Quote Originally Posted by bluefinger View Post
How will a particle accelerator destroy the world? They may be accelerating a small stream of protons at high energies in order to collide, but the mass and density of particles are small enough in order to for it to create the necessary collisions for enough data to be collected, and not cause runaway explosions or whatever. If something went wrong, the beams would most likely simply burst out of the containment ring and burn through several metres of iron and concrete before the system is quickly shutdown (an incident once occurred in the FermiLabs exactly like this... a beam managed to break out and it burnt through 1 and a half metre of reinforced concrete in a matter of nanoseconds). Scientists do build in safety measures into these particle accelerators, and I just can't see how an explosion or 'catastrophe' can result from something like a particle accelerator.
I believe the danger doesnt come from any "beam" of energy as such.... but in the production of certain phenomenon from the collision of the particals. These includes, as the post above mine states, Micro Black holes, and "Stranglets"

There is a possibility that the MBH's will not degrade, and live long enough to start consuming matter, and become self sustaining.

There is also the possibility of the stranglet being produced. This is a particle which converts other particles into stranglets also. So a self catabolising reaction, which exponentially grows in size, consuming all it is in contact with. This would of course, render the world inhabitable

Those are just two theories however, I dont pretend to understand the physics behind all this.