LHC - Working From the Future to Thwart the Present

like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

Which is a paradox, by the way. You can't kill your grandfather because it would mean you wouldn't exist, a pre-req for murder.

Interesting alternate angle though: if having a child meant that your descendant would come back through time and kill you (paradox), then you should be unable to start the chain of events that would inextricably lead to that paradox (e.g., having a child). This falls apart for the murdered-grandfather scenario, what with free will and all, but might apply in black and white cases such as particle creation.¹

^{1. If the existence of a particle would negate its own existence, then you could never create the particle in the first place, no matter how you tried. The creation is the paradox.}

Or, more likely, the LHC is a complicated piece of machinery and is subject to mechanical failure.

Actually, if you add in a fifth dimension the grandfather paradox ceases to be paradox. A fifth dimension would allow for multiple different events to occur at the same x,y,z,time coordinate.

3128,546,456,4598 = 3128,546,456,4598
UNLESS you add in a fifth coordinate
3128,546,456,4598,1 is not = 3128,546,456,4598,2

For time travel to be possible, it would require the existance of a fifth dimension to distinguish between the alternate timelines; which may or may not exist.

That is not to say I believe any of the crap being invoked by these physicists. Especially since the failures are macroscopic, not microscopic. A mechanical failure is far from being an act of god as is being claimed in the article. If something like what he describes were to happen, it would likely be something small and unnoticeable to us.

To go "back in time" without going backwards in time requires that you leave the regular timeline and reenter it. So the first paradox is existing (in the present) and then suddenly not existing. The second paradox is not existing (in the past) and then suddenly existing. After that you can kill your grandfather or whatever since your not really connected to that reality that existed before the first paradox.

As far as the events on the LHC, the went with cheap magnets so save on cost. Combine that with being a extremely complex one of a kind piece of equipment and it almost guaranteed to be constant trouble. They'll get it going and have more set backs. Give it another decade.

Actually, if you add in a fifth dimension the grandfather paradox ceases to be paradox.

Very true. I wrote off the multiple dimension theory because it would mean that on some Earth in another dimension, the LHC is working just fine. Which negates the point in the first place.