Talk:Safety of high-energy particle collision experiments/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Legal side

I am not sure about the removal of the "Legal Challenge" section, including the US government's legal position. While one should be careful not to give the plaintiff's point of view too much weight, it is difficult to maintain that the subject of this article doesn't have a legal side. As for the observation that the section was a duplicate of that in the main article, that would be more an argument for condensing it there, per Wikipedia:Summary style. Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

What if we rename this article Large Hadron Collider controversy or something instead of Safety of the Large Hadron Collider? That would make it easier to focus on the social and political impact and the timeline of objections rather than debating (nearly) settled science here. This would then be the main article for the lawsuit with just a summary at LHC, as suggested above. - Eldereft (cont.) 19:00, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Eldereft, I strongly oppose this suggested move. There is absolutely NO scientific controversy. Point me to one reliable paper which directly states that the 2003 or 2008 LHC safety reports are flawed or that the LHC will produce dangerous particles. There is none, zero, zip. All we have is a couple of alarmist Internet blogues and a legal challenge, and Affidavits are not reliable sources — they cannot be used on Wikipedia to indicate that there exists a scientific controversy. "Large Hadron Collider controversy" violates NPOV.--Phenylalanine (talk) 23:48, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Correct, the 2003 RHIC Safety Study did not contain a flawed micro black holes safety argument, it did not argue that micro black hole were safe or dangerous, it only stated that micro black holes were not creatable at collider energies. The 2008 LHC Safety Report makes several safety arguments including Hawking Radiation, but the neutron star/cosmic ray safety argument was not confirmed by the SPC as anything more than highly plausible, and Professor Otto_Rössler's paper argues potential for planetary danger, but you reject his study as not reliable if I understand your argument. --Jtankers (talk) 03:54, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

HaeB, I have thought this over I agree with you. just like the Global Warming article has a section on "Social and political debate" so must this article have a section of the "Legal challenge". I will restore the material on this page and I will summarize it on the LHC main page, as per your suggestion. --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:47, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

If I understand what is being proposed here, I agree. I think the controversy is interesting, in its own right as a social and political matter, and very different from the accelerator physics and particle physics problems and objectives that I see as the core scope of the main LHC article. I do think the concerns of the objector community need to be laid out in sufficient detail to be intelligible from this article alone, and the response of the defenders likewise needs to be summarized as well as may be in a reasonably non-technical article, so that an intelligent lay person has a chance of following the outlines of the both the challenge and the response, with enough wikilinks and external referencing that one who wants to delve deeper is given the resources to do so.

Issues of this kind come up again and again on the social-scientific frontiers. They typically involve economic, cultural, and intellectual benefits, which must be weighed against economic and more general costs and risks which can affect large numbers of uninvolved people who have a very difficult time evaluating the costs (including risks) and benefits. So how we communicate and evaluate these matters and come to wise and decent decisions is a huge problem, given that we are all mostly ignorant except in our own little areas of knowledge, and also that dishonesty (conscious or unconscious) does happen. Almost everything we think we know, we have learned from others; almost nothing do we verify directly ourselves. So we have to trust, yet we are not always trustworthy individually even when we desire to be—which is what makes these processes so critical. Wwheaton (talk) 21:56, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

If someone wants to expand the legal section (social and political controversy) into a separate article, with a summary in this article (see how it's done here), I have no objection. The legal debate is notable in it's own right. However, there is no scientific debate and so this article should not be renamed "controversy of...". --Phenylalanine (talk) 22:44, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The Hawking Radiation safety argument is still scientifically debated. It would not be good for CERN's public relations or for the efforts to have the US Federal lawsuit dismissed if the article contained references to credible scientists like professor Otto_Rössler who questions the safety arguments. Particularly since CERN's Scientific Policy Committee called the neutron star and cosmic ray arguments unverified. Does anyone have a comment on the potential WP:COIN, WP:VERIFY and WP:NPOV issues here? --Jtankers (talk) 09:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

@ User:Phenylalanine - nor did I mean to suggest that there is any controversy in any scientific sense. The parenthetical nearly was meant as a nod to the fact that the next couple years are going to be very exciting for you high energy folks. I merely thought that since being subjected to a frivolous lawsuit is not really a safety issue in the traditional sense, that name might better describe the article. I do not think that putting controversy in the title carries any connotations that safety does not (for instance, Global warming controversy, Vaccine controversy, and Creation-evolution controversy, all cover issues that are also settled scientifically) but neither do I think that the legal section under the current title represents a major stylistic faux pas. - Eldereft (cont.) 09:50, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The lawsuit is not frivolous, has not been dismissed and the focus of the requested injunction is reasonable proof of safety. I don't have a problem with the title controversy, it helps denote the unsettled nature of the debate. --Jtankers (talk) 10:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Eldereft, granted. If someone wants to create a separate "LHC safety controversy" article (substantially expanding what we have in the legal challenge section) on the legal debate and on the "concerns" about the LHC safety as described in news articles and other fairly reliable sources (not affidavits, blogs, forums, nor sources that violate WP:REDFLAG and WP:ATT), which would be summarized in this article, I have no objection. --Phenylalanine (talk) 11:24, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Woah lets discuss the need for a seperate article first of all, before we rush to have yet another offshoot article, what is the need, is there concensus? What else can be added that doesn't start drawing conclusion on the affidavits or the CERN position? Same as I've been saying to JT we can only add what can be demonstrated by sources etc, not analyse/criticise CERN's science or use it pick holes in Wagners lawsuit. Whether you agree with the lawsuits or not, any seperate article will invariably be used to start analysing the affidavits themselves and/or trying to fault their position. The only valuable input to the article is commentary from the plaintiffs/defendants themselves, all other commentary from corners of the media, sympathisers or protagonists would just muddy the article. ^Khukri 12:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I actually prefer "controversy", though "safety" is OK. I also oppose a further split. I think this article must cover the scientific issues (even though there is little controversy among the community of experts) because the critical conversation is between the small core of physics experts who thoroughly understand the technical arguments, and the huge group non-experts who do not. Yet non-expert people are stakeholders in the outcome, and they will ultimately decide the issue in a democratic society. But there seems little hope that the technical details can be communicated to the general public well enough that they can make informed decisions independently. So it seems to me that the only possibility for good outcomes in such situations is for communication to be so good and so transparent that the public can at least decide it is safe and worthwhile to delegate the decision to this small cadre of experts, and trust them to do the best that can be done. For this to happen, I think the substance of the matter needs to be presented, here and elsewhere, as fairly and clearly as may be, so non-experts have a balanced and clear summary of the issues, and a path laid out by which they can in principle learn more if they want to delve deeper. I don't know how much Wikipedia can really contribute to this process on this topic or more generally, but I think our struggling to achieve consensus here may well help to move the methodology of "democratic technology" a few fermis in the right direction, and I think it is urgently needed. Best, Wwheaton (talk) 18:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Risk/Danger

I reproduce the comment I made ages ago but which seems to have been removed from the LHC discussion page: "In dicussions of risk it is important to separate risk from danger, this doesn't seem to be being done here. E.g. walking a wire inches above some mud is high risk and low danger. Walking a wide plank across an abyss is low risk and high danger." 50 million to 1 were it odds on the destruction of the Earth would concern me. --86.133.237.221 (talk) 02:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I read your comment two or three times, and I did not quite get your point. Perhaps you could define your meanings of "danger" and "risk" more explicitly, because I think that is my problem. I suppose that we need to shape our choices so that the expectation of the benefit exceeds the expectation of the costs:

$E[B]>E[C]$

which is not an easy test to apply in practice, and maybe not theoretically perfect anyhow, but it's the best I know; but maybe you get what I mean. Is that what you are saying, or is there something more? I'd be happy to know a better rule. Thanks -- Wwheaton (talk) 03:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry thought it was clear, you have to imagine the possible result, not just the risk of it happening - i.e. in my example if you fall off the wire inches above mud, (high risk), you get muddy (low danger). If you fall off the wide plank (low risk) over an abyss you die (high danger). A very low risk occurence with very high danger sometimes deserves a lot more attention than something high risk but with low danger. I know people are arguing that LHC is low risk but is anyone arguing that LHC is low danger? (Apologies if I have rectified overconciseness with verbosity, alternatively ask and I will think up another example, maybe with planets instead of abysses.) --86.133.17.191 (talk) 00:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

No problem, I agree we have to consider both the probability of an event occurring and some kind of measure of the "cost" (not necessarily economic at all) of that event if it does happen. [I have, by the way, retrieved and restored part of my 11 July comment that got cut off above.] I should also be more clear in defining my meaning, at the risk of being tedious. It is clear that the "best choice", if there is such a thing in any objective sense, must depend on both factors. The one you term "risk" I think corresponds to what I have called "probability", and I think the one you call "danger" I have termed "cost", meaning "cost in a very generalized, non-economic sense", that I would be hard-put to define rigorously, and about which reasonable people might argue for a month or more. I would not touch it myself if there were any alternative, but we have to make one choice, to do or not to do, so all the complex factors must in the end get squeezed down to a single yes/no decision. (Even here, I neglect the possibility that we might have tried other alternative actions, rather than just a stark yes or no.)

So anyhow, modeling the situation where we have to make a single binary choice between two alternatives, where there is uncertainty about the actual outcome of either choice, it seems to me we have to weigh the expectation of the costs against the expectation of the benefits. By "expectation" I mean here the term from statistics and probability theory, "Expected value", symbolized in my equation above as E[ · ], where if x  is some numerical random variable, then E[x ] is the average we would get if we could take an infinite number of trials or samples of x  instead of just one. Thus for example, if the probability of winning $1,000,000 in a lottery were 1 in 100 million, I would say: "The expectation of the benefit of playing would be $1000000×0.00000001) = $0.01". So, if the ticket cost $1, I would ordinarily consider it "irrational" to play. (Though it should be noted that not everyone would agree. There is, after all, the psychological thrill of the mere possibility  of becoming rich. Or there might be a situation where I had a magic rabbit's foot that I was quite certain increased my change of winning by a factor of 1000. Or it might be that if I had the million dollar prize, I could do something that I believed would be worth a billion dollars to me, my sick child, my church, my society, my planet. One can imagine situations where factors of that kind could even be true, and could change the apparently rational choice.) So that is one problematic area in my E[B] > E[C] criterion (where B is benefit, and C is cost, of course).

