Editing Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (section)

==Critics of high-energy experiments==
{{See also|Safety of particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider}}
{{Wikinews|Possible black hole created in US}}
Before RHIC started operation, critics postulated that the extremely high energy could produce catastrophic scenarios,<ref>
{{cite magazine
 |author1=T. D. Gutierrez
 |year=2000
 |title=Doomsday Fears at RHIC
 |magazine=[[Skeptical Inquirer]]
 |volume=24 |pages=29
}}</ref>
such as creating a [[black hole]], a transition into a different [[quantum mechanics|quantum mechanical]] [[vacuum state|vacuum]] (see [[false vacuum]]), or the creation of [[strange matter]] that is more stable than ordinary [[matter]]. These hypotheses are complex, but many predict that the Earth would be destroyed in a time frame from seconds to millennia, depending on the theory considered. However, the fact that objects of the Solar System (e.g., the Moon) have been bombarded with [[cosmic ray|cosmic particles]] of significantly higher energies than that of RHIC and other man-made colliders for billions of years, without any harm to the Solar System, were among the most striking arguments that these hypotheses were unfounded.<ref name="jaffe"/>

{{Wikinews|Fireball generated in U.S. laboratory resembles black hole}}
The other main controversial issue was a demand by critics {{Citation needed|date=January 2008}} for [[physicist]]s to reasonably exclude the [[probability]] for such a catastrophic scenario. Physicists are unable to demonstrate experimental and [[astrophysics|astrophysical]] constraints of zero probability of catastrophic events, nor that tomorrow Earth will be struck with a "[[Doomsday event|doomsday]]" [[cosmic ray]] (they can only calculate an upper limit for the likelihood). The result would be the same destructive scenarios described above, although obviously not caused by humans. According to this argument of upper limits, RHIC would still modify the chance for the Earth's survival by an infinitesimal amount.

Concerns were raised in connection with the RHIC particle accelerator, both in the media<ref>
{{Cite journal
 |author1=R. Matthews |author-link=Robert Matthews (scientist)
 |date=28 August 1999
 |title=A Black Hole Ate My Planet
 |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16322014.700-a-black-hole-ate-my-planet.html
 |journal=[[New Scientist]]
 |access-date=2017-01-24
}}</ref><ref name="End Day">
{{Cite episode
 |date=2005
 |title=End Day
 |title-link=End Day
 |series=Horizon
 |series-link=Horizon (BBC TV series)
 |network=[[BBC]]
}}</ref> and in the popular science media.<ref>
{{cite magazine
 |author1=W. Wagner
 |title=Black holes at Brookhaven?
 |magazine=[[Scientific American]]
 |date=July 1999
}} (And reply by F. Wilczek.)</ref> The risk of a doomsday scenario was indicated by [[Martin Rees]], with respect to the RHIC, as being at least a 1 in 50,000,000 chance.<ref>Cf. [[Brookhaven National Laboratory|Brookhaven]] Report mentioned by [[Martin Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow|Rees, Martin]] (Lord), ''Our Final Century: Will the Human Race Survive the Twenty-first Century?'', U.K., 2003, {{ISBN|0-465-06862-6}}; note that the mentioned "1 in 50 million" chance is disputed as being a misleading and played down probability of the serious risks (Aspden, U.K., 2006)</ref> With regards to the production of [[strangelet]]s, [[Frank Close]], professor of physics at the [[University of Oxford]], indicates that "the chance of this happening is like you winning the major prize on the lottery 3 weeks in succession; the problem is that people believe it is possible to win the lottery 3 weeks in succession."<ref name="End Day"/> After detailed studies, scientists reached such conclusions as "beyond reasonable doubt, heavy-ion experiments at RHIC will not endanger our planet"<ref>
{{Cite journal
 |author1=A. Dar
 |author2=A. De Rújula
 |author3=U. Heinz
 |year=1999
 |title=Will relativistic heavy-ion colliders destroy our planet?
 |journal=[[Physics Letters B]]
 |volume=470 |issue=1–4
 |pages=142–148
 |arxiv=hep-ph/9910471
 |bibcode=1999PhLB..470..142D
 |doi=10.1016/S0370-2693(99)01307-6
|s2cid=17837332
 }}</ref> and that there is "powerful empirical evidence against the possibility of dangerous strangelet production".<ref name=jaffe>
{{Cite journal
 |author1=R. L. Jaffe
 |author2=W. Busza
 |author3=J. Sandweiss
 |author4=F. Wilczek
 |year=2000
 |title=Review of Speculative "Disaster Scenarios" at RHIC
 |journal=[[Reviews of Modern Physics]]
 |volume=72 |issue=4 |pages=1125–1140
 |arxiv=hep-ph/9910333
 |bibcode=2000RvMP...72.1125J
 |doi=10.1103/RevModPhys.72.1125
|s2cid=444580
 }}</ref>

