The Large Hadron Collider countdown
Mikey 34 comments
The Large Hadron Collider countdown has begun, and there is a dedicated web site up and running for it. The LHC is the 'most ambitious particle-physics experiment ever', and is the worlds largest particle accelerator which lies under the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland.
When activated, it is theorised that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs Boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and "missing links" in the Standard Model of physics and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass. [Wikipedia]
This intimidating technical monster will shoot 14 trillion electron volts of energy particles around a 27 kilometre underground ring, and nearly half the particle physicists in the world will be involved in analysing its four-million-megabyte-per-hour stream of data. On the subject of what might happen, the science officer for the project Jos Engelen said:
"In quantum mechanics, there is a probability that this pen will fall through the table. All of a sudden, it will be on the floor. Because it can behave as a wave, it can go through; we call that the 'tunnel effect.' If you calculate the probability that this happens, it is not identical to zero. It is a very small probability. But it never happens. I've never seen it happen. You have never seen it happen. But to the general public you make a casual remark, 'It is not identical to zero, it is very small."
You see kids, this is what happens when you give 8 billion dollars to a group of geeks who can't get laid. More power to them!
Rodney
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 11:05 AMWhat's more funny is the sheer number of hilarious typo's that resulted out of this news:
Gina Squitieri
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 11:06 AMIf you gave me $8 billion and more power, I would try my utmost to come across as a genius, too, but the probability of that actually happening would be very small.
Just kidding. I see what they're saying. It brings to my mind how Pharaoh started working all his wondrous, magical spells. How did he respond whenever Moses worked a wonder? It sounded like, "That's not a knife. (indicating).... That's a knife." :D
Whatever became of pharoah?
Franken
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 11:09 AMAh now i get it. So the aim is to turn Geneva into this: http://www.saao.ac.za/~wgssa/as2/crater.jpg
Mikey
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 11:10 AM...in response to this comment by Rodney. I actually misspelled it the same way before I spell checked :-)
Franken
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 11:14 AM"four-million-megabyte-per-hour stream of data"
Just to put that in perspective, that's equivalent to downloading 851,063 DVD's per hour or 14,184 per minute. Slightly faster than dialup.
Jake
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 11:26 AMI for one find this experiment totally sexy and I can't wait to see what the research turns up.
Gary
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 11:32 AMIf this experiment leads to the discovery of a clean limitless power supply I'm all for it. It would also be cool if it leads to an explanation for ufo propulsion systems. I wonder which car manufacturer will be the first to begin production of a saucer shaped vehicle? Toyota Hadron anyone?
Nate >.>
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 12:06 PM...in response to this comment by Gary. Toyota?
As if mate, BMW would get in first :-p
Jake
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 12:24 PM...in response to this comment by Nate >.>. Personally I think Ferarri Hadron and Bentley Hadron sound better...
Tony
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 01:23 PM...in response to this comment by Franken. Great article Mikey! Really fascinating stuff! As for the geeks, I would bet those Swiss scientists have some blond bombshell wives. Intelligence is attractive over there I think.
Lets just hope they don't open a black hole, worm hole, or portal to another universe. Actually that might be kinda cool to watch on CNN!
Gravitational Singularity anyone?
"There is no pen"
Laiste
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 02:17 PMHey, this is supposed to be the start of time travel if these guys are right.
http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/15700/time-travel-possible-very-soon
Tony
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 03:54 PM...in response to this comment by Laiste. Time travel is possible, but not for any living creature. On top of the grandfather paradox. Any worm hole would rip us into atomic particles.
Even if we could, I don't think we should risk it. Even on the particle acceleration level. To me that is messing with the divinity of the universe. Read about the grandfather complex and you might be scared. The idea that we could possibly spark an entire new universe to come into existence. (parallel time line theory)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox
Laiste
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 04:02 PM...in response to this comment by Tony. Believe me, I've read about time travel extensively :-) One of my favourite subjects which is why the article I linked to stuck in my mind I guess. There was another one floating around at the same time that suggested that time travel will be possible but only starting from now- from the point of the experiment. As in people from the future could only come back as far as 2008. I can't remember the details off hand. I'll see if I can find the article again.
Nikki
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 07:21 PM...in response to this comment by Rodney. Sounds like a good name for a sex aid.
Walt G.
Friday 13th June 2008 | 07:28 AM'The World is not Enough' - Revenge of the Nerds!
Nobel Prize hungry Physicists are racing each other and stopping at nothing to try to find the supposed 'Higgs Boson'(aka 'God') Particle, among others, and are risking nothing less than the annihilation of the Earth and all Life in endless experiments to try to solve theoretical problems when urgent real problems face the planet. The European Organization for Nuclear Research(CERN) new Large Hadron Collider(LHC) is the world's most powerful atom smasher that will soon be firing subatomic particles at each other at nearly the speed of light to create Miniature Big Bangs producing clouds of Micro Black Holes, Strangelets and other potentially cataclysmic phenomena.
The CERN-LHC website Mainpage itself states quote: "There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions,..." This stunning admission is because they truly don't know what's going to happen. They are experimenting with forces they don't understand to obtain results they can't comprehend. If you think like most people do that 'They must know what they're doing.' you could not be more wrong. The second part of the quote reads "...but what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator,..." A molecularly changed or Black Hole consumed Lifeless World? The end of the quote reads "as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe." These experiments to date have so far produced infinitely more questions than answers but there isn't a particle experimentalist physicist alive who wouldn't gladly trade his life to glimpse the "God particle", and sacrifice the rest of us with him.
This quote from Nation Geographic exactly sums this "science" up: "That's the essence of experimental particle physics: You smash stuff together and see what other stuff comes out."