I think this expectation combines your risk and danger into a single quantity, addressing part of your point (though as is already clear, not in an entirely satisfactory way when we only get once chance to play -- I just think it is the best I know how to do). But there is another and more profound difficulty, and that is reducing cost "C" and benefit "B" to the same units so they can be compared. If both were monetary, the situation would be straightforward, though even there not without possible subtleties. But what if the benefit is cultural, understanding the cosmos, and the cost is destroying the planet? How can one possibly reduce those to commensurate units?

For this specific case, of the LHC, I have in my own mind modeled the cost and benefit as years of human life. If the probability if disaster is 10^-12 (as I have said, I believe it cannot reasonably be zero), and there are 6.5×10⁹ humans on the planet, and each hs an expected average lifetime remaining of 40 years, then the expected cost comes out 0.26 years of human life lost. (We could add in other species somehow, but the principles would be the same, though the argument would go on longer.) Against this I know a few possible ways to figure the benefit, B. One would be the number of lifeworks of the scientists who have devoted themselves to the project, perhaps 2000 people times 10 years, or 20,000. Another, with a broader social base, would be the value to European (and other) governments, as measured by what they have decided it worthwhile to spend on it, say five billion €? That still has to be converted to human life-years, and I suppose median yearly income is the best we can do, though surely unsatisfactory and very rough at best. If we take the median income as 100,000€, we would get 10,000 as our number, not too different than the 20,000 for the scientist years. So maybe that is of the right order of magnitude. Both are much more than the 0.26 year cost (which depends entirely on the assigned probability of disaster, or "risk" in your terminology, if I have it right).

Finally there are other incalculable issues that must be mentioned. Learning about nature is beneficial both practically (it might help us to understand how to avoid unexpected planetary disasters, avoid disastrous epidemics, spread the human species to the stars and escape the eventual inevitable demise of the Sun) and culturally; and it has definite dangers, as yesterday (July 16, 1945) reminds us. But a risk of one in a trillion does have to be weighed against other planetary scale risks, like the risks of simply doing nothing at all ever, and about the larger questions of the purpose of human life. I regret that I cannot answer any of these, but I hope some of the above verbiage may be relevant to the question you raise. Best Wwheaton (talk) 02:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Spacing between references

Hi Wwheaton, I notice your recent edit. Is there any reason you added spaces between the refs? I have never seen this done in a featured article and the approach is not consistent with the way the refs appear in the rest of the article. Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 09:40, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, that was unintended. I have sometimes found it helpful to start each sentence on a separate line in main namespace editing, to make it easier to find my way around in a block of text. For straight text, this seems to have no visible consequences. Between references, it seems it does. I was really just looking at the section to extract the source material, and did not realize I had made any visible change in the article. Thanks for the fix. Wwheaton (talk) 21:21, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Affidavit

The affidavit needs to go. There is no evidence that this is the actual affidavit submitted to the court. We need to replace this with a news article outlining the concerns of the plaintifs. We have a couple of these in the article. I'll see what I can find.

AFFIDAVIT OF WALTER L. WAGNER, "LUIS SANCHO, et al, Plaintiffs vs US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, et al. Defendants" (2008) SanchoWalterLWagner1.doc

--Phenylalanine (talk) 14:20, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The affidavit was emailed March 22, 2008, one day after the filing date, from Walter L. Wagner directly to me and I uploaded the affidavit to wiki1.net. I sent Walter Wagner an email today requesting further verification. --Jtankers (talk) 15:29, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

JT, I don't doubt that this is the case. However, Wikipedia requires more than just hearsay. --Phenylalanine (talk) 15:37, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me see if I've got this straight - all that exists of evidence of this addifavit is a word file? that just don't cut it. --Allemandtando (talk) 15:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

If there is an "official" web source for the affidavit that would of course be the best, but if not, I would accept a file from Wagner for a limited time, assuming it can somehow be rendered into HTML so it is usable. If it just comes from one of the anti-LHC sites, I think we should simply say it is "stated [or "claimed"] to be a copy of the affidavit", assuming it appears to be credible otherwise. Of course any court filing about anything is liable to bias, but the fact of it as part of the record of the case is a verifiable fact. Wwheaton (talk) 16:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

"Stated" by who? "Claimed" by who? (see WP:WEASEL) JTankers or some anonymous blog user? With respect to the aforementioned, I think not. Let's get an "official" web source for the affidavit, or remove it. --Phenylalanine (talk) 17:14, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The affidavit and other legal filings are available at the LHCDefense Legal Room. Walter Wagner writes in an email "I believe a person would have to physically check with the Court, though we could provide a link to the Court's web-site for contact information. I don't believe the Court scans in those documents and posts them on a site somewhere, though I might be wrong. They should, though. --Jtankers (talk) 18:26, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot JTankers. --Phenylalanine (talk) 18:56, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Not a problem, that is a much better link, thank you. --Jtankers (talk) 19:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

LHC facts blog link

I think this blog link needs to be removed. Blogs are not acceptable sources per WP:RS. And, again, there is no evidence that these documents are the ones submitted to the Hawaii Court.

Copy of Complaint and Affidavits at LHCFacts.org.

--Phenylalanine (talk) 15:37, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I do not consider opposition views to be fringe theories, however according to WP:RS such sources "should only be used as sources about themselves or, if correctly attributed as being such, to detail the views of the proponents of that subject.". In this case, the reference is to ourselves and we verify that the content is valid. Could we have a neutral second opinion on this? --Jtankers (talk) 16:26, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

How can we verify the content is valid? --Allemandtando (talk) 16:42, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I will request verification from plaintiffs. The content has been in the article for some time without prior contest of its validity. Could we have a few days to provide better verification? --Jtankers (talk) 16:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that we remove the links above from the article right now for the reasons I mentioned before. We should add an "official" source for the affidavits, if can we find one. --Phenylalanine (talk) 17:22, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how it works stateside, but UK/Europe the court will not release affidavits before a case his heard. I can't see the affidavits being any different to what has been presented to courts, and nothing would be gained by it. Wikipedia has been used as a reference in the affidavits, and would make the position somewhat tenuous if information was believed to have been changed or modified. I personally think it's interesting to see the the affidavits and allows those that don't watch Fox News or read The Sun to see these issues & complaints first hand, and make their own opinion on its validity. But that's just a personal opinion. ^Khukri 17:42, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The plaintiffs LHCDefense Legal Room contains copies of available legal filings by the plaintiffs. --Jtankers (talk) 18:28, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Why does this article even exist?

The executive summary is: a few people have hypothesised danger from some hypothetical effects, the hypothesis lacks any credible evidential basis or mainstream support. We appear to be giving a blow-by-blow on a battle by cranks against LHC, which battle the cranks have completely lost. At best this should be a short para in the main article, but even then it risks giving seriously undue weight to a view which is way out on the fringes. Guy (Help!) 21:00, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's goal is to describe notable facts. Facts that are the subject of several news articles are notable, i.e. facts about the nature of the safety concerns regarding the LHC and about the legal actions taken against the lHC. Therefore, Wikipedia should describe the concerns and legal actions taken in connection with the safety of the LHC. --Phenylalanine (talk) 21:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Note that the subject has received significant coverage from major news sources, including the NY Times , Scientific American ,New Scientist , and MSNBC, to mention just a few off the top of my head. But the larger issue is (in this world where millions of people question the Apollo program's veracity and even duly elected government leaders have been known to lie to their constituents), how do we present credible information that an intelligent person can trust? Not just by saying "Trust us, we know best", I think—even when we are sure we have it right. It may seem tiresome or silly, but it is serious to those who are truly fearful, and it is important that those people be provided with a solid path they can follow to understand why we are almost certainly safe from this particular hazard. Wwheaton (talk) 22:57, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

but it is serious to those who are truly fearful, and it is important that those people be provided with a solid path they can follow to understand why we are almost certainly safe from this particular hazard. - this is so wrong-headed I don't know where to start. Wikipedia is categorically NOT for this purpose. If the subject of this article is notable then an article should exist on it, if it's not it shouldn't. That's the start and end of our interest in the matter - it's irrelevant to us what concerns people have about the matter. --Allemandtando (talk) 13:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

It is notable because a significant number of people consider it so. Go look at our articles on Intelligent design, the Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories, , UFOs and countless others. We have to take those folks seriously, deal with them respectfully, and address their legitimate concerns, even if we think they are absurd. People have a right to refuse to take your word, my word, or even Martin Rees's word about such things (eg the survival of the Earth) on faith. The alternative is to turn everything over to High Priests or Philosopher Kings, and let them rule our society and our opinions by decree. We could vastly simplify our lives if we did that, but we would be very sorry in the end. It is especially difficult in cases such as this where the arguments are esoteric, and the chain of persons who certify the result is long, but we must do the best we can. At least we are all in the boat together. Wwheaton (talk) 15:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

You entirely missed my point - which was not about the notability of this article - it was about the purpose of articles. Let me try this another way - Article exist if they are notable, the social good provided by an article existing is irrelevant to us. --Allemandtando (talk) 15:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I think I understand your point about social value, but there is a connection because issues of widely perceived social interest tend to become notable. Wikipedia is interesting from an abstract intellectual point of view as a source of information, but the process by which we arrive at "truth" (defined as we are force to define it, in our limited "verifiable" way) is also interesting (to me), fundamentally important in my opinion, and makes Wikipedia much more significant than it would otherwise be. Sorry for the confusion, I hope we understand each other now. Wwheaton (talk) 15:57, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Certainly - thank you for the most interesting comments on this matter. --Allemandtando (talk) 17:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I have some sympathy with the title of this section, in that really this article as a whole should instead be a section under LHC. However on reflection it seems right to be here as it is too big to go there. I guess a comparable would be a biography page - if a group of people have filed a lawsuit against the person and even claimed that person may destroy the solar system I think it would be mentioned in the biog wouldn't it? I have added a link to this article to LHC which seems very reasonable, I hope it stays. --86.133.17.191 (talk) 01:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Micro Black Holes and velocity

Sorry to raise this again in the same month but I think it is critical, see below --86.133.17.191 (talk) 01:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Re: 'The Safety Assessment Group argues that "they [micro black holes]would also have been produced by cosmic rays and have stopped in the Earth or some other astronomical body, and the stability of these astronomical bodies means that they cannot be dangerous."'. I have read this in the safety report. What I cannot find is any answer to the commonly expressed point that particles and micro black holes created in nature by collisions will have enormous velocities relative to the Earth, whilst any created in the LHC may have very low velocities relative to the LHC and Earth. Micro black holes with low velocity are much more dangerous than any that fly through at close to the speed of light aren't they? Can someone answer this one, it is one of the most coherent concerns expressed about LHC. I am surprised not to find it answered in the safety report, or have I misssed it? --86.133.237.221 (talk) 02:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

There are two factors that I see, which I believe may partially answer your question. Both involved detailed calculations. I have not yet studied it thoroughly enough to be certain, but I think the place to look for the answer is in the reference that I have lately listed above (in the "REFERENCE LIBRARY" section for trial at the top of the page, as Giddings_2008: [4] Astrophysical implications of hypothetical stable TeV-scale black holes.)