The debate started in 1999 with an exchange of letters in ''[[Scientific American]]'' between [[Walter L. Wagner]] and [[Frank Wilczek|F. Wilczek]],<ref>
{{cite magazine
 |author1=W. L. Wagner
 |author2=F. Wilczek
 |date=July 1999
 |magazine=[[Scientific American]]
 |volume=281 |page=8
}}</ref>  in response to a previous article by M. Mukerjee.<ref>
{{cite magazine
 |author=M. Mukerjee
 |date=March 1999
 |magazine=[[Scientific American]]
 |volume=280 |page=60
}}</ref> The media attention unfolded with an article in UK ''[[The Sunday Times|Sunday Times]]'' of July 18, 1999, by J. Leake,<ref name="JLeake18July1999">
{{cite web
 |author1=J. Leake
 |date=18 July 1999
 |title=Big Bang machine could destroy Earth
 |url=http://www.wisdomofsolomon.com/bigbang.html
 |work=[[Sunday Times]]
}}</ref> closely followed by articles in the U.S. media.<ref>
{{cite web
 |author1     = F. Moody
 |date        = 5 October 2003
 |title       = The Big Bang, Part 2
 |url         = https://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/FredMoody/moody990914.html
 |website     = [[ABC News (United States)|ABC News]]
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20031005104321/https://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/FredMoody/moody990914.html
 |archive-date = 2003-10-05
 |url-status     = dead
}}</ref> The controversy mostly ended with the report of a [[committee]] convened by the [[Board of Directors|director]] of Brookhaven National Laboratory, [[John Marburger|J. H. Marburger]], ostensibly ruling out the catastrophic scenarios depicted.<ref name=jaffe/> However, the report left open the possibility that relativistic cosmic ray impact products might behave differently while transiting earth compared to "at rest" RHIC products; and the possibility that the qualitative difference between high-E proton collisions with earth or the moon might be different than gold on gold collisions at the RHIC. Wagner tried subsequently to stop full-energy collision at RHIC by filing [[Federal government of the United States|Federal]] lawsuits in San Francisco and New York, but without success.<ref>
{{cite web
 |author=A. Boyle
 |date=14 June 2000
 |title=Big Bang machine gets down to work
 |url=http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077374/
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140313040747/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077374/
 |url-status=dead
 |archive-date=March 13, 2014
 |publisher=[[MSNBC]]
 |access-date=2017-01-24
}}</ref> The New York suit was dismissed on the technicality that the San Francisco suit was the preferred forum. The San Francisco suit was dismissed, but with leave to refile if additional information was developed and presented to the court.<ref>United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, Case No. 00CV1672, Walter L. Wagner vs. Brookhaven Science Associates, L.L.C. (2000); United States District Court, Northern District of California, Case No. C99-2226, Walter L. Wagner vs. U.S. Department of Energy, et al. (1999)</ref>

On March 17, 2005, the [[BBC]] published an article implying that researcher [[Horaţiu Năstase]] believes black holes have been created at RHIC.<ref>
{{cite news
 |date=17 March 2005
 |title=Lab fireball 'may be black hole'
 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4357613.stm
 |website=[[BBC News]]
 |access-date=2017-01-24
}}</ref> However, the original papers of H. Năstase<ref>
{{cite arXiv
 |author1=H. Nastase
 |year=2005
 |title=The RHIC fireball as a dual black hole
 |eprint=hep-th/0501068
}}</ref> and the ''[[New Scientist]]'' article<ref>
{{cite magazine
 |author1=E. S. Reich
 |date=16 March 2005
 |title=Black hole-like phenomenon created by collider
 |url=https://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg18524915.400
 |magazine=[[New Scientist]]
 |volume=185 |issue=2491 |page=16
}}</ref> cited by the BBC state that the correspondence of the hot dense [[QCD matter]] created in RHIC to a black hole is only in the sense of a correspondence of [[Quantum chromodynamics|QCD]] scattering in [[Minkowski space]] and scattering in the ''AdS''<sub>5</sub>&nbsp;×&nbsp;''X''<sub>5</sub> space in [[AdS/CFT]]; in other words, it is similar mathematically. Therefore, RHIC collisions might be described by mathematics relevant to theories of [[quantum gravity]]  within AdS/CFT, but the described physical phenomena are not the same.