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Jan 9, 2012

LHC Safety Conference Requests / Cologne Administrative Court

Posted by in categories: environmental, events, existential risks, lifeboat, particle physics

If I can intervene on the polarized opinions posted by some individuals on Lifeboat regarding CERN and particle physics safety debate, wherein I was name dropped recently — the person in question, Mr Church, may find my email address on page one of the dissertation linked in my bio. Regarding the safety conference asked for by the Cologne Administrative Court cited by Prof Rossler, I would suggest that with its ample funds, The Lifeboat Foundation should host a public conference on the subject and invite CERN delegates, critics and journalists alike to attend. In the spirit of the Lifeboat Foundation, however, I would suggest that the focus of such conference should be on discussion of how particle physics can be used to solve problems in the future — and the matter of fringe concerns on MBH accretion rates and so on could be dealt with as a subtext. I think it would be a good opportunity to ‘clear the air’ and could be good for the profile not just of the Lifeboat Foundation, but for particle physics research in general. I would like to hear others thoughts on this, and how Lifeboat manages its funds for such events and conferences…

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Comments — comments are now closed.


  1. Tom,
    If you will review the comments made by that idiot you will have to agree he is making any safety concerns about CERN into a joke.
    He is a babbling idiot.
    The collider has been running at full power. Nothing has happened. The world has not ended.

    There are more important things for this blog to be doing than hosting a conspiracy theory advocate that has zero credibillity.

  2. Tom Kerwick says:

    Gary — while I agree Prof Rossler’s viewpoints are extreme, his viewpoints have not been entirely refuted. I suggest you should not engage in character assasination, but instead debate the concerns with him, if you have the aptitude to do so (I’m sorry if I offend — I do not know your credentials). However, please understand that even if the collider were running at full power (it is not) it would be difficult to say for certain that this guarantees safety. In the (unlikely) scenario that HR is ineffective, MBH effects could take years to materialize. Hence the need for a safety conference. If nothing at least, to put some very learned minds at ease.

  3. Tom Kerwick says:

    If someone could please clarify — regarding the oft cited Cologne Administrive Court judicial plea in 2011 for a safety conference to be hosted on LHC safety, can someone please post the exact wording of the ruling/plea. I was led to believe that the ruling was for CERN to host this conference, but I get the impression on the following document, that in fact the responsibility was placed with the German government to host this:

    Doc: http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/cern__pre…earing.PDF

    Also, when I check the wikipedia page on this, I find it states differenltly also — that “A subsequent petition was rejected by the Administrative Court of Cologne in January 2011.[95]” although reference [95] which it takes is now a dead link.… Perhaps someone should clarify and correct the wikipedia entry if the text therein is indeed incorrect?

    Wiki Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_of_particle_collisions_a…n_Collider