The first is that protons are composed of quarks or partons, moving themselves at high sub-relativistic speeds. When two protons collide, so near the speed of light that their energy is 7000 times their rest mass, two of those partons will very seldom collide precisely head on, at the same opposing speed. Thus the cross section for production of a BH with v < 11.2 km/s must be much much smaller than the total cross section for production of a BH (which may itself be zero). Estimating that cross-section, and the number of BHs so produced that could then be captured, requires a calculation, which I hope the LHC folks have done.

The other question is of the amount of matter a BH, produced in the collision of a 1019 eV cosmic ray proton and at rest, like a nucleon on Earth, might be able to pass through without being slowed and captured. This depends on the amount of material the BH must traverse, and the rate at which is loses energy. It is clear to me that the report goes into these two issues in considerable depth, and finds that even for the worst-case assumptions of the energy loss rate, that neutron stars at least would not survive BHs produced by the cosmic rays we observe.

If you have searched Giddings_2008 carefully and it is really not addressed adequately there, then I have no answer. Unfortunately, given its complexity, critically reviewing it is not for the faint of heart; I do not know that I am up to it, in particular, though I have hopes. Wwheaton (talk) 05:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks I have read your comments above, I can't help but think this is being overcomplicated. To simplify can't we assume a black hole is created, and does not evapourate immediately? This eliminates discussions of the construction of protons. The crucial thing now is the velocity of the black hole. This is indeed related to the velocity and direction and accuracy of the particles involved in the collision forming it. Now the crucial point - isn't LHC (with its head on collisions at the same velocity) much more likely to produce low velocity black holes than cosmic rays hitting stationary planets or stars, or even each other? Second, isn't a stationary or slow moving black hole much more dangerous than one passing through the planet at close to the speed of light?--86.133.17.191 (talk) 01:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Apologies I have now found the relevant excerpt from the LASG report , which (sort of) answers my question:

"Stable black holes could be either electrically charged or neutral...If stable microscopic black holes had no electric charge, their interactions with the Earth would be very weak. Those produced by cosmic rays would pass harmlessly through the Earth into space, whereas those produced by the LHC could remain on Earth. However, there are much larger and denser astronomical bodies than the Earth in the Universe. Black holes produced in cosmic-ray collisions with bodies such as neutron stars and white dwarf stars would be brought to rest. The continued existence of such dense bodies, as well as the Earth, rules out the possibility of the LHC producing any dangerous black holes."

So basically they may remain at rest on Earth but must be harmless because they would be caught at rest in dense stars and the stars are still there. I'm still not sure a neutron or white dwarf star surviving a stationary black hole is quite the re-assurance I wanted that the Earth could survive one. --86.133.17.191 (talk) 02:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Reorganization

I reorganized the sections so the safety reviews are clearly distinguished from the safety concerns. I think this approach is consistent with our dual aim of presenting a historical description of both the safety reviews and the safety concerns, both sections being fundamentally different in nature. The "safety concerns" section is not bound by the reliability requirements of the "safety review" section, which aims to describe the state of affairs regarding the safety of the LHC, while the former is dedicated to highlighting the concerns, wholly apart from their truth value, solely based on their notability, measured by their media exposure. --Phenylalanine (talk) 03:36, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to all who have worked on this. Phenylalanine (talk) and Jtankers (talk) have done the most, and I am pleased if they are reasonably satisfied. I hope the rest of us are also. Wwheaton (talk) 05:21, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Otto Rössler

Professor Rossler Seeks Scientific Debate Before LHC Experiments Begin

To [help] explain motivations behind the legal action against CERN, I propose the following statement:

• "Professor Otto Rössler is concerned that micro black holes could grow exponentially and seeks scientific debate before Large Hadron Collider experiments begin."

'Interview with Professor Otto Rössler, 20 Minuten News, June 25, 2008' supports the statement. Quotes from the interview include:

• "The black hole could no longer leave Earth, but only grow exponentially. For accurate calculations there are still too many unknowns - it would be after approximately 50 months or even after 50 years"
• "The scientific debate should take place before the experiment begins. I want to be rebutted!"
• "On 4 July, I finally an appointment at CERN, a conversation with a scientist. I see this as a positive sign."

--Jtankers (talk) 14:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Jtankers, I think this source adequately supports your proposed sentence. I would like to know what others here think of this proposal. Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 14:20, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a motivation behind the affidavit or court case, that has been going on for years. Roessler ideas are an entirely new position. Also as I understand it looking at the article he was at CERN last week. I'd try an find out if his concerns or this issue has been resolved first or he's had his debate before I'd put this on, otherwise you maybe adding old and incorrect information. Unless of course if JT/Oldnoah know otherwise and have had further correspondance on this issue? ^Khukri 15:33, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The safety arguments have advanced on both sides since the legal action was filed. Professor Rössler's expressed views, goals and motivations are materially the same with the views, goals and motivations expressed by the plaintiffs in the legal action. --Jtankers (talk) 16:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, I am putting proposed references into the REFERENCE LIBRARY section at the top without regard to whether they are or are not considered acceptable in the article, just so we have a standard place to go look at them for discussion. I see some possible edit conflicts developing up there, so beware. I'm happy to see that other people are actually using it, but don't want it to get too scrambled. Wwheaton (talk) 16:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Khukri, could you clarify your response here. If this were the article "Micro Black Hole", there would be no question that the Rossler sources would be inappropriate, whether Rossler's scientific paper or the news sources presenting his position, per WP:RS and WP:REDFLAG. But since this article is devoted to describing the science related to the LHC safety as well as the concerns, it only seems reasonable to include the news source presented above by JT, as it describes concerns relating to the safety of the LHC. What is the difference between what the legal plaintiffs are arguing (hawking radiation may not occur) and what Rossler is calculing (rapid accretion of matter by micro black holes)? We are using the plaintiffs' affidavits court documents (from LHCDefense.org) in this article, which are self published sources, yet we refuse Rossler's scientific paper, which is also self published. Again, these sources would be clearly unreliable in an article on Micro black holes, since that article only describes the science related to MBH. But in this article, where we are also describing the safety concerns, I do not see the rationale for accepting one source (the affidavits court documents from LHCDefense.org) while refusing the other (Rossler's paper), both being self published and equally unreliable with regards to the science concerning the safety of the LHC. Is it that Rossler's claim is somehow more radical? The same thing can be said of the news sources cited in the article with regards to the plaintiffs' concerns. Why are those sources permissible, but not the news sources describing Rossler's concerns? It seems to me that the crux of the matter is whether the nature of Rossler's concern requires sources that are more reliable than those used to present the plaintiff's position, considering that we are talking here about describing the notable concerns (to me, a concern is notable once it has been published by a news article or the like, which is the case for both the plaintiff's and Rossler). I was initialy critical of the Rossler paper's inclusion in the article because I was looking at the matter from the point of view of the science involved, but did not consider the part about describing the safety concerns, which brings me back to the issue of creating a separate article for the "concerns" involved and devoting this article to the hard science, which might solve the problems raised here. End of rambling. --Phenylalanine (talk) 03:42, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

No problems, though I agree with your arguments about the affidavits, I cannot see any rationale why JT knowing what he does about the court case would submit anything that wasn't the correct court documents, as it would make a mockery of their arguments. Also the fact that alot of people are going to be looking at Wikipedia with a fine tooth comb as it's been used as part of the argument would ruin alot of their chances. As I put in the first response this is my personal opinion with respect to these documents but I find the chances of them not being the correct documents extremely unlikely or very bloody stupid. So based just on good faith alone I would accept them, but again it's my personal opinion.

The Roessler article is utter rubbish as a supposed scientific source and we've already spent paragraphs on that. This article aupports that position, it's out of date we don't know if he went to CERN and some one said "It's alright old boy, you got a decimal place wrong, all is OK!", and he's a happy man now. There's been all sorts of policies bandied about, from being self-admittedly WP:FRINGE to UNDUE and a hat full of others. CERN's paper has been peer reviewed, to put it bluntly Roessler has had nothing. Concerns have to be verfifable as well, it's all based around his "article" and with his reputation would be easy to get into print in a Swiss/German onine publication. I would be inclined to wait a wee bit on this one I think we could be adding out of date incorrect information and I'm sure we'll hear something from either side on this soon. ^Khukri 06:16, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Khukri, it is speculative and insulting to label as "utter rubbish" the work of Professor Otto_Rössler, the eminent and award winning publisher of approximately 300 scientific papers including significant contributions to Chaos theory. The article summarizing months of work is only two weeks old, suggesting it might be out of date is unsupported speculation. What percentage of the time between now and the September 2nd hearing on the motion to dismiss the US Federal Lawsuit would you estimate this reference should be kept out of the article for? I argue against any delay, and may I remind you of the view of llywrch from the Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive446

"Jtankers has a point here, after a fashion: the article lacks any explanation for why the people who filed an injunction think that the LHC is a potential danger. It doesn't matter whether their reasoning is based on a Ouiji board, or that a mistake was in CERN's rationale by an undeniable expert (think Klaatu or Sheldon Cooper :). A sentence or two in the proper paragraph ought to meet that need. And please note carefully: doing this does not give undue weight to a fringe theory, it is explaining the motivation for one group's actions. Thus writing more than the amount I suggest, IMHO, would give undue weight. -- llywrch (talk) 18:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC)"

For the record, I do not and did not intend to suggest that the organized opposition lead by Nuclear Physicist and Lawyer Walter L. Wagner and by Professor Otto_Rössler is in any way fringe. --Jtankers (talk) 09:19, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry didn't mean to offend your sensibilities, but now you see exactly what we are dealing with. You bandy around the words speculative because I say it's rubbish and yet his paper not reviewed is somehow gospel for you and must be included. Why are my opinions on the paper any different or worth less than yours? And you will note I criticised the article not the man himself.

