which has been maintained until today.
This experiment mainly aims to accelerate particles at the speed of light and make collisions. This is in order to simulate the initial state of the Big Bang, thus searching for new scientific discoveries.
The reason why a group of scientists opposed it is because they were afraid that the collision of particles close to the speed of light would produce a black hole in high density. If the black hole is stable, it would quickly inhale the earth into it, which would bring the end of humanity. In addition, they were also concerned about whether such strong collisions of particles would produce other unexpected tremendous destruction.
The opposition was evolved into proceedings. Two American scientists sued CERN in Court and requested that the experiment must be terminated. Obviously, they failed.
The reason for starting the experiments is that, even if a black hole appears in the experiment, it will not be terrible. Based on the existing scientific theories, a black hole can evaporate, and the micro-black hole produced by the collision of elementary particles would also evaporate in a very short time; that is to say that it would totally evaporate before inhaling other materials. As to whether the experiment will produce other terrible things, they think there is only a very slim possibility.
However, there are two points for concern:
First, the theory of black hole evaporation has never been tested through practice, so what if this theory is incorrect? Many theories in the history of science were proved to be incorrect.
Second, scientific experiments are to explore the unknown field, so there must be something we cannot predict in this field, because uncertainty is the fundamental characteristic of science and technology. This experiment will raise science to a new height, so it is possible to mobilize the power that is unimaginably terrible.
Just think about it, what is the purpose that we conduct scientific research? Although a scientific experiment may produce the power to make humans extinct is almost impossible, it is not absolutely safe. If the survival of humanity is threatened, what is the meaning of doing this experiment? The overall survival of humans is related to our generations, which is of unique importance and should not face any unsafe threats. Then why should the survival of humans yield to a scientific experiment as we weigh gains and losses?
As I saw, so many people praised the study and cheered for it that I couldnt help but wonder: isnt the world totally crazy?!
In fact, what I am really concerned about is not the Hadron Collider experiment itself, because perhaps it really has no problems. What I am concerned about is that science and technology has been developing to a higher level, and it can both benefit humans and destroy humans. Such destructive power will make humanity extinct sooner or later. In all the past collisions which drew the selection between the overall destruction of humans and scientific experiments, the former has always been subordinate to the latter. Such a choice has been taken for granted although everybody knows it is wrong only by quick thinking.
I can not help but think of the atomic bomb explosion in 1945. As the atomic bomb was almost successfully developed, researchers were quite worried that the explosion of the atomic bomb would raise the temperature at its center to above 10 million degree Celsius, which was tens of thousands of times the chemical temperature people were familiar with in the past. No one was able to judge what will happen in such a high temperature. Scientists were particularly worried that the atomic bomb would ignite the atmosphere, which would make humanity come to an end. However, as they thought of the extremely tragic Second World War, their eagerness to get super weapons prevailed in the selection against the danger of making humans extinct.
What surprises people is that every such selection has the same result. The temperature of the hydrogen bombs explosion was even higher than that of the atomic bombs explosion, and some people were also concerned that the atmosphere would be ignited. However, the experiment was still carried out. In 2000, before Brookhaven National laboratory conducted the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider experiment, there were also some scientists who sued them in court because they were worried that this experiment would make humans extinct. But they failed the lawsuit and the experiment was conducted.
Of course, no matter which experiment, atomic bomb experiment, hydrogen bomb experiment or relativistic heavy ion collider experiment, none caused anything terrible. Maybe the Hadron Collider experiment will also cause nothing bad, but will such good fortune last forever? Like the saying goes, People who always walk at night will encounter ghosts one day, we can judge by quick thinking that such adventure will have risks one day. However, only a single error will totally destroy humanity, and if the error happens, we will not even get a chance to take pains to amend.
The human world is totally crazy!
Written by Hu Jia Qi, author of "Saving Humanity", "The Greatest Problem" and The Extinction of Human Beings. Please send questions or comments to [email protected] or visit website at www-hujiaqi-com.
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