For more information visit;
http://www.lhcdefense.org/
http://www.lhcconcerns.com
http://www.SaneScience.org/
http://www.LHCFacts.org
Popular Mechanics - "World's Biggest Science Project Aims to Unlock 'God Particle'" - http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/extreme_machines/4216588.html"
Johnson's Wang
Friday 13th June 2008 | 12:42 PMIt's a time machine - how do we know it hasn't already happened :-/
I have been following the development of this thing over the last 6 months and there is one theory out there that it is possible when they turn it on they could create a singularity aka a black hole.
I am eagerly awaiting to see what happens when they throw the switch. This could the beginning of the most epic scifi meets real life event in history.
Gong
Friday 13th June 2008 | 09:31 PMI love this
someone should write an article on the current status of fusion power
Kim OJ
Saturday 14th June 2008 | 12:08 AM...in response to this comment by The Movie Whore. The black holes this could create would be so small that they have no effect on even their nearest subatomic neighbors, and they would melt away almost immediately.
...in response to this comment by Kim OJ. Kim you just had to take all the fun out of it didn't you.
randino
Saturday 14th June 2008 | 11:24 AM...in response to this comment by Walt G.. Listen to Walt.
The last time i spoke with my neice (maybe 6 mnths) she was about to get on a plane.
Her iq is wayyyyyyy out their. She first was working for Nasa at 21.
She's a physict-major already. "apparently there's a ned for pscisists all over the country" she says,.. so I did not pry.All I could gather was there is a new technology that most cannot understand.She's not military, actually a small fragile person,.. but she is a good listener and extremely smart. Blonde haired she even looks like albert. The world in this state is not ready for fusion.Fission is totally out the question.Look what happens when you give a man nuclear power.
Bunch of damn kids playing with toy soldiers!Anti-gravity is a word they will undrstand as a word for flying cars.Let's just give them that.
vinnie
Wednesday 25th June 2008 | 06:45 AMWhat if the value of Higgs boson mass is infinite
or it can take mass from nothing just by coming into extenance, thus going to infinite
it would not only swallow the earth, but the entire universive,
and the universive would be at day one again, reborn.
Kim OJ
Sunday 29th June 2008 | 05:12 PMA little update: The LHC is scheduled to be set in motion in August, but before then the "doomsday" lawsuit to stop it is scheduled for hearings in late July.
Rodney
Friday 8th August 2008 | 05:17 PMWay old now I know but I just saw this... had to post it..
http://largehardoncollider.com/
Tuesday 2nd September 2008 | 09:34 PM
Yeah, we are all gonna die because of this machine
Frankie
Tuesday 9th September 2008 | 05:33 AMInteresting as this all may be, I have to agree with those who believe this to be too dangerous to persue.
And for those of you who say things such as "The black holes this could create would be so small that they have no effect on even their nearest subatomic neighbors, and they would melt away almost immediately." ...or continue to quote those scientists who are assuring everyone this experiment is safe enough to go forward with...remember one thing...none...that is...NOT A ONE of them...is speaking from experience.
Wednesday 10th September 2008 | 02:51 PM
holy crap, we are all dead in 10 minutes!!!!!!!!!!! NOT, well i hope not anyway.
Mickey
Thursday 11th September 2008 | 05:24 AMThe end of the world is near.
Dejan Gex
Saturday 20th September 2008 | 04:14 AMhttp://lhccountdown.info/ for latest info and countdown
Debra
Saturday 20th September 2008 | 11:55 PMLHC meltdown - experiment halted - expected to be delayed a couple months.
Raymond johanne Shindle
Saturday 28th February 2009 | 06:17 AMWhat a waste of money on this useless piece of junk(Collider), as is the space station, if we worked as hard on this planet to educate and feed everyone and make it a paradis,we would be better off then digging a hole 30 some story's under ground and wire it with a useless tool, that is to make man happy when two protons explope and he sees the results on a 10 billion dollar tv screen.
What a joke these two programs are, a real financial waste to satisfy only a few minds.
We can't even invent a vehicle that does not use carbon fuel, What benefits is this collider and the space station doing what for us??????????? to better humanity what a joke.
Get a Grip and Focus on humanity you intellectual clowns. This planet needs help not more damage.
Jason
Thursday 12th August 2010 | 08:23 PM...in response to this comment by Walt G.. The point of running an experiment is that YOU DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER! The fact you even need to be told beggars belief!
The point is that there are a collection of different models (including the Standard Model, the M-Theory of Super Strings, General Relativity, to name three) that are all very accurate, but are mutually exclusive.
So, the point is to run experiments that either:-
1) Test existing models in way that haven't actually been tested before; or
2) Find out what happens in those areas where the models produce very different results.
So, why is this project important? I mean, I don't want to talk about the practical implications (e.g. faster computers, better communications for starters), I want to talk about the knowledge. What do you think has been happening for the past 300 years? Intelligent people have finally been able to ask questions without primitive idiots, scared for no reason at all, killing them for the crime of trying to understand something. That's how this high tech world we live in was built. Medicine, computing, communications, the internet, construction, aircraft, and yes, even agriculture, have all been revolutionised by this process. How do you expect the world to be fed? Good intentions? It takes men of intelligence to expend effort! So, you have to put up with it. And if it's a problem, I suggest you go back to the caves and leave us to learn.
Gina
Thursday 12th August 2010 | 10:02 PM"In quantum mechanics, there is a probability that this pen will fall through the table. All of a sudden, it will be on the floor. Because it can behave as a wave, it can go through; we call that the 'tunnel effect.' If you calculate the probability that this happens, it is not identical to zero. It is a very small probability. But it never happens. I've never seen it happen. You have never seen it happen. But to the general public you make a casual remark, 'It is not identical to zero, it is very small."
So maybe that's how Jesus walked through walls?
Anders
Thursday 12th June 2008 | 11:04 AMfark!