Going back to my original point, you want to add to an article that he demands rebuttal which he should/would have had on the 4th July. Why add information we know is already outdated, and his postion may have been resolved, with his meeting with CERN? ^Khukri 11:13, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Please show evidence that a meeting took place, and that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss safety issues not just to gather information, and that Professor Otto_Rössler is no longer concerned. I can not say that the probability that Professor Rossler is no longer concerned is zero, but if I had to guess I would probably speculate about 1 in 50 million. Professor Rossler is aware that none of the safety arguments are verified, the primary safety argument, Hawking Radiation is scientifically disputed by multiple published peer reviewed papers as an open question, and the consequences of a miscalculation according to Dr. Rossler may be destruction of the Earth in a time frame possibly ranging from 50 months to 50 years. But you would not know that by reading this "Safety of the Large Hadron Collider" article, and CERN has a clear interest in making the opposition arguments appear to be Fringe and for dispute of safety arguments appear to be un-supported by published peer reviewed credible sources, particularly in the time leading up to the motion to dismiss the US Federal Lawsuit or to find CERN in default on September 2, 2008. --Jtankers (talk) 12:47, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

JT, you are missing the point entirely here and have been for the entire time you have been editing this article. Dr Rosslers work should not be included for the following reasons: It has not been peer reviewed and unlike the things that are citied as references in this article, he provides no calculation for his work. If you can find information on either of these issues, then it will be included. As it stands at the moment, it is nothing more than handwaving. Now, I'm actually struggling to understand why you believe one man who has produced one paper, on a subject outside of his field, with no calculation to speak of, is actually more important that a peer reviewed piece on why this thing is safe. It's completely baffling to me. It's almost as if you've chucked logic out of the window for meglomania.

I'm also very tempted to ask you if you have done the maths on the subject yourself, but this is neither the time nor place to go into detail about how much of this subject you do not appear to understand.

I actually find it quite strange that you think CERN have a vested interest in keeping anti-LHC stuff out of this article. The point here is; all of the information you have posted is either A) not relevent within this article. You keep banging on about Hawking Radition not been proven. Well it is mentioned in this article. It's bascically a given in the field that it might not be true, but most importantly it is one of many factors that could cause a MBH to evaporate. It is by no means the most important, or B) is unsubstansiated fluff, not published, reviewed or lacking any real mathmatical content to be of any worth to anyone. This article is as balenced as it possibly can be at the present. It cannot pander to Walter and his friends because they "think" it might be unsafe. To put it bluntly, you and your crew have yet to produce a solid piece of evidence on why it is not safe. Just a whole bunch of misunderstanding and selective interpretation and until something is published that details why it is not safe, it will remain the way it is. Also, you can bet your ass that it's a fringe theory. I find no one else who agrees or backs what he says. Not a single mainstream physicist.

As an aside, I'd like to also ask you to stop bringing up Unruh's paper on why Hawking Radition might not exist and to have a look into what the Unruh effect is and here's some info for free, the Unruh Effect and Hawking Radition are essentially the same thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.247.248 (talk • contribs)

The article leaves the reader with the impression that there is no scientific basis to doubt Hawking radiation other than the fact that it has not been observed yet. This is a critically important point of WP:NPOV pertaining to a primary safety factor. The Helfer and Unrauh papers speak to the probability that Hawking Radiation may not exist. Contrary to your assertion, Dr. Rossler's papers contain numerous calculations, a total of 15 cited equations with most in the second of the two papers, "Abraham-like return to constant c in general relativity: “Â-theorem“ demonstrated in Schwarzschild metric", who suggested that the papers did not contain calculations?. --Jtankers (talk) 15:13, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Rosslers papre does not give a single calculation, conclusion or even a mention to his claim of 50 months. There is nothing quantative within it. It has many calculations, yes, but nothing to support his claim. Perhaps you can provide another source where this is clarified? All I see when I read that is a lot of stuff the dances around the issue. It actually looks more like he has some issue with the amount of money that has went into this project, than anything else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.247.248 (talk) 16:19, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

The proposed statements are supported by Professor Rossler's interview and paper.

Khukri, I said "affidavits", but I meant all the court documents outlining the plaintiffs' concerns as presented on their web site: Documentation submitted by plaintiff". LHCDefense.org. The affidavits previously presented in the article were inadequate, as I have already explained. Now, back to the main point, which you have not directly addressed. Can you please explain to me why the court documents and the news articles outlining the concerns of the plaintiffs are acceptable, while the sources outlining Rossler's calculations, both the news sources and the research paper, are not, considering that they both serve the purpose of providing a historical description of the notable concerns that have been raised about the safety of the LHC and that that is what we agreed this article is supposed to do, other than describe the vetted reviews of the science involved? We need to be consistent in this regard. Please reconsider what I said in my previous post. Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 13:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

The court case is notable, has gained massive media exposure so the group bringing the court case and their reasoning is in itself notable, so long as it doesn't start using Wikipedia to promote it goals then in mind mind it is relevant and should be included. I'm not going to re-hash all the arguments about Roesslers article again, but I fail to see how a non-peer reviewed paper and one online publication is comparable to Wagner and their lawsuit gaining headline press. I'm not the authority I'm one person who disagrees, if you and JT have concensus include it, all I'm doing is giving my reasoning why I think it shouldn't be included. ^Khukri 13:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

You're right that the court case has received a lot more media exposure than Rossler's calculations and, therefore, that the plaintiffs' concerns are much more notable than Rossler's. But, that doesn't mean that Rossler's concerns are not notable at all. We should apply WP:UNDUE, and add no more than one short sentence on Rossler's calculations along with the three sources provided by JT (including Rossler's research papers, to be fair and consistent, since we have accepted the court documents as acceptable sources and these are not more reliable than Rossler's research papers). --Phenylalanine (talk) 20:04, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

(See Concerns Expressed by Professor Rossler section below for proposed statement) --Jtankers (talk) 19:39, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Just to put this matter into perspective, professors Rossler theory mentioned in one of the links above states in fact that no matter goes through the Schwarzschild radius of a black hole, because space extends to infinite in that region so it takes an infinity for matter or light to reach the S. radius limit. Therefore, the center of the black hole behind this limit will be in fact empty. However, in my opinion this theory is wrong, since the S. radius is directly proportional with the BH's mass. Thus, at a very begining of a BH, the S. radius will be smaller than the S. radius at a latter stage when the BH has accreted mass. This will imply that the matter at the earlier S. radius, will depart from the center of the BH, as the radius increases. However, this does not mean that the LHC is necessarily safe. I realized I was wrong about the above stricken statement. The matter of the earlier S.R. will not have to depart from the centre of the B.H.--LF1975 (talk) 18:02, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

The measure of time and space around a BH depends of course on the position and state of motion of the observer as well as on the point being observed. This subtlety has received very extensive attention in the literature for several decades, but the standard description is that while an external observer watching a clock fall through the Schwarzschild radius sees the clock slowing to a stop at that point (and thus taking forever to pass through it), the "proper time" of an observer falling with the clock is finite (and short for BHs with mass less than the Sun). There is no physically significant singularity in the spacetime at the event horizon, in particular, and thus nothing remarkable happens as an observer falls through it. The singularity in the Schwarzschild metric is well understood (not by me, alas, as I am no expert) to be a non-physical mathematical artifact. I continue to believe that Rōssler's claims, until they are reviewed and published, do not deserve the formal recognition here that we give to the court documents. Wwheaton (talk) 18:41, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Concerns Expressed by Professor Rossler

Comments requested on the following statement to address micro black hole concerns as represented by Professor Rossler.

• Professor Otto Rössler seeks to have his safety theorizes scientifically debated and rebutted before the Large Hadron Collider might create micro black holes that he believes could consume the Earth in 50 months to 50 years.

--Jtankers (talk) 19:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

JT, how about this: "Professor Otto Rössler is concerned that micro black holes could be created and grow exponentially, accreting the Earth in 50 months to 50 years, and he seeks scientific debate on his research before Large Hadron Collider experiments begin." --Phenylalanine (talk) 20:16, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

That would be perfectly acceptable to me. With references it would read: "Professor Otto Rössler is concerned that micro black holes could be created and grow exponentially, accreting the Earth in 50 months to 50 years, and he seeks scientific debate on his research before Large Hadron Collider experiments begin." --Jtankers (talk) 20:31, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

With the addition of the referenced statement above, the article will very adequately address the concerns and motivations of the organized opposition with respect to the safety of micro black hole creation IMHO. The statement might fit well after the existing "One concern is that Hawking radiation... might not exist at all.". --Jtankers (talk) 21:23, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done with some minor changes. --Phenylalanine (talk) 03:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, a lot of effort was put into this article, and I think the results were worth it. --Jtankers (talk) 00:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Otto Rössler is Professor for Theoretical Biochemistry at the University of Tübingen and a notable contributor to science. His title speaks to his credibility as a scientist. Also, Professor Rossler's paper is referred to in the article as a theory rather than research, wouldn't theory be more correct? --Jtankers (talk) 00:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

No, per Wikipedia:Words to avoid. If you have any further questions, you can contact me on my talkpage. I am moving on to other wikiprojects and so will no longer be assiduously watching this page. Cheers, Phenylalanine (talk) 01:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Otto Rössler is not a reliable source

I've been looking into Otto Rössler and trying to understand JT's arguments on why this man should be deemed a reliable source. I'd like to look at this in three parts 1) The man 2) The "article" 3) The science.

• As JT said above Rössler has made "significant contributions to Chaos theory", and looking at his Wikipedia article states first and foremost he is a biochemist and expanding on JT's comment above; "300 scientific papers in fields as wide-ranging as biogenesis, the origin of language, differentiable automata, chaotic attractors, endophysics, micro relativity, artificial universes, the hypertext encyclopedia, and world-changing technology.". Now there is no doubt Rössler is an intelligent person, but in all my searchings I could find nowhere that he was an expert in high energy physics. So I did some searching and neither arxiv or Spires-HEP turned up any papers written or published by him.

• The "article" and the interview have already been discussed at length in the archives & above and were found to be wanting, but just to clarify the salient features;

  his "article" has not been published

  his "article" has not been peer reviewed

  he self admittedly falls into the bracket of WP:FRINGE.

