Cern Lhc/alice/atlas

[Thanatos]

Quote by: Derach Lucky for you, my friend ... I am in the unique position to rest your mind at ease. We here at the Handy Dandy Black Hole Insurance Company of Woheego Massachusetts firmly believe that it should be within the reach of all people to safeguard their families and belongings in the event you are injured or suffer loss due to a man made black hole. For just $9.00 per month, you can sleep soundly knowing that if (WHEN) mankind finally crosses that inevidable threshold of unleashing the power of black holes into your neighborhood, your family will sit pretty with twenty hundred billion dollars of insurance. PM me for more info

Look, I know approximately how big a particle accelerator we'd need to exceed the energies of cosmic rays that are already buzzing around the universe. When we build it the machine won't be on Earth because it wouldn't fit. Are you feeling better?

[CitizenX]

Quote by: minorwork Live. Live to the max.

Good advice.

Quote by: Derach For just $9.00 per month, you can sleep soundly knowing that if (WHEN) mankind finally crosses that inevidable threshold of unleashing the power of black holes into your neighborhood, your family will sit pretty with twenty hundred billion dollars of insurance.

Good value.

Quote by: Thanatos Are you feeling better?

No. Not at all, but good try all the same. Thanks.

[drummerguy13]

so whats going to happen on collider day?

[Thanatos]

Quote by: drummerguy13 so whats going to happen on collider day?

Scientists, me, most people will:

-Await analysis and listen for news of new particles and new dimensions.
-Savor every moment of the final humiliation of everybody else in this thread.

Disaster theorists will:

-Anxiously await the rumbling sound of super earthquakes as black holes or strange matter (that's its name, for being composed entirely of strange quarks) eat the Earth from the inside out.
-Instantly and painlessly explode due to sudden alterations in the laws of physics from a vacuum metastability catastrophe.
-Fight desperately as demonic aliens pour through the stargate and invade our world in a sequence they describe as curiously similar to the last part of the first Hellboy.
-Get really, really drunk in preparation for all three.

Oh right after I posted this I found this. Without invoking aliens just waiting beyond our Van Allen belt and the LHC disrupting them or the machine somehow going up several orders of magnitude and doing the first or second option, there are still a few things that might happen. They're unimpressive but worth noting.

New Scientist Short Sharp Science Blog: LHC: Top 5 best and worst things that could happen

[Failed Design]

I hope the LHC does end the world. That would make my day.

[Codak]

The question is what we can do against CERN? The public is beginning to realize they have no control over these types of risky experiments and it has to stop. This new public awareness is a good thing.

A group of scientists probing the unknown with running a wide range of high energy particle experiments which could have the potential to destroy the Earth while using misleading PR to understate the risks to the public is just plain ignorant and wrong.

Most people on earth are still unaware and uniformed this experiment is about to start. This is also just plain wrong. And these kinds of experiments are going to have to stop unless there is total human consent. Or go build it somewhere else off world.

But CERN is not going to stop the LHC from ripping particles apart at dead stop collisions looking for extra dimensions, Higgs, MBH, etc. And these self-righteous people are laughing because they won and can now play with their new toy. But they also succeeded at losing lots of public trust by pushing this to happen through a huge PR effort of downplaying the unknown risks - which will still exist far beyond Sept 10.

An example, CERN PR will downplay the risks by saying that “everyone is still here and it is after Sept 10”. But it is really a façade to cover the fact that these collisions are going to continue to probe the unknown in a big way and any negative consequences may not be detectable till years later - by then it will be too late.

This CERN PR and arrogance to the public is helping by doing a great job of eroding public trust to reckless science discovery like this.

The LHC experiments will also be contributing to a new public awareness of scientific self-righteousness having started with first detonation of the atomic bomb where there was no regards to the safety for people living on this planet. Congrats.

[minorwork]

Quote by: Codak The question is what we can do against CERN? The public is beginning to realize they have no control over these types of risky experiments and it has to stop. This new public awareness is a good thing.

Are you including the public that doesn't vote? Awareness? You're kidding. Your fear mongering promotes ignorance, and worse promotes it as desirable.

Quote by: Codak A group of scientists probing the unknown with running a wide range of high energy particle experiments which could have the potential to destroy the Earth while using misleading PR to understate the risks to the public is just plain ignorant and wrong.

"...could have..." "...potential..." These are words that refer to ignorance. And yet you brand as 'misleading PR' any attempt to clarify understanding and knowledge on the issue.

Quote by: Codak But CERN is not going to stop the LHC from ripping particles apart at dead stop collisions looking for extra dimensions, Higgs, MBH, etc. And these self-righteous people are laughing because they won and can now play with their new toy. But they also succeeded at losing lots of public trust by pushing this to happen through a huge PR effort of downplaying the unknown risks - which will still exist far beyond Sept 10.

Fear of the unknown is incentive for religions. To the fear monger there is no shortage of the unknown. No shortage of the darkness that is ignorance. An ignorance that perceives the light of knowledge as a threat to its very existence. You would even claim that absence of any negative effects is a negative since ignorance of the future still exists.

Quote by: Codak An example, CERN PR will downplay the risks by saying that “everyone is still here and it is after Sept 10”. But it is really a façade to cover the fact that these collisions are going to continue to probe the unknown in a big way and any negative consequences may not be detectable till years later - by then it will be too late. This CERN PR and arrogance to the public is helping by doing a great job of eroding public trust to reckless science discovery like this. The LHC experiments will also be contributing to a new public awareness of scientific self-righteousness having started with first detonation of the atomic bomb where there was no regards to the safety for people living on this planet. Congrats.

