YOU would have thought it was the final moments of the World Cup. An estimated 1 billion people were glued to their television screens. Nearly 6000 newspaper articles discussed the event and the blogosphere was buzzing with anticipation. were made, Google changed its logo for the day, and people placed their . Only it wasn’t soccer that people around the globe were so enthralled by – it was a beam of protons.
The protons’ lap around the 27-kilometre circumf-erence of the , the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, was the talk around water coolers everywhere. Coverage of the event even bumped the US election into second place.
But would the LHC have enjoyed the same media coverage if a handful of critics hadn’t spread that the particle smasher would create a black hole and swallow up the Earth? Surely not. The apocalyptic scenario had even the least science-curious minds wondering exactly what was going on deep underground at CERN on the French/Swiss border. These accusations brought the LHC into the everyday parlance of hundreds of millions of people who had never heard of the accelerator, or CERN, or protons.
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The situation has delighted and dismayed physicists in equal measure. of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park, California, sums it up best. “We all enjoyed sharing our enthusiasm for the science,” she says. “However, I don’t have anything good to say about the news coverage of impending doom from black hole production. It was just plain inaccurate sensationalism.”
In the days running up to the switch-on, the media was quick to devote many column inches to a few self-styled experts who insisted that the LHC would create mini black holes, vacuum bubbles, hypothetical particles called strangelets, or magnetic monopoles that would devour the Earth. No matter that refuted these claims. It is true that some theorists have excitedly speculated that the LHC could create microscopic black holes, though this would require the existence of extra dimensions of space. Even if mini black holes or other exotica could form, cosmic rays pinging around our solar system would already have created them in numbers far exceeding anything the LHC could ever produce. Since the Earth is patently still around, either mini black holes are benign or can’t be created in the first place. Physicists qualified to do such calculations have found serious flaws in the critics’ arguments. But when it comes to Earth-eating black holes, a story can take on a life of its own.
Hewett is right to criticise the media’s sensationalism. In the wake of these stories, parents called CERN begging for the LHC to be stopped for the sake of their children’s lives. Physicists received . Tragically, a teenager in India reportedly , terrified that the world was about to end.
This is evidence of the huge gulf separating physicists from the rest of the world. That some people would rather believe hearsay sparked by a fringe minority who are not particle physicists, rather than take the time to understand rational arguments, speaks volumes for our scientific illiteracy and the cultural illiteracy of scientists.
“The situation speaks volumes for our scientific illiteracy, and the cultural illiteracy of scientists”
Yet the LHC has handed physicists a golden opportunity to change perceptions and inspire people. Buoyed by popular demand, some newspaper editors are now clamouring for more stories about particle physics. Meanwhile CERN has seen a surge in enquiries about job vacancies.
Physicists should seize on every chance to publicise their work. The physics and engineering behind the LHC are vastly impressive, even without doomsday scenarios, and there will be plenty more milestones for the public to cheer about. First, they’ll have to root for the LHC to overcome its latest setback – an electrical glitch that caused a helium leak, pushing back the date of the first collision. Such technical difficulties are always frustrating, but it keeps the LHC in the spotlight and lends a heightened sense of drama to the story. When the collisions begin answering some of the biggest mysteries in physics, victory will taste even sweeter.
Hewett compares the LHC start-up to another momentous scientific event, the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope 18 years ago. “It was exciting when Hubble was launched,” she says. “But the real wonder came with the science.” The same goes for the LHC – the hype might simmer down and the media might find another story to scare up ratings, but the truly press-worthy moments are still to come as the results pour in and scientists catch a glimpse of the universe’s secrets.
In the end, the doomsayers may have done more for physics than years of outreach activities. They have opened millions of eyes to fundamental research and compelled larger numbers of physicists into an open dialogue about their work. They might not understand the physics arguments, but thanks to their scare tactics, many more people will.
The Large Hadron Collider – find out more about the world’s biggest experiment in our cutting-edge special report.