• I was also curious about comments made by the IP editor above about Unruh's paper and who questioned the science of 50 months which JT ignored, so asked around at work about the science behind Rössler "article". I've been informed that CERN are aware of his "ideas" and was kindly given a copy of an e-mail. Though this e-mail cannot be used as a reliable source for the moment, I've been given permission to copy it for now but it should be correctly sourced on web shortly. I'd like you to ponder on the content as I believe it is by someone who is an expert in the field of high energy physics.

Irrespective of these arguments there is also not the slightest reason from the point of view of a theorist specialized in relativity to take these considerations seriously, since - in my view - they are based on an elementary misunderstanding of the theory of general relativity.

1) The argument of Mr. Rössler rests upon a coordinate-dependent re-interpretation of the concept of 'spatial distance' (which he calls the 'true' one), and that is used to support some arbitrary 'physical' arguments that are at odds with conclusions of general relativity.

Formula (1) of his article appears in all text books and simply expresses the well-known fact that an object, as measured in the coordinate time of a distant observer, needs an infinitely long time to reach the horizon (or rather, that no light beam can escape the horizon). The correct physical interpretation of the mathematical statements of general relativity (and only this is the point, since Mr. Rössler has only taken over well-known formulas) has been established for decades and has been confirmed in countless experiments. In particular, physical statements must not depend on the choice of a coordinate system - for example, if a black hole emits radiation or not is not a question of choosing a particular coordinate system.

(2) Abraham's theory, to which Mr. Roessler refers in part, may be considered as disproved since 1915. At that time Abraham made the attempt (in confrontation with Einstein) to formulate a scalar theory of gravitation in the framework of special relativity. However this theory predicts a false precession of the [Mercury] perihelion (-1/6 of Einstein's result) and 'no' deflection of light, which clearly contradicts precise observations (the deflection of light has been measured to a precision of 10-4).

(3) The arguments of Mr. Rössler are even self-contradictory: one the one hand, the black hole does not radiate because it is supposed to be at infinite distance in the re-interpreted spatial geometry, on the other hand he says that because of its infinite distance it cannot arise within a finite time, and thus can also not be produced in the laboratory.

With other words: this text would not pass the referee process in a serious journal. The 'doctoral dissertation' quoted in reference 11 has not been admitted by the University of Tübingen, according to my information. We are happy to provide more information, if necessary.

Prof. Dr. Herrmann Nicolai

Direktor, Max Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut)

Potsdam, Germany

So just to briefly re-cap the above. We have a someone who has written a non-published paper with questionable science that relates to concerns about an area of science that isn't his speciality, who managed to get himself an online interview.

So can someone explain to me how this information meets Wikipedia's reliably sourced guidelines or should be included, without using an appeal to authority? If not then the sentence should be removed.

Cheers ^Khukri 13:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

On the basis I would say that this would indeed represent an appeal to authority. Can anyone present any evidence that Herr Professor is considered a) a notable expert in high-energy physics and b) has been cited as such - I thinking of peer reviewed material where his views on high-energy physics are cited. --Allemandtando (talk) 14:50, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I spent a while looking through physics archives for Rössler, and the only thing that turned up was in Spires "Space time physics and fractality. Proceedings, Symposium, Festschrift in honour of Mohamed El Naschie on the occasion of his 60th birthday, Karlsruhe, Germany, October 2003.", as an editor which I don't really think counts. ^Khukri 15:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

No rigorous safety report prior to 2008 addressed the safety of actually creating micro black holes that I am aware of (the 2003 RHIC Safety Report only concluded that creation of micro black holes at laboratory collider energies was not possible). CERN's 2008 safety report has not been accepted for publication by peer reviewed publication (it was published on the web, similarly to how Dr. Rossler's theory was published) and the speedy and closed verification by CERN's Scientific Policy Committee can hardly be considered an open and unbiased peer review. Independent peer review of arguments on both sides is currently in progress, both arguments are notable.

Professor Otto Rössler is a highly respected and award winning theoretical scientist who represents the organized safety opposition's scientific arguments with respect to the safety of micro black hole creation, as evidenced by his coverage in the media and at least one scheduled meeting with a CERN scientist. Dr. Rossler's concerns are notable and a link was provided to his Wikipedia biography to allow readers to investigate his qualifications and credibility. If notable published criticism of Dr. Rossler's qualifications are available, then it might be reasonable to include in the article. Otherwise there is no evidence to question Professor Rossler's scientific credibility that I am aware of.

--Jtankers (talk) 03:33, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I laid out three clear reasons why he is not a reliable source, and all you have is an appeal to authority that he is a highly respected scientist. Can you explain why someone who is not a physicist, who has not passed his ideas by anyone the physics community and has questionable science meets WP:RS, because you didn't above. You said there is no evidence to question his scientific credibility, but what evidence is there that suggests he has any physics credibility? ^Khukri 07:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

James, with the best will in the world, I just have to say I think Dr. Rössler's material does not meet Wiki standards for reliable sources. I do not know enough to even question his standing in his field or his scientific accomplishments, and I certainly do not doubt his sincerity, but it has not been established that he is an expert in quantum field theory, elementary particle physics, or general relativity, let alone quantum gravity (which is where these things all come together). These are highly technical, highly specialized fields. If I thought his material sounded physically plausible I would not be so concerned (for I am not an expert either), but based on the experience I do have, his claims sound very dubious  to me (& the 50 months to 50 year claim sounds ridiculous, with apologies) and I am very uncomfortable giving his a "pass" here based on his general contributions to a distant field. I will try to go over his stuff more carefully yet again, and if everyone else thinks he should be accepted, I won't put my foot down until I've done my homework better, but it worries me that having it in is a disservice to Wikipedia. Sorry I don't have more time to study.... (tho of course our opinion of the validity of his material is only marginally related to the question.) Wwheaton (talk) 08:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The main point is being totally missed here. Professor Otto Rössler's concerns are notable or they are not. If his concerns are notable under the section "Concerns raised in the media" then it belongs in the article. Your opinion of Professor Rossler's credibility is not relevant to his inclusion, as llywrch (talk) wrote at Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive446 "It doesn't matter whether their reasoning is based on a Ouiji board, or that a mistake was in CERN's rationale by an undeniable expert (think Klaatu or Sheldon Cooper)... it is explaining the motivation for one group's actions."

What I find to be an appeal to authority is the statement "The LHC Safety Assessment Group (LSAG) indicates that "there is broad consensus among physicists on the reality of Hawking radiation, but so far no experiment has had the sensitivity required to find direct evidence for it.". The impression that a reader is left with is that Hawking Radiation is an undisputed fact except for the minor technicality that it has not been observed. When in fact Hawking Radiation is an actively debated topic among physicists and multiple papers question the theory behind Hawking Radiation. --Jtankers (talk) 11:39, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Read what you wrote James, "...broad consensus among physicists...", he's not a physicist he's a biochemist hence not a reliable source. ^Khukri 11:43, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Read what Phenylalanine (talk) wrote at Safety_of_the_Large_Hadron_Collider#Reorganization, "The "safety concerns" section is not bound by the reliability requirements of the "safety review" section, which aims to describe the state of affairs regarding the safety of the LHC, while the former is dedicated to highlighting the concerns, wholly apart from their truth value, solely based on their notability, measured by their media exposure." --Jtankers (talk) 11:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry you lost me, how does that fit into WP:RS. If it's not because he's a physicist, not because his ideas have been reviewed, not because his work is correct, looks like you are arguing that he should be included because he's famous, because you haven't refuted any of the three points yet. ^Khukri 12:35, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Quote: "The "safety concerns" section is not bound by the reliability requirements" writes Phenylalanine (talk) at Safety_of_the_Large_Hadron_Collider#Reorganization. Please re-read Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive446 where this issue was discussed. The issue is notability not credibility, though I think it is a stretch to suggest that Professor Otto Rössler is not credible enough to even raise scientific concerns. The media finds him credible enough and the lack of serious attention given to potentially valid safety concerns is exactly the motivation for the legal action before US Federal Courts and why I volunteer considerable time to this effort. What are you arguing, that the public should not know why an eminent award winning credible theoretical scientist believes that his concerns have not been adequately addressed by CERN? --Jtankers (talk) 11:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

That's his opinion on WP:RS which I have already said I disagree with, of course the safety concerns section is bound by reliability requirements, the whole of Wikipedia is bound by reliably sourced. Don't foist your argument off on someone else, explain to me how Rössler meets these requirements other than being famous. You explain it, pretend we've never had this discussion before in our lives, in what way do the possibly incorrect opinions of someone who is not an expert on the subject matter have to do with the article, other than the fact he is famous in other fields. ^Khukri 12:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

This concept has been explained by multiple other editors multiple times, Professor Rossler's concerns are included in the "Concerns raised in the media" because they are notable concerns raised in the media. If Professor Rossler argued that his Ouiji board predicts danger and it was the basis behind legal action, media coverage and public concern, then it is notable and should be included. Are you allowing your employment by CERN to prejudice your opinions on the notability and relavance of Professor Rossler's concerns in the media, or to argue that published peer reviewed papers that question Hawking Radiation should be (and have been) censored from the article? --Jtankers (talk) 13:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

<unident>Nice switch of subject to hawking radiation but as we've said before, if you have an issue with that run along to the hawking radiation article and discuss the pros and cons of it there. CERN has already recognised that there is a broad concensus for hawking radiation, not that is is certain, not guaranteed but that most physcists do agree. So anyway moving back on to the subject matter. Your now saying that Rossler because he is famous does not need any grounds what so ever to have his opinions included in this article, and that he may use a ouija board if he wishes. Does that mean I can get a famous butcher, baker or candlestick maker to have his opinions included solely on the basis that he is famous. Of course not. So now you are admitting that his academic credentials, his unreviewed and possibly incorrect paper aren't the reason why he should be included, and just because of his notability; so if we look at WP:UNDUE "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;". If Rossler can't be included on a scientific basis who are these detractors of the LHC in the physics community that have been published and peer reviewed. Because at the moment this article is based on Wagners court case because it gained media attention, and Otto Rössler because he is famous and had an web article about him. But anyway I digress, to recap my three original points stand, and he is only being included because he himself is notable, and got into publication with some unproved ideas. Now to me that doesn't look like good independant sourcing. ^Khukri 13:54, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I in no way belittle the respected work of Professor Dr. Otto Rössler. I noticed that someone edited out Dr. Rössler's history as a visiting Theoretical Physics position at Lyngby University in Denmark from Dr. Rossler's Wikipedia bio in June without notice on the discussion page. That reference to Dr. Rossler's work in theoretical physics at Lyngby University has now been verified by multiple sources including published papers in Physical Review while holding a position in theoretical physics at Lyngby University. The information has been restored. Did you know that according to Wikipedia, Dr. Rossler is credited with founding the field of Endophysics?. --Jtankers (talk) 01:36, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

