We live in a material world. In this world, we are used to dealing with simple physical problems where masses on springs oscillate in a consistent manner and gravity is always 10. Of course, then there's quantum mechanics, where apocalyptic events are right around every corner in all 11 dimensions.
In his column "Earth's First Black Hole" (Apr. 8), Brian Solomon addresses one such quantum possibility: the creation of a black hole in the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator in Switzerland. While he recognizes the improbability of such an occurrence, he brings up the important question of scientific oversight. Who is to stop scientists from performing the experiments that lead to our quantum annihilation? Who has the authority to intervene when scientists perform experiments that might destroy life as we know it?
To answer this pressing question, consider first that the quantum apocalypse is not at all restricted to the laboratory. Nature as a whole is generally indifferent toward the continued existence of humanity, considering us to be nothing more than a motley assortment of particles. The primary goal of the universe is to find the lowest possible energy state, and if that includes the destruction of a few human lives, then so be it.
If you need an example of Mother Nature's murderous tendencies, look no further than the 2 million neutrinos passing through your body every second. These particles, products of the fusion within the sun, interact weakly with matter, but every once in a while they'll strike and alter an atomic nucleus. (For a perspective on just how infrequently this happens, it takes about a light-year of lead to stop only half of the neutrino population from the sun.) Nevertheless, within a definable but inconceivably small probability, one of these neutrinos may strike an atom in your DNA in just the right place and cause that cell to become cancerous. Then (with further decreased likelihood) that cell might not be destroyed by your autoimmune system, and that may lead to the development of full-blown cancer, which possesses its own probability of killing you.
Every moment that passes marks another roll of the cosmic dice that could end in your demise, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. While this may spell out only a personal apocalypse, there are certainly other infinitesimally improbable possibilities defined by quantum mechanics. Who is going to protect us from these chance occurrences?
Returning to the case of human experimentation, who is going to oversee science? Well, the truth is that it's not scientists I'd be the most concerned about. The atomic bomb wasn't created by a bunch of ambitious young scientists out to prove they could destroy the world; it was, in fact, a government-sponsored project. You'll find very few independent scientists researching weapons technology or other destructive mechanisms without the financial backing of some military. Somehow, I don't think NASA is going to support projects with stated aims that include "the elimination of the human race."
Essentially, the only people we can trust with preventing a scientific apocalypse are the scientists themselves. Sure, they are the ones wielding the toys that could destroy life as we know it, but they are also the only people capable of calculating the risks and potential benefits involved in any study.
In fact, without their theories and experiments, how would we know about the dangers of the universe? An ignorance of the existence of cancer clearly does not make it go away, but attempting to understand the disease can help us to both cure those afflicted as well as to understand other diseases. Similarly, the LHC is going to test current predictions and open the door for new theories, ultimately helping us answer questions like "Where does mass come from?" and "Are there extra dimensions as predicted by string theory?" I wouldn't count on finding a dark matter generator on eBay before you find your nuclear toaster, but the technology is coming.
Everything we do (and even doing nothing) carries its own inherent risk, and that's just a quantum fact that nobody can do anything about. The LHC may be more dangerous than your Physics 13 labs, but these days measuring coefficients of friction just isn't interesting science. If you're really worried about quantum improbabilities, go find a neutrino counter and see if you can find blocks of lead on sale. A light-year's worth has to come with some sort of bulk discount.
