CERN stated for months theoretical physicists, like John Ellis, who was part of the LHC Safety Assessment Group (LSAG), was not involved with Large Hadron Collider's (LHC) experiments prior to their report:| "CERN has mandated a group of particle physicists, also not involved in the LHC experiments, to monitor the latest speculations about LHC collisions." Link (Fixed) |
Mandated LHC Safety Assessment Group (LSAG):
| John Ellis, Gian Giudice, Michelangelo Mangano and Urs Wiedemann, of CERN, and Igor Tkachev, of the Institute for Nuclear Research in Moscow. Link |
The machine was still under construction, so experimental involvement with the LHC was impossible, to include all CERN physicists since it wasn't operational, so CERN wasn't lying... but... John Ellis has given experimental presentations at Workshops, seminars at universities around the world about Large Hadron Colliders as far back as 1987, but that doesn't count, right? RIGHT?
| NEW PHYSICS IN HIGH-ENERGY e+ e- AND HADRON HADRON COLLISIONS. John R. Ellis (CERN) . CERN-TH-4888/87, Oct 1987. 28pp. Invited talk given at ICFA Seminar on Future Perspectives in High Energy Physics, Upton, N.Y., Oct 5-10, 1987. Link |
You know what bugs me, John Ellis promoting the LHC in a video back in 2006 stating "We don't know exactly what we're going to find, but we know whatever it is it's going to be something new." He must have been joking, because why would CERN ask him to help with a new LHC safety report?He gave them a good laugh?
http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist/ITN/2006/12/19/T19120645
Ellis was really lucky to be given that honor of evaluating the safety of collisions at the LHC, because it must have sucked being Cern's chief theorist Professor promoting the LHC, since CERN probably denied his involvement for over 20 years like he was some kind of stepchild. Poor guy...
Update, December 3, 2008: The first Link above has been fixed. CERN made some changes to their page recently, Safety at the LHC, so we're linking to an archive version of it through Archive.com's Wayback Machine to show you their statement as stated above.
Funny, the third link down still works, but when you click it, the link (QCD183:I2:1987) on that page to the lecture John Ellis gave which was published in a book shows an error:
| "No such subfile: BOOKS * Error attempting to select BOOKS * message = Unable to select BOOKS, error code 162 * Cleaning up and trying again -No such subfile: BOOKS Unable to select BOOKS, error code 162." |
Why link to it when it no longer exist on their site?
12 comments:
Sad the news media didn't report this way back. They'll probably ignore this today to avoid embarrassment.
Yeah, poor John. Cheerleading for the LHC all those years, and CERN slaps him in the face stating he's not involved.
We don't know exactly what we're going to find? Ellis must be related to Brian Cox.
Don't blame CERN for denying his involvement.
OMG! We're so freakin' screwed! And 60 minutes is promoting the LHC without any investigation!
Ellis has been giving lectures on the LHC for years then turns around and state in this video that no one at CERN knows what they're going to find? WTF!
Look CW, most particle physicists in some way are contributors to the LHC experiment at CERN. Good luck trying to find someone who's not.
John Ellis contributed a great deal towards the experiment, but like I stated above, you wont find a particle physicists who's not involved to contribute to the LSAG report.
Brian, so I take it that you approve of CERN's lie "mandating a group of particle physicists, not involved in the LHC experiments," when in reality they've been involved.
You must be a Republican.
Katja,
Thank you for the comment you left over on my LHC entry.
A few things here.
1. As I said atop the piece, I am not the author. The author is a student in Astrophysics at my college. The odds that he's being duped (as well as virtually every other physicist on Earth) is, to use a pun, astronomically small.
2. You don't address any argument, you just insinuate that my own efforts have been inadequate. That's both an ad hominem and an appeal to motive (as was calling me "funny"). As far as I know, I am doing my homework, and I am reading up on the research done by actual scientists. So if a more thorough understanding of the facts would cause me to change my mind, can you explain why? You didn't do that, you just said I was a parrot.