You don't have to belittle the work JT and we are not asking you to, we're asking you to show us why he is reliable source about physics or high energy physics (the subject matter) not some specious coined term such as "Endophysics". So far you have in no way confirmed why he is an expert on physics, why we should accept something that hasn't been peer reviewed or published, and has a high chance of being wrong? JT you have made no effort at even discrediting any of my three points. Because unless he comes anywhere near meeting them then the fact is his opinions are not expert, and personal opinions and musings no matter if he used celebrity to get himself into print, carry no more weight than yours or mine and should be removed. ^Khukri 07:17, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Endophysics is a specious coined term? Wikipedia felt this category of physics was worthy of its own web page. The physics field of Endophysics was founded by Professor Otto Rössler, but it was actually coined in a letter to Dr. Rossler from MIT Physics PHD David Finkelstein who also has his own Wikipedia web page. According to Wikipedia, David Finkelstein's mathematical work helped John Archibald Wheeler and other physicists accept the theoretical possibility of a black hole. Now Dr. Rossler is trying to help CERN accept the theoretical possibility that micro black holes might be dangerous. Perhaps you have an "utter rubbish" comment about Dr. Finkelstein also? Credible minority opinions and federal legal issues can be quite an inconvenient. --Jtankers (talk) 19:02, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Rossler is now helping CERN, give over, what are you smoking? And I love the way you believe that CERN did anything in their report because of some unpublished ideas, I'd give them a bit more credit than that. The article is not about minority opinions as you put it or making unproven links, maybe you and LHCfacts.org do, but we need verifiable sources for such fantastic statements. This article needs credible science not unpublished unpeer reviewed physics or endophysics by someone whose science is highly suspect. Otherwise you are trying to mislead the public by the sole fact he has professor in his title. This is going nowhere I believe I have shown enough doubt that his opinion is not a reliable source, and is original research. You are arguing because he himself is notable that is enough to make his opinions relevant, whether or not there are doubts and the information maybe incorrect. This is wrong, we should not be scaremongering with completely unproven statements about destroying the world in 50 months to 50 years. I find it contradictory that you question CERN's science which has been published & reviewed which is contrary to you and your groups ideals, and yet you are willing to take at face value unpublished science and demand it's inclusion because supports your position.

Both Bill and I have said it's not a reliable source though he has said he will re-read the issue. I believe this should be removed or dramatically reworded and have explained clearly why, I look forward to the response of other editors already involved and that you have asked for input. ^Khukri 21:36, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't smoke. The concept of charged micro black holes appears to have originated with Professor Rossler's 2008 theory, the concept next appeared in CERN's 2008 LHC Safety Report and Professor Rossler had an appointment with a CERN scientist as reported in the media. For the record, CERN's 2008 LHC Safety Report is original research that has not been accepted by a peer reviewed publication, it was self published on CERN's web site just weeks ago and peer review results are expected soon to support CERN's SPC comment that neutron star and cosmic ray arguments are unverified. Multiple editors have given opinions in opposition to Khukri that the article lacked explaination of the organized safety oppositions reasons for concern that prompted the legal action in US Federal Court which directly affects Khukri's employer. And Bill Wheaton also gave an opinion that references to published peer reviewed papers that question the theoretical basis for Hawking Radiation are relevant to this article. Khukri succeeded in having the references removed in opposition to other editors wishes. How is this not censorship by an editor with a clear conflict of interest, his employer is a defendant in the US Federal Legal action against operation of the Large Hadron Collider before safety arguments have been verified and safety reasonable proven. --Jtankers (talk) 04:08, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

sigh, more unproven ideas from your website and yet more contradictions James. You demand that CERN have have verifiable science, but your information doesn't have to be verified. According to you I have a conflict of interest because I work at CERN and am wanting sound science, yet you don't have a conflict of interest when you are trying to promote unproved science from LHCfacts.org and your activities as anti LHC spokesman across the web[1][2]. Don't even start on the who should and should not be editing this article when they are involved in the legal action, I think actual plaintiffs far outweigh a mere employee. But all this is handwaving trying to muddy the water, or besmirch me, when the issue is that you were trying to explain the scientific basis for the inclusion of Rosslers work as unpublished opnions. Please keep on topic. ^Khukri 08:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Otto Rössler's work does not meet No Original Research

OK then let's try it from another direction then, Original research. As we have already ascertained the man and his work doesn't meet reliable source guidelines, and you think he should be included due to his notability. JT could you please explain to me why we are including Rössler unproven opinion of 50 month to 50 years? When I read WP:NOR the very first line states "Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought. This includes unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position.". Now to me his unpublished ideas fall square into this, it doesn't say unless he's famous/notable just clearly "Wikipedia does not publish original research....". ^Khukri 15:45, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you realize that you just described the 2008 LHC Safety Report which is unverified original research that furthers CERN's position that the LHC is safe, has not been accepted by a peer reviewed journal for publication, has not completed rigorous peer review and the much advertised neutron star and cosmic ray arguments were called "unverified" by CERN's own Scientific Policy Committee after a speedy review. Are you arguing that CERN's original, unverified safety analysis is sufficient to reasonably guareentee the safety of Earth without peer review, but the same analysis should not be included in the Wikipedia article because it fails virtually every test of Original Research?

Please re-read the arguments in the prior section and replace "Reliable Source" with "No Original Research" with a focus on notability. --Jtankers (talk) 01:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you realize you cannot answer the questions without trying to change the subject. The LSAG report has been published, has been reviewed this has been explained to you quite clearly previously. It took me 20 seconds to find the LSAG report in arxiv, but I spent alot longer trying to find something by Rössler's and found nothing. So again nice trying to change the subject to something else that you think there maybe a conspiracy to silence you about but lets get back to the subject matter. The title I think reads quite clearly and my original question is pretty clear. Please explain to everyone why Otto Rössler's work does not constitute original research, as he is not an expert, his work hasn't been published and there's a high chance it's wrong. ^Khukri 07:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

You are probably not using google.com or not using it effectively. Try using key search words on google.com such as "Rossler Endophysics" or "Rosser Chaos" or "Rossler Physics". High quality results are returned quickly. Wikipedia and the public would not be well severed if it becomes a public relations tool of the majority view point at the expense of censoring notable and credible minority concerns. (On this same line of though, how does a reader know that Hawking Radiation is disputed in the physics community or that published peer reviewed papers question Hawking Radiation. When I read the article, I am given the impression that the only concern is that Hawking Radiation has not been observed yet. That is a form of censorship, possibly not intended, but could be easily fixed by either a sentence explaining this or a reference to one or two representative papers.) --Jtankers (talk) 16:45, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

This is irrelevent. His work is original research. It has not been published or reviewed. I'm of the opinion that, quite frankly, his other scientific credentials are irrelevent. He is not known physicist, his work has not been peer reviewed or published, his work is most probably wrong and he has attracted, at best, minimal media attention. Honestly, I really don't think he should be included. He has admittited it himself that his theory is fringe. Rossler has not been rebutted because he has not been published and, as highlighted in this very talk page, his paper appears to be wrong so I very much doubt he'll get it published.

I shall liken it to this, I would not expect an electrican to know much about computers. Sure, a computer need it to run, and the electrician may think he knows a great deal about it. But to think that he is qualified enough to go fix one without any prior demonstration of that knowledge, is unrealistic.

We have already had peoples titles removed from previous articles as it was seen as an appeal to authority. He should not be included because at present there is zero demonstration about how qualified he is within the field of quantum physics, high energy physic or particle physics. As of this moment he is in here through an appeal to authority.

JT, any article on the net about the LHC in the past 6 months has your opinion on it. You have been clearly "schooled" by many people on how little you know about the subject in hand. Isn't it about time to drop this? You have not been able to rebutt the last saftey report on the LHC and now you are clinging to Dr Rosslers unqualified, likely wrong fringe theory.

So please, answer me and Khukri, why is it NOT original research? And maybe you could also explain why you think he is right and if his calculations make sense when you do them yourself... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.147.3 (talk) 20:18, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Please sign your comment and I will respond. --Jtankers (talk) 21:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Rossler's criticism

Khukri has asked me to take a look at the ongoing discussing here about Rossler's views and whether they should be mentionned in the article, so I'm going to briefly comment on this matter.

Firstly, this paper (which is cited in the LHC safety article) "Otto Rōssler Theory (2008). "Abraham-Solution to Schwarzschild Metric Implies That CERN Miniblack Holes Pose a Planetary Risk"." is currently a "Self-published source". Wikipedia states that "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." (WP:SPS) So, is Rossler's paper "acceptable" as defined above? That is the question. If the answer is NO, then this source simply does not belong in the article. But we must be consistent and ask ourselves the same question with regards to the court documents submitted by Wagner and the other plaintiffs, specifically this source: "Documentation submitted by plaintiff". LHCDefense.org.", since these documents are also Self-published. If Rossler's research paper is not an "acceptable" self-published source per WP:SPS, are the documents submitted by the plaintiffs "acceptable" self-published sources per WP:SPS? My contention is that there is no basis for treating the plaintiffs' court documents and Rossler's paper differently in this regard. If Rossler's paper is "acceptable" so are the court documents submitted by the plaintiffs, if not, then neither sources are. Now, if Rossler's paper is considered "acceptable" as defined above, then we still have the issue of deciding whether it is notable enough to be cited in the article according to Wikipedia:Fringe theories. The fact that Rossler's views were presented in this news article "Biggest crimes of humanity — 20 Minute News interview 6/25/2008." (which is cited in the LHC safety article) may have some bearing on this issue. So, we need to sort through all this to determine whether the citation "Otto Rōssler Theory (2008). "Abraham-Solution to Schwarzschild Metric Implies That CERN Miniblack Holes Pose a Planetary Risk"." should stay in the article (and also the court document citations).

