Why did everyone think that the LHC would end the world?

Question: Why did everyone think that the LHC would end the world?
- Keywords:
  end of the world,
  large hadron collider
Asked by numskullz1000 to Carol, Ellie, John, Philip, Rebecca on 27 Jun 2012.
- Philip Glasson answered on 27 Jun 2012:
  
  Because they’re Silly and scared of new things ?
  
  The LHC is a high powered atom-smasher, higher than any we have ever made before.
  but cosmic rays smash into our atmosphere with much higher energies than LHC so there is really no need to worry.
- Rebecca Lacey answered on 27 Jun 2012:
  
  I agree with Phil that people are silly! They were worried that the LHC would create black holes but this clearly did not happen!
- John Welford answered on 27 Jun 2012:
  
  You could also blame the media and people in general. There was one very slight mention of the possibility and suddenly everyone was talking about it. Then because everyone was talking about it people started to think that it was going to actually happen!
  
  Everyone seems to enjoy a scare story!
  
  I especially like this website that someone made in case people weren’t sure if the LHC had destroyed the world:
  http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/
- Carol White answered on 27 Jun 2012:
  
  I thought it might too! But then I put my scientist hat back on and did some research – nothing to worry about there.
  
  People are generally afraid of the unknown – and it’s even more scary when you don’t really know or understand what’s going on in a lab underneath the ground!
- Eleanor Turpin answered on 27 Jun 2012:
  
  The LHC can create tiny, microscopic black holes – some people were worried that one of these would suck the Earth into it. But when the LHC scientists did some maths they realised that these black holes would be so small that they wouldn’t have enough mass or gravity to suck anythying in – not even an electron.
  
  I think this is a case of the newspapers creating a scare story – none of the scientists involved thought it would happen but ‘Physicist Say Our Experiment is Safe’ doesn’t make an exciting headline.
  
  A much more dangerous physics experiment was conducted in 1945 when the first nuclear bomb was detonated in America during the Second World War. The scientists working on it didn’t know how powerful the nuclear reaction would be and thought there was a very small, but real, chance of all the oxygen in the Eath’s atmosphere being sucked in and the whole world suffocating. However, they took the risk because they knew that scientists working in Nazi Germany were developing the same technology and it was more important for them to have it first.

Question: Why did everyone think that the LHC would end the world?

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