You're welcome. If you're gonna' make an omelet you've got to break a few eggs.

[Nono]

I hate to be a bore about this aspect of things, but I live a 10-minute drive from the thing. The CERN is a world unto itself.

Voters have a hard enough time understanding the financing of old-age pensions, say, let alone particle physics. Just how are people supposed to judge this?

I already have sufficient trouble wrapping my mind around the physics I learned in high-school, and I consider myself relatively well informed.

I tend to see things Thanatos's way: It's Walter Mitty bullshit to imagine that homo sapiens could unleash forces that even remotely approach what's obviously loose in the universe anyway.

I'll be on holiday when they crank the damn thing up, and if I suddenly disappear into a puff of anti-plasma or whatever, well that's life.

[shrike]

You cannot stop progress.Its a nature of humanity.

[minorwork]

Filmed inside the collider, this video should clarify what's going on at CERN. ENJOY!

YouTube - Large Hadron Rap

[Codak]

This video should further clarify what's going on at CERN.

Ask a Fish Head anything you want to....they won't answer they can't talk...

Short Version:

YouTube - Fish Heads Fish Heads

Long Version:

YouTube - Barnes & Barnes: Fish Heads


ENJOY its a classic!!

[Aussie]

I think this site has all the answers:

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?

[Zakari]

Morning all - first post and it's a nerdy thread!

Well - we're not all Toast or bits of Singularity yet then...hurrah!

Was excitedly watching the boffins on BBC Breakfast this morning...I hope they get some clever data from the tests.

[CitizenX]

Of course you all know that the actual very high energy collision will not happen until mid/end October. Don't you?
If anything is going to go wrong it will not be until then.

[Zakari]

Yes - I know it's still getting started - it was a just a poke at the crazies predicting armageddon.....

Hawking has bet $100 that the Higgs Boson won't be found, coz it'll be more interesting that way to have to rethink the Standard Model....

[leegao]

I'm pretty sure that in the 5th dimension we can find one instance in which the earth was destroyed

Anyways, it's finally open today XD

[Diamond Joe]

Hi all, I like the majority of the world I don't claim to fully understand the mechanics of this whole process and therefore cannot comment on the likely events of when the two beams eventually collide. However, this has been carried out before, albeit on a smaller scale, without the world being swallowed up.

I apologise for my ignorance, if that is what it is, however, is this merely the media once again capitalising on what should be a monumental advancement in human progress, for their own financial benefit?

We are afterall a species that has, and is evolving constantly, and will always naturally seek answers to our origins. This is why we are "top of the tree" and why we stand out amongst other species on our little planet.

There will always be scaremongering, it's big business! If it's not the ozone it's global warming. These are real issues, not necessarily the fault of just the human race, (thats another debate) however, as a species we need to understand in order to grow. We can't understand unless we find answers.

To finish, (didn't intend to make my first post this long!) our lust for knoledge will not go away, be thankful that we are being informed (maybe not fully) about how we are seeking this knoledge and that it is not being kept under wraps. This should be an exciting time for us all.

I truely hope the answers, will eventually enable us all to progress, for all our future generations sake.

[Stephen_Hacking]

Just wanted to get in my 2 cents - I'm glad to see this heat up with Hawking and Higgs going at one another a bit - debate, disagreement and discussion is good science. Given my limited knowledge of the subject, I believe one of the major purposes of the experiment is an attempt to "prove" whether Higgs's boson exists and it is what gives matter mass or the standard model is correct (and there really is something called Hawking Radiation) or they're both out in left field and their models need a little more work. Great work either way, H & H. As far as all the media hype about black holes, etc., I don't believe any of that will happen as long as velocities are below light speed. If we're ever able to achieve C velocities in an accelerator (doubtful), then maybe we'd need to be more concerned - theoretically, strange things occur at that speed....

[minorwork]

Evolutionary Acceleration Research Institute Ready to Start “Squirrel Smasher”

By Brian Briggs

Dallas, TX – Scientists from the Evolutionary Acceleration Research Institute (EARI) announced that the first test of the Giant Animal Smasher (GAS) will begin on December 19, 2008, the 41st anniversary of the premiere of Dr. Dolittle.


Dr. Thomas Malwin, head of the research project, said, "The first test runs will only accelerate microscopic life-forms like bacteria and viruses to high speeds, but theoretically the GAS can handle animals as large as squirrels, hence the squirrel smasher moniker."

Biologists from around the globe hope the GAS will unlock the secrets of the so-called "Darwin particle" that could unlock the secrets to life. "If we discover the Darwin particle we could possibly create new life-forms, or accelerate evolution to unimaginable levels," said Malwin. The GAS is a 25 mile tube buried ten feet below the surface, and accelerates the animals up to a speed of 6,000 meters per second using a series of pulleys, levers and fusion reactors.

Malwin dismissed critics who claimed that smashing animals together at high speeds was cruel to the animals. He said, "The animals won't be feeling anything. The collision will vaporize the squirrels in a fraction of a second. Their brains won't be able to transmit pain at those speeds, so it'll be painless for them."

Scientists currently rely on computer simulations to smash biological units, but simulations can only do so much, and without the visceral enjoyment of seeing two squirrels collide at thousands of miles an hour.

Malwin said there will be controls in place to prevent new undesirable species from forming. "Only species of the same type will be smashed together, so you don't have to worry about the flying rat, or poisonous Chihuahua nightmare scenarios."

One scientist at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, said, "Biologists are just jealous of all the attention the LHC has been getting. Since they aren't real scientists, they had to come up with this atrocity. Next thing you know the psychologists will build a brain smasher to compete."

[Nono]

Link don't work.