Questions about the Large Hadron Collider - Physics experts, please?

[Alisha!]

First of all, does any one know the day when it becomes operational?

On the radio the other day, a man from the "Scottish Center for Scientific Research" (or something like that) was talking about the LHC. When the reporter asked him wether it was safe, he explained why it was. I didn't quite get it, he used fish in a river as an example, but in the end he said that any "micro black holes" would be destroyed by "Hawking Radiation." Is this true? I mean, for decades people have been worrying about Atom Smashers, but this one is big... still, I'm not an expert in the matter enough... is this darn thing safe?

[baardaapjes]

The LHC is expected to be operational next month. If a micro black hole is created, it will disapear moments after it's creation, the reason for this is non-trivial and can't be easily explained. One popular way of explaining is that antimatter lowers the mass of the black hole, making it dissapear.

If however a black hole is created with a bigger mass, it is quite possible that it will 'swallow' the world, making the moon orbit a black hole. This scenario is however extremely unlikely, and very few scientists take it seriously.