Hadron Collider

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heartcream -> Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 8:37:12 PM)
Space and time... On Wednesday, scientists will switch on the Large Hadron Collider. Sorry to keep going on about this. I know I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but then that's my concern. Scientists freely admit there's a chance this experiment could change the fabric of space... and time. It could speed it up, slow it down or even cause it to stand still. We could all start saying or doing the same thing, over and over. We could all start saying or doing the same thing, over and over and over. And some of us might not even notice! Jonathan Cainer http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Construction_of_LHC_at_CERN.jpg The LHC,(Large Hadron Collider) near Geneva,Switzerland, is expected to begin operations this summer. It will collide proton beams at levels of energy never before produced in a particle accelerator. Those results will then be studied for clues to new forces of nature, and possibly even extra dimensions of space. The$8 billion project has taken 14 years. The 17-mile(27-kilometre) underground ring-shaped tunnel will collide two beams ofprotons head-on at speeds so great that conditions will be created similar to the first moments after the Big Bang, the theory on which the creation of the universe is based. The LHC is being built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and lies underground beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland.The LHC will become the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is funded and built in collaboration with over twothousand physicists from thirty-four countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. The collider is currentlyundergoing commissioning while being cooled down to its final operatingtemperature of approximately 1.9 K (−271.25 °C). The first particlebeams are due for injection in August 2008, with the first collisionsplanned to take place two to three months later. During operations, thetotal energy stored in the magnets is 10 GJ or equivelent to the energyreleased from 2400kgs of TNT being detonated. Concerns have been raised regarding the safety of the Large Hadron Collider on the grounds that high-energy particle collisions performed in the LHC might produce dangerous phenomena, including micro black holes,strange lets, vacuum bubbles and magnetic monopoles. 'The future health of our planet and the safety of its people are of paramount concern to us all,' Giddings said. 'There were already very strong physics arguments that there is no risk from hypothetical micro black holes, and we've provided additional arguments ruling out risk even under very bizarre hypotheses.' (I don't trust the opinions of these scientists at all) Two men have filed a federal lawsuit in Hawaii in an attempt to halt the LHC due to their concerns about the safety of black holes.

asyouwish72 -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 8:45:44 PM)
This strikes me as quite reminiscent of the arguments that the hydrogen bomb would ignite the atmosphere and incinerate the surface of the earth. While the speeds obtained by the particle beams in the LHC will be in excess of anything yet observed (that's the whole reason the physics community has gone to great trouble and expense to build it), the overall power requirements for the whole machine are only comparable to a single medium-sized city. Granted, that's a tremendous amount of energy to be concentrated in a few nanometers of space, but it hardly seems like a big enough power investment to destroy the planet or to puncture the fabric of the universe. Admittedly, if we all get killed by a nascent black hole in a couple of months, you'll have some big "I told you so" to dish out. :)

NeedToUseYou -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 8:48:57 PM)
One of my friends had a mental breakdown over this. Our understanding of things at that level is sparce and completely based on theory. So, something crazy could happen, and we could all die. However, such experiments are necessary in order to advance science, so is there any real choice. I think we must proceed if we ever want to get a true understanding of the universe, and the benefits that would give us. So, risks or no risks it must be done, to not experiment in such areas would be to stagnate which is worse than being sucked into a black hole IMO.

kittinSol -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 8:49:29 PM)
I lived literally just above that site. Admittedly, it's pretty huge, and Geneva's not a massive place (but oh, so lovely :-). And I worked with people from CERN. They made it sound like fun. They were terrible nerds. I used to like having lunch with them.

Sanity -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 8:55:16 PM)
If that does happen, I know exactly what I wanna be doing! quote: We could all start saying or doing the same thing, over and over and over. And some of us might not even notice!

kittinSol -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 8:59:33 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Sanity If that does happen, I know exactly what I wanna be doing! quote: We could all start saying or doing the same thing, over and over and over. And some of us might not even notice! Lick ice cream?

Sanity -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 9:24:00 PM)
HELL no, I saw that happen on Jimmy Neutron once, that causes brain freeze from hell I want to be reading these boards while watching President Palin's inauguration quote: ORIGINAL: kittinSol quote: ORIGINAL: Sanity If that does happen, I know exactly what I wanna be doing! quote: We could all start saying or doing the same thing, over and over and over. And some of us might not even notice! Lick ice cream?