A wholly separate question is whether we should remove the actual sentence outlining Rossler's views. Is there notable media coverage of Rossler's concerns? For Rosslers views may be considered unnotable fringe views within the scientific community, but notable concerns within the popular media (this is what is happening with the global warming debate). So far, one media source has been provided: "Biggest crimes of humanity — 20 Minute News interview 6/25/2008." Certainly, the plaintiffs' concerns have received much more press coverage than Rossler's views, or have they? I'm not sure most news articles have explained in detail the plaintiffs' concerns (hawking radiation might not exist, etc.). Only one article I think does so, one MSNBC article cited in the LHC safety article. So the question is, does one news article comply with wikipedia's notability requirements? I frankly don't know, but let's try to expand the rest of the article so that these sentences become less "prominent". That's about all I have to say on this for now. --Phenylalanine (talk) 04:31, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the telling statement is your quote from SPS, which touches on reliably sourced. I think I've shown above that Rössler's ideas do not come close to meeting this and there has been no rebuttal of this from JT just that he should be included but not on his physics notability or as an authortiy on the subject. You also mentioned possibly falling foul of WP:FRINGE, in my opinion this also falls squarely into WP:UNDUE and more importantly WP:REDFLAG. I've already touched on the no original research, which that in itself should warrant exclusion of these ideas.

I have to also say I'm beginning to agree with your opinion of the affidavits and the similarities in type of information, though I do think as Wagner et al are integral to the court case and it does give a tool to explain their reasoning without casting judgement on their content. But if one goes the others goes, so be it.

This whole postion looks like it's boiling down to using Rossler's notability to promote fringe ideas, which cannot be backed up by any of the three defining points I started with above. I think we are doing a disservice to readers who come to this article to find out and learn the reasoning behind these concerns, by including ideas by someone on the sole grounds of an appeal to authority that he maybe a respected professor in a completely different field. That in my mind is patently wrong, why should Wikipedia promote dubious sourced theories and content to sway the readers that there are majors concerns in the physics community. Teach the controversy springs to mind again. It biases the article and should carry no more weight than if an clerk, mechanic or english teacher were to opine on the subject. If we are going to have an appeal to authority lets actually have it from someone who is an authority. ^Khukri 08:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I have also requested neutral 3rd party opinion. I believe that I have "rebutted" Khukri's concerns as requested. Dr. Rossler is clearly credible as a scientist and has university background as a professor of theoretical physics (which was strangely edited out of his Wikipedia bio in early June), he founded a new field of theoretical physics (Endophysics) in colaboration with David Finkelstein and is world respected for his significant contributions to many areas of theoretical science. But that is not the point. His concerns are notable as they relate to the organized safety opposition concerns raised in the media and before US Federal Court, and notable to CERN who scheduled a meeting with him and appear to have included aspects of Dr. Rossler's "charged black hole" theory in their 2008 LHC Safety Report. --Jtankers (talk) 16:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

From WP:UNDUE: "Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, the article should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view."

Upon further reflexion, I think that the solution is to create a seperate article called "Concerns regarding the safety of the Large Hadron Collider" where the safety concerns and the legal challenge could be described in detail and to have a short section in the present article summarizing the safety concerns, consisting of a short description of the legal challenge - the subsection "concerns raised in the media" would be moved to the new article. This would, in my opinion, satisfy WP:UNDUE. Of course, in the new article, the majority view would need to be summarized according to this policy.

In its current state, I agree with Khukri that the article gives undue weight to the concerns raised in the media and that action needs to be taken to address this imbalance. --Phenylalanine (talk) 04:57, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

What part is undue weight? This just feels like censorship of concerns from the general public and from credible PHD level scientists. The conflict of interest could not be more clear. I have nothing to gain that I do not share with the defendants (safety of Earth), CERN has potential Nobel prizes, future employment, fame and fortune, potentially at the cost of Earth 50 months to 50 years from now. The debate could not be more relevant now and could not affect more people. To bury the concerns another link level deeper would certainly be better than completely censoring the concerns, and I can accept the solution. But I think the undue weight is given to the concerns of CERN and they will not be satisfied until the article appears to suggest that there is no conceivable danger, when in fact safety arguments are no more substantial than unverified original research. CERN's safety analysis is original research that has not been accepted by peer reviewed journal for publication, only approved by a 4/5 majority internal assessment which called some major argument unverified and peer review of the self published work is still in progress. A CERN employee editor has even had links to published peer reviewed papers that challenge the primary safety argument, the probability that Hawking Radiation exists removed against editor consensus. How can that be justified? According to Professor Dr. Otto Rössler the results of CERN's actions could result in the greatest crime against humanity imaginable. Dr. Rossler is arguably among the world's most eminent living contributors to theoretical sciences, a former university visiting professor of theoretical physics (a fact suspiciously removed from Dr. Rossler's Wikipedia bio June 2, 2008 without prior discussion) and founded a new field of theoretical physics in collaboration with MIT Physics Professor David_Finkelstein who is historically significant for his contribution to black hole theory. The public and other scientists have the right to know that scientific consensus is credibly challenged by multiple credible PHD level theoretical scientists. More importantly, we deserve credible concerns to be addressed before collisions begin. Wikipedia should not be a public relation tool to influence public opinion and limit information to other physicists by censoring descent. This is a very significant issue. --Jtankers (talk) 16:58, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

This is getting really complicated JT. You're arguing that CERN's commissioned reports do not represent a majority view. You are correct that the LSAG report has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but it was reviewed by 5 independant scientists (see the news articles cited in this article) and so can be considered adequately vetted, just like articles published in reviewed journals, although I think that the GM report will be published in a learned journal. It is also true that the reports contain novel calculations. However, the calculations are based on – Khukri correct me if I'm wrong – widely accepted physical assumptions. It is rather Rossler and the plaintiffs who are making claims that challenge widely accepted scientific assumptions, e.g. micro black holes might not decay and grow exponentially. I strongly encourage you to seek Wikipedia:Third opinion. That's all from me. Give me a shout on my talk page if there's anything. --Phenylalanine (talk) 21:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I have requested Wikipedia:Third opinion. The 5 reviewing scientists were hand picked member's of CERN's Scientific Policy Committee (its board of advisers), but still only 4 of the 5 supported the safety conclusions, in what an independent journalist called an "internal review". Fundamental flaws with Hawking Radiation theory are exposed by multiple peer reviewed papers, references to these papers were excluded (as irrelevant?) from the article against majority editor opinion (Bill Wheaton and I), and the only available Delphi study suggests that physicists in general may have up to 50% doubt in Hawking Radiation, in stark contrast to the impression given in the article of "broad consensus". The primary other safety argument (neutron stars and cosmic rays to prove slow growth) was called only "highly plausible" but "unverified" by the same hand pick 4 out of 5 majority. Peer review is expected to be released soon to further question that argument. The effort to censor minority opinions is so effective that physicists such as Steven Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson who should know better have repeated safety arguments to the media that were long ago debunked. The article is already dangerously lean on balanced minority opinion and dissenting peer reviewed challenges to safety arguments and further removal of minority opinion will leave the safety article to appear settled in favor of the self published, self reviewed original research of only one side with no mention that it is even self disputed. The organized safety opposition wants to prevent censorship of credible concerns, and for those concerns to heard and refuted, censorship helps to silence this voice. --Jtankers (talk) 22:06, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Third opinion

I am responding to a request for a third opinion.

Llywrch's 18:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC) post (now in WP:AN/I archive 446) summed up the situation very well:

[T]he article lacks any explanation for why the people who filed an injunction think that the SHC is a potential danger. ... A sentence or two in the proper paragraph ought to meet that need. And please note carefully: doing this does not give undue weight to a fringe theory, it is explaining the motivation for one group's actions. Thus writing more than the amount I suggest, IMHO, would give undue weight.

The underlining is mine, and I entirely concur. — Athaenara ✉ 01:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

→ See also: Wikipedia is not a soapbox. — Athaenara ✉ 01:25, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your proposal if the one or two sentences are clearly explaining the views of the anti-LHC camp. Unfortunately, if it ends up being presented as an on-par alternative to the scientific consensus, as it has so many times in the past, then it becomes an issue of undue weight. So often, "Paper X sums up the scientific consensus" quickly becomes, "Paper X sums up the scientific consensus, however some guy in Bumsville, Idaho, who refutes the standard model disagrees" - that gives undue weight to a fringe theory. -- Mark Chovain 02:13, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I am out of this discussion for a week or two due to a medical break. My positions are well-known I think. Be nice, all! Bill Wwheaton (talk) 04:05, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Surely this means that this entire article is redundant then? A sentence or two could be included in the actual LHC article, otherwise this whole article basically becomes an advocate on why it is safe. While I agree that it probably is safe, I feel that part of the problem may be that this article gives the impression that there is some kind of serious saftey debate amongst the scientific community when there is not. Just a bunch of non-physicists voicing opinions and pushing forward (arguably) flawed fringe theories... THMRK1 (talk) 08:49, 21 July 2008 (GMT)

The debate is not settled and the potential consequences are serious. Otto Rössler is not a "non-physicist", Wikipedia notes his contributions to theoretical physics in collaboration with physicists historically notable for work related to black holes. Physicists reading this article should be aware of Dr. Rossler's concerns and given the opportunity to investigate further and determine if the concerns are credible. --Jtankers (talk) 10:56, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I cannot see how Rossler can be called a verifiable source. His paper doesn't even provide a complete calculation on his own claim. Can you provide another source for this? As for Finkelstein, are you reading a diffrent Wikipedia? One mention of black holes it that he agrees they are theoretically possible, I fail to see how Rossler or Rosslers paper becomes any more relevent through association by him...

As an aside, what is endophysics? That link is extermely vauge and I've certainly never actually heard of it. THMRK1 (talk) 12:22, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Endophysics is a field of theoretical physics founded by Otto Rössler, the term was coined by David_Finkelstein in a letter to Dr. Rossler.