3. Getting a degree in physics is pointless for understanding physics? What? Is there any other way to acquire anything remotely close to an expert's understanding of physics than getting a degree, doing research, and living in a lab for years as they do? Am I really to believe you have a greater understanding of the science of physics because all those nerds (or, as we call them, the most preeminent battery of minds in the discipline of physics) are just "book smart?" This has got to be one of the worst non-arguments I've ever heard.
You really just derided book smarts (which is obviously the highest form of scientific intellect) and asked me to lend credence to your stance on a scientific issue in the same breath. What, can I use my street cred to get a firm grasp of physics instead of books? This claim is purely anti-intellectual and frankly, you should be embarrassed for having made it.
You did not offend me with your accusations of parroting and your accusations that I have been inadequate in my research. However, you did aggravate me with your terrible non-arguments and anti-intellectualism.
In the interest of giving you the benefit of the doubt, despite your sincerest efforts to convince me not to, I took a peek at your page. I came across more ad hominems and speculation about what god's the CERN scientists serve. Do you really think that LHC-supporting physicists (which are virtually all of them, if you read peer-review work) are all globally in collusion to unmake the world, are giggling wickedly about it in their evil underground layer, and are paying homage to Shiva as they do so? This argument has nothing to do with science and is just an appeal to motive.
I also encountered stuff like this:
"It's no wonder a 17 year old girl from India committed suicide over the LHC."
A girl committing suicide over an idea does not, in any way, make that idea true. You're treating the situation as though this girl's suicide were evidence that the LHC actually IS dangerous, and using this as a means to circumvent the scientific argument about whether or not the LHC poses a threat. In reality, if this girl did elect to end her life over the LHC, it is more than likely due to fear-mongers like yourself who deride scientific understanding (who needs a degree in physics) and promulgate non-scientific arguments that are admittedly based on a lesser understanding of physics (degrees are for book smart people!) than the experts. It is quite an inversion of reality to turn around and foist that blame onto the world's collection of physicists.
To conclude, there are a handful of scientists attempting, in peer-review, to make the case that the LHC poses a threat (rather than people spreading bad science through an unmitigated medium like the internet). The scientists in peer-review are at least feigning responsibility, even though they are repeatedly having the shortcomings of their work exposed by other physicists. Thus is the reliability of peer-review. This is scrutiny done responsibly, by people who know what they're talking about.
You, on the other hand, are electing to not defer to the experts. Instead, you are taking a few opposing voices who know they will get eviscerated if they wade into peer-review and placing your trust in them. Not only that, you are giving them credence loudly and spreading their defeated notions to laymen who don't know any better (frankly, such as yourself).
I can imagine only a few reasons anybody would do this, and none of them are anything to be proud of. At best, you are honestly mistaken and your shoddy reasoning is derived from the purest intent. Even then, you're still an engine of misinformation, and you seem to be so passionately committed to a position that is almost assuredly incorrect that you are invoking any god-awful, non-scientific argument you can get your mitts on in order to cling to it. That's the best scenario I can imagine.
You obviously understand little, if anything, about physics (a degree is worthless, eh?), and are relying on red-herrings and other irrelevant arguments. That is not science. What you are doing is not responsible. I'm all for scrutiny, but that is not what you are doing. You're standing in opposition to logic, science, and any reasonable means by which humanity ascertains truth by trying to scare them.
Please stop. Or, if you are to insist that you are correct, make an argument relevant to the subject. On the post you commented on, the author cited source after source to confirm his science. You just swooped in and essentially said "nuh uh, those guys are only physicists." That is not good enough, and you should honestly be ashamed of yourself.
And you called me funny.
JT
JT, I noticed Katja apologized to you on your blog, and also explained how she missed reading the very beginning of your blog entry since she was also reading 2 other blogs at the same time. Don't know how she managed that myself, but it happened.