DomKen -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 9:56:04 PM)
The fact is that according to guys I know out at Fermi there is a nearly infinitesmal chance that something bad could happen. They're not terribly worried and they understand QM way way better than I do so I wouldn't get all anxious over this.

bipolarber -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 10:08:39 PM)
How did HAL put it? I think you should sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.... You DO realize that what the HSC is doing is exactly what goes on in the universe every day, right? It creates the kind of ultra high energy particle collisions that take place every pico second, every single possible quantum fluctuation, inside the core of stars, and within the realm of black holes. Despite this constant bombardment and implosion, and micro "big bangs" happening, the universe is still here, and the fabric of it is just fine. But, if you really feel strongly about this, I would suggest you get together with your partner, and see if you can time it to where you both orgasm at the time they switch it on... if the time loop happens, you'll both be the happiest people for all eternity... if it doesn't, you just lay back and enjoy the afterglow, as per usual. Couldn't hurt.

Vendaval -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 10:36:43 PM)
How were their basic conversation and social skills? Some genius types can communicate with other people well, some only with computers. quote: ORIGINAL: kittinSol I lived literally just above that site. Admittedly, it's pretty huge, and Geneva's not a massive place (but oh, so lovely :-). And I worked with people from CERN. They made it sound like fun. They were terrible nerds. I used to like having lunch with them.

Thadius -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 10:47:18 PM)
There are far more nefarious things to worry about... like the stuff going on at Argonne. They got these things running around all over the place. http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/491/4209/1600/IMG_2991.0.jpg I still remember the first time I came around the curve headed towards Cass Ave and I saw one. Nobody warned me.

Vendaval -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 10:55:26 PM)
Hm...What kind of deer are those? They have almost white pelts?

Thadius -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 11:07:23 PM)
http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/Fact_Sheets/white_deer_fact_sheet.pdf

Vendaval -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 11:11:43 PM)
Ah hah...these are our local mule deer. http://www.caldeer.org/ca-deer-records.htm Edited to add, The deer at Argonne also have anters of a very different shape compared to what I have seen in this area. http://www.worlddeer.org/fallowdeer.html

Thadius -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 11:24:16 PM)
Well, that is the story they tell. I am not sure how many folks believe it. Those things are white, not like any deer I have seen anywhere. See, I believe the govt. covers stuff up. This is one of those cases. In my opinion.

Vendaval -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 11:30:12 PM)
Well, if you came upon some of these deer at night or in the fog they would look very ghostly.

DarkVictory -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/7/2008 11:41:54 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: bipolarber You DO realize that what the HSC is doing is exactly what goes on in the universe every day, right? It creates the kind of ultra high energy particle collisions that take place every pico second, every single possible quantum fluctuation, inside the core of stars, and within the realm of black holes. Despite this constant bombardment and implosion, and micro "big bangs" happening, the universe is still here, and the fabric of it is just fine. The problem is that NO, most people, certainly most americans don't know this at ALL. The degree of scientific illiteracy is appalling. The US (at least the US, if not lots of other countries) is chock full of people that hear the word 'theory' applied to evolution, and think it's a hypothesis or even a postulate. They don't know that gravity is also a theory. They have no clue that the universe is not the static newtonian or even worse platonic model that they 'see' with their eyes. They are so poorly educated that they believe that there are alternatives to the scientific method. They see the stepwise refinement of scientific evidence not as the strength of the approach, but as proof that scientists don't know what they're talking about.

shallowdeep -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/8/2008 12:33:18 AM)
I like bipolarber's suggestion. I suggest you use the live webcast of the first beam to make sure you get the timing right, but you might want to plan on allowing a few seconds for network latency... unless an eternity of tease and denial is one of your kinks, of course. In all seriousness, fears that the LHC will destroy the world are a bit silly and certainly aren't given credence by any scientists I'm aware of. The LHC induces collisions with unprecedented energy for a particle accelerator, but that's not the same as inducing collisions with unprecedented energy. In fact, such collisions occur all the time throughout our universe and even on our planet. The difficulty is managing to get one at just the right moment and in the exact spot where you had coincidently just happened to erect a big, expensive array of sensors completely isolated from background noise. Short of building your own massive accelerator underground, the chance of this happening once - let alone being repeatable so you can get some actual science done - is virtually nil. Such a collision has never been observed with this kind of sensor before, so there is great potential for testing some of the Standard Model and no one is entirely sure exactly what will happen, but since the same sort of high energy collisions do occur elsewhere you can be pretty sure about what won't happen. As to whether or not CERN nerds are socially well adjusted... judge for yourself.

JohnWarren -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/8/2008 12:36:40 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: NeedToUseYou One of my friends had a mental breakdown over this. Darwin in action Catatonia I hope

JohnWarren -> RE: Hadron Collider (9/8/2008 12:43:16 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DarkVictory They are so poorly educated that they believe that there are alternatives to the scientific method. They see the stepwise refinement of scientific evidence not as the strength of the approach, but as proof that scientists don't know what they're talking about. Excellent point. Most of them think "science" is a collection of facts. Not a way of looking at evidence so as to minimize prejudice and wishful thinking.

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