CERN announces start-up date for Large Hadron Collider

LHC collisions will only 7 times faster than the Tevatron.

Of course, you will always have those who say you can not break the sound barrier, that a nuclear bomb whould ionize the Earths atmoshere, Columbus should of stayed in Europe, why teach the blind to read, etc. etc.

And when is The Big Black scheduled to appear and devour the Earth?

I don't want to miss it!

Well, earth is still here even though we get "microscopic black holes" created in the atmosphere much more often than they will ever be created at LHC...so don't hold your breath for a black hole devouring earth any time soon!

Problem is that the black holes created in the LHC will have close to zero momentum and won't shoot through the earth harmlessly like those created in the atmosphere do. Even so, I SERIOUSLY doubt we're on the edge of doomsday, but to dismiss some of the concerns others have about this project as trivial when even the people building the thing admit they're not 100% sure what's going to happen when they throw the switch is a tad haughty.

hey googleplex, why the anti-american conspiracy theory, and good ol' tub-thumping? the LHC was always going to be delayed, shit happens (especially if you use american magnets, heh heh..) . seriously, the rivalry is no fun unless its friendly. A factor of *only* 7 on energy is a big one, and 30xluminosity is massive - a straight 30x increase in the chance of seeing things above the beam energy - where extra energy is borrowed from heisenberg. - not to mention a 30 x increase in all rare events. ahem, you may be experts at making machines that don't drip oil, but leave the big stuff to the grown-ups, eh??

Assuming Hawking is correct.

Well, it's not really about 'a stream of particles' and that's all,... the energy that goes into accelerating those particles to 99.999% the speed of light contributes as equivalent to mass during the collision, confined to a tiny space it may create a black hole,.. not that they would matter.

lol.. it takes a very large sun to collapse, with mindblowing levels of gravity in order to form a blackhole - yet people are talking rubish about a stream of particles that have been sped up and then collided... Matter can not be created nor destroyed - it can only change state - yes it can change state with the energy of the impact - but can it generate enough of a change to create a blackhole - no...

lol.. it takes a very large sun to collapse, with mindblowing levels of gravity in order to form a blackhole - yet people are talking rubish about a stream of particles that have been sped up and then collided... Matter can not be created nor destroyed - it can only change state - yes it can change state with the energy of the impact - but can it generate enough of a change to create a blackhole - no...

the key thing to remember is that everything is relative... Yes they may generate a tiny balckhole - however as stated above many times - these tiny holes pop in and out of existance in our own atmosphere.. It takes the mass of a very large star to concentrate and fall within itself in order to form a blackhole - it is not simply possible to generate these conditions when shooting a beam of atoms together at 99.999% the speed of light.. REMEMBER Photons hit your retina at 100% the speed of light :)