Lose one, lose all?

[Jimmy]

Perhaps the death of an atom would trigger an existential collapse. Maybe infinity has catalogued all such atoms and the absence of one would cause a catastrophic meltdown of all things. I know they live a billion times longer than the age of our universe, but what if they’re were one lone defect somewhere?

 

[JoshuaTree]

We split atoms on a regular basis here on earth, no existential collapse yet.

 

[blü 2]

Perhaps the death of an fundamental particle would trigger an existential collapse. Maybe infinity has catalogued all such particles and the absence of one would cause a catastrophic meltdown of all things. I know they live a really long time, but what if they’re were one lone defect somewhere?

Then we'll just have to cross our fingers, won't we,

Same as when you've just washed your car and you notice pigs have grown wings.

 

[Aupmanyav]

It was a possibility when the CERN super colllider created anti-matter, but it did not happen that way.

 

[JoshuaTree]

It was a possibility when the CERN super colllider created anti-matter, but it did not happen that way.

Didn't physicists talk about that possibilty prior and concluded it was worth the risk?

 

[Jimmy]

Then we'll just have to cross our fingers, won't we,

Same as when you've just washed your car and you notice pigs have grown wings.

Yeah I just scrapped that notion. It’s probably the death of something larger that would trigger an existential collapse.

 

[blü 2]

Yeah I just scrapped that notion. It’s probably the death of something larger that would trigger an existential collapse.

You might enjoy the Big Rip hypothesis ...​

 

[Jimmy]

You might enjoy the Big Rip hypothesis ...​

Big R.I.P.

 

[Aupmanyav]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...roduced-cern&usg=AOvVaw1WRRLgDRxu9QCIMdBVXu-7

It seems they do it regularly.

Antimatter - Wikipedia

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Perhaps the death of an atom would trigger an existential collapse. Maybe infinity has catalogued all such atoms and the absence of one would cause a catastrophic meltdown of all things. I know they live a billion times longer than the age of our universe, but what if they’re were one lone defect somewhere?

How do you know that atoms are billions of ? older than the universe?

 

[ChristineM]

Didn't physicists talk about that possibilty prior and concluded it was worth the risk?

No, lay people and sensationalist media talked about it.

Physicists knew precisely what they were doing from early design stage

 

[lewisnotmiller]

No, lay people and sensationalist media talked about it.

Physicists knew precisely what they were doing from early design stage

[mutters]First time for everything I suppose...[/mutters]

 

[ChristineM]

[mutters]First time for everything I suppose...[/mutters]

I actually got that info direct from a horses mouth. A guy i know slightly (we used the same restaurants for a while and ended up chatting a couple of times) helped design the LHC and currently works on the Atlas project. The dangers were calculated right at the start and re-evaluated for very time of a design change.