There is a sentence; "Nuclear physicist Walter L. Wagner has argued that if Micro black holes are produced at the LHC, they might not decay as predicted by CERN, since Hawking radiation is not an experimentally-tested or naturally observed phenomenon and might not exist.[8][22]"

As leading plaintiff it's only natural there is a brief resume of his concerns, as him and his court case certainly are notable. But opinions from non experts should be removed. ^Khukri 09:28, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Walter Wagner is most notable for the legal action. Otto Rössler is most notable for credible opposition concerns. If unverified internally disputed original research safety arguments from CERN are included, then a brief summary of credible opposition safety arguments from notable theoretical physicist Dr. Rossler should not be censored by CERN advocates. --Jtankers (talk) 11:58, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

You have a new website to show us. Very nice, JT. It's still irrelevent to the article though. CERNs paper is published online. You can go see it for yourself. I can't find Rosslers anywhere. Care to point me in the right direction? Bare in mind that self publishing does not count. His concern is not credible until he publishes it and has it peer reviewed. But I find that difficult to believe will actually happen given that his calculations do not even support his claim and appear to be flawed. Stop ignoring stuff that doesn't suit your case, JT. The editors here have been gracious enough to spend their time reading through that stuff you're posting. When you say that it is, in effect, not worthy of being added to this argument you ignore them and argue the point anyway. THMRK1 (talk) 12:22, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

[How is this statement not biased and misleading?]. Both CERN's work and Dr. Rossler's work are currently identically "published on the web", CERN's original research includes arguments first proposed in Dr. Rossler work (charged black holes) and both are referenced at the top of this discussion page. --Jtankers (talk) 12:17, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I refuse to repeat myself and I'm dragging this section off topic. Let's get back to the original point, shall we? I agree with Khukri.THMRK1 (talk) 12:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

The request is for neutral third party opinions, can I assume that you THMRK1 (talk) do not have a conflict of interest? Khukri is a CERN employee and CERN and CERN employee's have a vested interest in LHC appearing to be proven safe. I am the founder and co-administrator of LHCFacts.org, though I do not have anything to gain that is not also shared with defendants in the legal action (safety). --Jtankers (talk) 12:43, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I have nothing to gain by editing this article. After looking up the different side of the argument I honestly believe that anything more than the two lines suggested would be doing Wikipedia a huge disservice. I have not edited the article at all, I come into this discussion by trying to make it as unbias as it possibly can be. THMRK1 (talk) 13:19, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Putting an unreviewed, scientifically inaccurate opinions by non-experts on the web is not what is construde as published in scientific circles. You may want to read Academic publishing. Simple case in hand James look for the CERN report in spires or arxiv and then look for Rossler's piece, I'm sure I know which one you will find and which one you won't, care to wager? Their manner of publication is not identical and only someone with an agenda would compare them so.

This has been explained to you umpteen times that the CERN article has been reviewed and published, continuing to repeat these mistruths does not make it correct. There is only one editor here who believe un-reviewed science is credible science and that is you, it maybe acceptable on all your website and the comments and misinformation you spread around the web, but please do not keep repeating it here. You have no foundation for your statements that the CERN work hasn't been reviewed and published, or that Rossler's work has any credibility what so ever. ^Khukri 12:41, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Khukri you are changing the subject to the credibility of the organized safety opposition's concerns (science on both sides is unsettled and potentially credible), when multiple editors and and third opinions on multiple forums have explained to you that the issue is notability, which you ignore and refuse to accept. Quote from the top of this section:

QUOTE: Llywrch's 18:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC) post (now in WP:AN/I archive 446) summed up the situation very well:

[T]he article lacks any explanation for why the people who filed an injunction think that the SHC is a potential danger. ... A sentence or two in the proper paragraph ought to meet that need. And please note carefully: doing this does not give undue weight to a fringe theory, it is explaining the motivation for one group's actions. Thus writing more than the amount I suggest, IMHO, would give undue weight.

QUOTE: "The underlining is mine, and I entirely concur. — Athaenara ✉ 01:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)" --Jtankers (talk) 12:52, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Correct, the issue is notable and I have said that all along. To pretend that I haven't is another misrepresentation of the truth. My issue lies with using unreliable science to say the world could be destroyed in 50 months to 50 years when it has no basis in science. So please stop trying to misrepresent my position. ^Khukri 14:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

If I understand your position, then we could agree to a statement similar to: Otto Rössler has stated that micro black holes created in the LHC could grow exponentially and he has sought scientific debate on his research before the LHC particle collisions begin. That statement or similar would be [acceptable to] me. --Jtankers (talk) 00:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I would be much happier with that, BUT I've just seen your link you added to the reflist above about his future possible meeting with the Swiss president, that is certainly notable and warrants inclusion. I still have issues with the fact that his science 1) maybe flawed 2) hasn't been reviewed and the inclusion of this type of information, but the fact he has got this level of recognition is in itself notable. If I get a chance I will propose a sentence that covers this without implied affirmation of his position this afternoon, or you can do so and we can discuss it later. ^Khukri 10:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Where does this fit in

Where would we put an independent, reliably sourced, and published paper that completely disproves Rosslers unpublished ideas? http://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.3349 ^Khukri 13:55, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I created a new section for other reviews like this one.  Done --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:42, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, we now have it reliably sourced that Rossler's ideas "are based on an elementary misunderstanding of the theory of general relativity." here, how do we add this, to keep Rossler in perspective. ^Khukri 09:13, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The statement should have an author to attest that these are quotes from Dr. Nicolai. --Jtankers (talk) 11:53, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Apparently, Rossler disagrees with the analysis. See his blog. [3]

--Phenylalanine (talk) 11:13, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Here's an interesting news article on the subject: [4]

--Phenylalanine (talk) 11:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Isn't Hermann Nicolai the director of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and not the Albert-Einstein-Institut? THMRK1 (talk) 13:15, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I think they are one and the same no? Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics ^Khukri 14:28, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Ahh yes. Sorry. I wiki'd and got something completely different. I apologise. I'm having something of a slow day. Either way, good find! THMRK1 (talk) 15:34, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The article contains an un-sourced un-authored statement of opinion in which an unnamed third party alleges that Dr. Hermann Nicolai may have opinions that may or may not be true and accurate. This statement of opinion from an unknown author about the opinion of another author denigrating an eminent scientist's work should not be included unless and until it can be Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources substantiated. --Jtankers (talk) 11:53, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I provided two references. The second reference confirms that Dr. Hermann Nicolai holds the views described in the PDF document. --Phenylalanine (talk) 12:22, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I only saw the one source. If these are direct quotes from Dr. Nicolai then that may be a reasonably sourced as long as an author is provided. I have some questions about notability, I will review this evening. Thanks. --Jtankers (talk) 12:38, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Hold the phone, James did you just ask for something to be reliably sourced? ;) I'm not sure about the inclusion of the german (NZZ.CH) translation as I think alot is lost in translation and comes across as a tad harsh on Rossler. As soon as an English speaking journal picks up on this I think we should change the link over. ^Khukri 13:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I did not see anything rather harsh about Dr. Rossler other than the alleged comments from Dr. Nicolai which may not be credible. Dr. Rossler disputes the assessment allegedly from Dr. Nicolai. How is the alleged opinion of Dr. Nicolai notable? --Jtankers (talk) 07:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I have no problems with it staying in at all. If a biochemists unpublished opinions on the subject are notable, surely an actual physicists opinions and rebuttal are equally relevant. Your argument changed half way these discussion to Rossler should be included as he has received press (notability) on the issue, as Hermann Nicolai is now in press also makes him equally notable. ^Khukri 07:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I was unable to find Dr. Nicolai in the press referencing Dr. Rossler's work, only an authorless PDF document that claims that Dr. Nicolai told some unknown person his opinions, and Dr. Rossler's blog that refutes this. --Jtankers (talk) 07:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Just do Ctrl + F and type Nicolai in the NZZ article, you should be able to see his name and what he thinks of Rosslers science there. ^Khukri 07:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Confirmed. --Jtankers (talk) 07:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Article's Title

I am sorry if my topic is pointless. As a newcomer in wikipedia, i would like to understand what wikipedia policies support the existence of an article specifically dedicated to the safety of a scientific project of that kind, with such little historical precedent. Is it really an article for an encyclopedia ? If the article does merit inclusion in the encyclopedia as a notable popular or contentious item, couldn't the title be changed to "LHC safety debate ?", hence maybe highlighting the contentious nature of the problem. (please pardon my strange english). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.16.133.142 (talk) 00:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

--72.59.104.120 (talk) 13:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Well firstly, the safety isn't actually that contentious in the scientific sense. Secondly, the article title doesn't convey that the LHC is safe Nil Einne (talk) 11:40, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Minority Opinions

CERN's Scientific Policy Committee approved the 2008 LHC Safety Report by a 4 of 5 internal majority.. This is notable and should be included in the article. --Jtankers (talk)

Can you show me in the report where it says it was 4/5 because all I could see was "...discussion and ensuing endorsement by the full SPC...". Thanks ^Khukri 07:05, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The quote from the July 2, 2008 [Alan] Gillis ScientificBlogging article Superfluids, BECs and Bosenovas: The Ultimate Experiment is "The LSAG safety review at CERN, even their new report, is still a 4/5 majority internal assessment, and with an independent SPC Report/review of that review that’s still a CERN committee of 5 physicists, though the mainstream media is content with the CERN press releases, ‘No Danger That The LHC Will Destroy The Earth’, about everywhere.". I have contact information for science journalist Allan Gillis if you wish. --Jtankers (talk) 07:17, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry the blog doesn't really count per Self-published sources, but I'm sure you can contact him to find out his sourcing. ^Khukri 07:22, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The article is not self published nor a blog. ScientificBlogging is a news outlet that publishes work from multiple journalists and recently includes an article from 2001 Nobel Prize for Physics winner Carl Wieman. --Jtankers (talk) 07:30, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

OK my mistake but his it has to come from somewhere. I can find in neither the SPC report or the LSAG report itself any mention of 4/5. How do we get around this? If you wish to add it I will just add that it's incorrect as per the report itself. If you can find out his sourcing, or show where in the report there was dissent or disagreement then I have no problems with it being added. But if we have the actual report saying one thing and a journalist saying something about it, that isn't in it or we can't show then we have to go with the report. Also his article has other errors, the SPC wasn't 5 CERN physicists. ^Khukri 08:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Just re-reading this, could we be mistaken in it's interpretation could it mean four or five? Just a thought. ^Khukri 12:14, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Five members of CERN's SPC committee reviewed the 2008 LHC Safety Report and according to the article 4 of the 5 selected physicists approved the report. I sent an email to Alan Gillis requesting confirmation. --Jtankers (talk) 12:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

4/5 refers to the 4 internal CERN, 1 external scientist composition of the authors of the 2008 LHC Safety Report. --Jtankers (talk) 14:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it. ^Khukri 12:22, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

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