Quote Originally Posted by PeteB View Post
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.
Well then, it is simply a statistical probability on what theory is correct. First of all, how stable are strangelets? Secondly, are they stable enough to cause a exponential cascade? And thirdly, can they be created at all? However, strangelets were proposed as a hypothesis, and have yet to be observed at all.

And mini-black holes, again, does the extent of the Hawking Radiation cause the black hole to either evaporate before it can be detected, or would it not be enough or non-existant in order to deplete the mini-black hole before it can accumulate to dangerous levels.

Those two problems all work on the assumption of the worst case scenario. To be honest, it would constitute a very, very small percentage, but if this percentage is significant enough, then yeah, there are ethical problems. But then again, when they tested the first nuke, there were concerns the energy of the explosion would ignite the atmosphere, but that never happened.