Does probing the laws of nature put the Earth in jeopardy?

A response to a post at NPR's Cosmos and Culture blog: Physics vs. Philosophy:

Within the experimental physics community, the view is that it is OK to operate a Large Hadron Collider because, if it makes miniature black holes, they will 'evaporate'. According to present theory.

But what if theory is wrong. (It has happened before.) Then, the black hole may go into orbit around the Earth, but with part of the orbit going through the Earth. If collisions with other particles cause the orbit to decay and also cause the black hole to accrete mass, then it grows, and it finds its way more and more toward the center of the Earth, where accretion of more matter is ever more likely. So it grows. Then, when the mass is large enough, the whole Earth implodes into the black hole. Is this an inherent risk of trying to probe the laws of nature at their extreme limits?

Can we *ever* answer the question of whether the universe is cyclic, or had a beginning? Can we do it without simultaneously putting the whole Earth in jeopardy?

Recently an extreme gamma ray burst was recorded. It was not known whether it was an extremely distant star colliding with another star or a less distant asteroid crashing into a neutron star. The middle possibility (an imploding planet) was not mentioned.

The Gaia Brain blog

Tue May 08 2012 12:53:33 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)