Safety issues

Safety of particle collisions
Main article: Safety of the Large Hadron Collider
Although some individuals, including scientists, have questioned the safety of the planned experiments in the media and through the courts, the consensus in the scientific community is that there is no basis for any conceivable threat from the LHC particle collisions.[25][26][27]

Operational safety
The size of the LHC constitutes an exceptional engineering challenge with unique operational issues on account of the huge energy stored in the magnets and the beams.[6][28] While operating, the total energy stored in the magnets is 10 GJ (equivalent to 2.4 tons of TNT) and the total energy carried by the two beams reaches 724 MJ.[29]
Loss of only one ten-millionth part (10−7) of the beam is sufficient to quench a superconducting magnet, while the beam dump must absorb an energy equivalent to that of a typical air-dropped bomb. These immense energies are even more impressive considering how little matter is carrying it: under nominal operating conditions (2,808 bunches per beam, 1.15×1011 protons per bunch), the beam pipes contain 1.0×10-9 gram of hydrogen, which, in standard conditions for temperature and pressure, would fill the volume of one grain of fine sand.

Construction accidents and delays
On 25 October 2005, a technician was killed in the LHC tunnel when a crane load was accidentally dropped.[30] On 27 March 2007 a cryogenic magnet support broke during a pressure test involving one of the LHC's inner triplet (focusing quadrupole) magnet assemblies, provided by Fermilab and KEK. No one was injured. Fermilab director Pier Oddone stated "In this case we are dumbfounded that we missed some very simple balance of forces". This fault had been present in the original design, and remained during four engineering reviews over the following years.[31] Analysis revealed that its design, made as thin as possible for better insulation, was not strong enough to withstand the forces generated during pressure testing. Details are available in a statement from Fermilab, with which CERN is in agreement.[32][33] Repairing the broken magnet and reinforcing the eight identical assemblies used by LHC delayed the startup date,[34] then planned for November 2007, by several weeks.

In popular culture
The Large Hadron Collider has been featured in a number of novels, including Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer, Black Hole by Angelo Paratico,[35] and Decipher by Stel Pavlou, which described it in some detail. One of the most visible examples is Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, which involves dangerous antimatter created at the LHC used as a weapon against the Vatican. CERN published a "Fact or Fiction?" page discussing the accuracy of the book's portrayal of the LHC, CERN, and particle physics in general.[36] The movie version of the book has footage filmed on-site at one of the experiments at the LHC; the director, Ron Howard, also met with CERN experts in an effort to make the science in the story more accurate.[37] CERN employee Katherine McAlpine's "Large Hadron Rap"[38] surpassed two million YouTube views on 10 September 2008.[39][40][41]
BBC Radio 4 broadcast "Big Bang Day" on 10 September 2008 to coincide with the LHC being switched on. Included in this event was a radio episode of the TV series Torchwood, with a plot involving the LHC, entitled Lost Souls.[42][43]
On 10 September, to commemorate the firing of the Large Hadron Collider, Google displayed a custom Google Doodle[44] with a drawing of the LHC which linked to a web search for "Large Hadron Collider". It is a tradition for Google to change their logo to represent what they consider to be important or interesting events.[citation needed]
A 16-year-old girl from Sarangpur, Madhya Pradesh, India allegedly committed suicide after watching Indian news channels stating the possibility of Doomsday as the experiment begins.[45]