Getting a degree in physics isn't pointless, but like most studies, sometimes graduates don't go that extra mile to get a better grasp of what they've learned, thinking it's enough to follow the leader, relaying whatever message is given or learned without checking it's accuracy. I'm not saying this kid didn't do his homework, but it can happen.
Text books can be partially wrong, or outdated, like the few I've seen in the past that still state Stephen Hawking's original calculations for his theory, Hawking Radiation, when it was first proposed back in 1974, or show his revised calculation, but leaving out the fact why it was revised, when Hawking admitted his theory to be in error back in 2004 after losing a bet to John Preskill of Caltech. His theory has been in error for over 30 years, and during that time it was taught to students, and till this day. Hopefully the revised version is not wrong, but why would they hide the fact it was revised in some text books? Maybe the publishers need help in the research department:
http://tinyurl.com/6eshsa
http://tinyurl.com/366cea
http://tinyurl.com/2hz3s2
So we're passionately committed to a position that is almost assuredly incorrect. Hmmmm... Cern lies about their physicists assigned to their LHC Safety Assessment Group, stating they were never involved with the LHC when one was:
http://tinyurl.com/5uqkyl
CERN states on their site under the topic Cosmic Rays "The LHC, like other particle accelerators, recreates the natural phenomena of cosmic rays under controlled laboratory conditions, enabling them to be studied in more detail. Over the past billions of years, Nature has already generated on Earth as many collisions as about a million LHC experiments – and the planet still exists." then on the same page under the topic "Micro Black Holes" they contradict themselves with "Collisions at the LHC differ from cosmic-ray collisions with astronomical bodies like the Earth.":
http://tinyurl.com/59pmqh
CERN physicist Brian Cox admits numerous times that they don't know what will happen at the LHC when it's operational:
http://tinyurl.com/6d3dkg
http://tinyurl.com/5ztrpv
Sorry about being so passionate, JT. That's the only way to learn the truth. Is Walter's post also incorrect about the seriousness of the accident at the LHC?
http://tinyurl.com/65kp96
I'm sure you've heard CERN's toy might be down until 2010 for repairs:
http://tinyurl.com/56dq3z
You know what, I like you, JT. You've inspired me to dig for the truth again. Man, I wish I could buy you a beer!
CW,
Your associate is very polite (despite the fact she was guilty of non-argument and red-herring). You on the other hand are snarky even as you essentially bathe in them (which leads me to believe you're sincere when you admit that you would likely be unable to find the humility to apologize for accusing somebody of the things she accused me of).
However, I'm happy to help you along your search to truth by ensuring your logic is in place.
"Text books can be partially wrong"
Yes, they can. They usually lag about 6-8 years behind current understanding. Peer-review and the current work of scientists does not. We are in the habit of deferring to experts in every other facet of our scientific understanding, and we should do so here. I explain this further in my post on evolution (look for the section on deferring to experts).
What you are doing is granting creedence to work outside of peer-review that flies in the face of it, and you are opposing almost every physicist on the planet. These people are the ones who have brought us to our current understanding of physics - they are not text books.
To conflate the two is an elementary mistake that nobody involved with scientific literature would make. It follows that you are not involved in scientific literature and are instead making red-herring arguments, such as the one above.
1. Your first link.
The link is a bad link, so I was unable to investigate it further. Can you provide me with the actual link?
The rest of it the post has some odd parts. First, you insinuate that the fact he gave lectures on the physics surrounding the LHC's operation somehow means he was involved with the experimental end:
"...so CERN wasn't lying... but... John Ellis has given experimental presentations at Workshops, seminars at universities around the world about Large Hadron Colliders as far back as 1987, but that doesn't count, right? RIGHT?"
No, no it doesn't. Physics professors at MSU are in the habit of explaining the physics of it to students. That in no way ties them to the experimental end. Association fallacy here.
Then there's this quote:
"We don't know exactly what we're going to find, but we know whatever it is it's going to be something new."
