> I've read about past fears that building increasingly powerful particle
> accelerators have the potential to create strange matter which is a mor=
e
> stable form of matter that would instantly convert all matter around it=
into
> this new form. Is there any potential of this occurring?
Well, the main fears have been that our vacuum state is a false vacuum wi=
th
higher energy than "true vacuum". A fluctuation might cause it to tunnel =
into
true vacuum in a small region, releasing immense amounts of energy, chang=
ing
the parameters of our physics and spreading with the speed of light (i.e.=
A
Bad Thing).=20
Fortunately this appears unlikely, since supernovae and black holes=20
doesn't seem to have broken the vacuum, and they are much more energetic.=
=20
If this is possible, it probably requires either absurdly large amounts=20
of energy or clever "sabotage" (reminds me of _Rymdv=E4ktaren_ by Nilsson=
,=20
where various entities try to prevent some kind of being from sabotaging=20
the laws of physics using "poisoned information").=20
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y