German court rejects lawsuit against Large Hadron Collider
Apritl 27, 2010
Germany's Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe rejected a lawsuit brought by a German against the Large Hadron Collider, the court's press service said on Tuesday.
The woman residing in Zurich complained that proton collisions in the world's largest particle accelerator restarted in late February may generate black holes, which could swallow the planet
The collider, located 100 meters under the French-Swiss border with a circumference of 27 km, enables scientists to shoot subatomic particles round an accelerator ring at almost the speed of light, channeled by powerful fields produced by superconducting magnets.
The court rejected the lawsuit as the woman failed to explain convincingly how the collider violates her rights or could cause Armageddon.
The court said that "CERN research is not dangerous."
The $5.6 billion international LHC project has involved more than 2,000 physicists from hundreds of universities and laboratories in 34 countries since 1984.