Yes, we don't know what we will find. We never do before we begin an experiment (though we suspect). That's the whole point of doing this, so we can remove that unknown. We have several models of what could be possible (so we're searching for one of several outcomes), and none of them (I repeat, none of them) entail a catastrophic outcome. You're trying to insist that we have absolutely no idea what will happen, when we simply do not know which outcome of those physically possible will occur.
A similar example would be when scientists say we do not know how life originated. They're not saying we have absolutely no idea, they are saying we have twelve workable models, all of which are possible, but we lack the evidence to know which one it is for sure (the current leader is the RNA World Model). With the LHC however, we have the means to remove the unknown.
What you have done is called quote-mining, and it only innocently occurs when laymen want to play as though they're an expert. This is scrutiny done irresponsibly. Usually though, it's done by laymen who don't have a clue who have anti-science motives. If it's the first, fine. Admit your mistake and your ignorance of the workings of science and we can move on. If it's the latter, then you're a fraud and only the uninformed will lend you any credit.
I need to leave the house now, but I will be back to tackle the rest of your links.
JT
JT, I promise I wont bash you over someone elses work, but I will make you look irresponsible with the following, Enjoy:
"What you are doing is granting creedence to work outside of peer-review that flies in the face of it, and you are opposing almost every physicist on the planet."
Hmmm... Who's work also defied every physicist on the planet 103 years ago? A patent assistant, shunned because he wasn't one of the elite.
I got it!
Einstein was an assistant patent examiner in Berne, Germany, at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property, he had four papers published in a leading German physics journal, Annalen der Physik, in 1905. All four papers, particulate nature of light, Brownian motion, electrodynamics, and mass–energy equivalence, which gave birth to his equation E = mc2, were not noticed by most physicists as being important, and many of those who did notice them rejected them outright since it opposed every physicists on the planet. Like Walter Wagner, Einstein was also rejected since his theories flew in the face of everything back in the day. The outsider, Einstein, who wasn't considered an expert back then, brought us to our current understanding of physics, and today this genuis is considered to be one of the most influential people in human history. If it wasn't for a few open minded physicists, unlike yourself, JT, people who actually studied Einstein's equations instead of writing him off since he wasn't one of the elite, the internet probably wouldn't exist today, or you. So instead of bashing physicists outside your box, why not try to have an open mind, look at their work, and not just follow the leader, the thousands who reject them as they rejected Einstein. Don't be afraid to review their theories and equations while the masses shun them since they're threatening their bubble.
http://tinyurl.com/5sogom
"Physics professors at MSU are in the habit of explaining the physics of it to students. That in no way ties them to the experimental end. Association fallacy here."
So why didn't CERN request an independent safety review of the LHC by the scientific community instead of conducting their own with physicists who work for them? If physicists around the world are so knowledgable about the LHC, why not trust them to review this experiment? Wouldn't it have looked better to have an independent review by physicists with no associations with CERN whatsoever? Maybe CERN should changed their statement too "CERN has mandated a group of particle physicists, also not involved in the LHC experiments, but employeed by CERN, to monitor the latest speculations about LHC collisions."
"Yes, we don't know what we will find. We never do before we begin an experiment (though we suspect). That's the whole point of doing this, so we can remove that unknown.We have several models of what could be possible (so we're searching for one of several outcomes), and none of them (I repeat, none of them) entail a catastrophic outcome. You're trying to insist that we have absolutely no idea what will happen, when we simply do not know which outcome of those physically possible will occur."
So to prove the safety report of the LHC, and the theories you hope to see... the theories your closed mind will except, not what could happen if things go wrong since it threatens your bubble, we have to run the machine to find out? JT, I'm sorry to say, but you're officially an idiot.
I'm not anti science, JT. Just feel sorry for closed minded bubbleheads such as yourself.
We're you a Republican in a previous life?
CW, you can make your argument. There's no place for name calling.
JT, we at CERN appreciate your defense, but your emotions are not helping by ridiculously accusing CW of being anti science and a fraud because of his stance. Counter intelligently. Don't be a tool of your emotions by letting it muddle your thoughts.
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