Large Hadron Collider

[Cid Silverwing]

Do you remember the hype when scientists finally invented a machine so colossal it warrants an underground city in order to recreate the Big Bang?

People were so excited, and if not, fucking scared that it was going to spawn a black hole and devour the entire planet (a couple emo teens already committed suicide when they heard about this).

Haven't heard a single fucking word about it since. Did it get abandoned or are the results really slow?

 

[dyre]

Yeah, I'd like to know about this too. It was all "Large Hadron Collider finished! Black Hole imminent!" and then no more news.

I saw a guy on the Escapist who says he works there though.

 

[Crazy_Dude]

I assume they are still testing shit out. Or the results are just darn slow. I didnt see what all the paranoia was about. It was a very very slim chance that it could ever spawn a black hole and if it did we all would die in seconds.

But the chance is so small its likely that would never happen.

 

[PingoBlack]

http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/

It's up and running, creating proton collisions all the time and detectors are gathering countless terabytes of data.

It already seems it will disprove at least one mayor theory in physics.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14731690

So ... yeah. Mass media are really terrible at reporting news. They were just interested in "Crazy scientist blow up the world!". The actual science is boring and nerdy, ech?

 

[Valkyr71]

They had Technical issues with it initially, computer glitches and the like. Some suggested it was sabotage and those claims were being investigated. I'm fairly sure that they havent had the test yet that recreates the big bang (the one that is supposed to creat the Micr black hole).

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I was more amused about the fight between Higgs and Hawking over whether the Boson actually exists.

Either way, it's just a huge data funnel. I'd rather they found Cold Fusion than some damn boson.

 

[Odinson426]

I assume they are still testing shit out. Or the results are just darn slow. I didnt see what all the paranoia was about. It was a very very slim chance that it could ever spawn a black hole and if it did we all would die in seconds.

But the chance is so small its likely that would never happen.

If it did spawn a blackhole it would be only a micro-blackhole which aren't visible to the human eye and dissipate almost immediately

 

[Dogstile]

I assume they are still testing shit out. Or the results are just darn slow. I didnt see what all the paranoia was about. It was a very very slim chance that it could ever spawn a black hole and if it did we all would die in seconds.

But the chance is so small its likely that would never happen.

If it did spawn a blackhole it would be only a micro-blackhole which aren't visible to the human eye and dissipate almost immediately

But that's what they want you to think, conspiracy man!

Those nutter's pissed me off. Back in school it got me kicked out for a week because I supported the project and the majority of the other kids didn't. Eventually I thumped one of em because they wouldn't stop throwing shit.

Ugh, humans, why you so silly sometimes.

 

[WanderingFool]

So ... yeah. Mass media are really terrible at reporting news. They were just interested in "Crazy scientist blow up the world!". The actual science is boring and nerdy, ech?

Yup, sounds about right. The media always reports something like "Scientists create a machine that can destroy the world!" or the ever classic "Videogames cause violance". They never stick it through to report "WRONG! Said machine wont destroy the world" or "Violent videogames cause already violent teens to become no more violent than they already are".

 

[Wicky_42]

Do you remember the hype when scientists finally invented a machine so colossal it warrants an underground city in order to recreate the Big Bang?

People were so excited, and if not, fucking scared that it was going to spawn a black hole and devour the entire planet (a couple emo teens already committed suicide when they heard about this).

Haven't heard a single fucking word about it since. Did it get abandoned or are the results really slow?

They haven't found the Higgs particle yet, but they know a range of energies that it doesn't inherit. Also, you're seriously surprised that the black hole that the tabloids thought would pop up didn't, that the scientists knew what they were doing, and that the papers aren't exactly eager to report on something that's not exactly fascinating in its day-to-day operation? There was an article recently in the New Scientist - you obviously haven't been reading the right publications if you're interested at all in science.

 

[JoJo]

Haven't heard a single fucking word about it since. Did it get abandoned or are the results really slow?

It's still running, just you've hit the nail on the head already, the results are going to be really really slow coming and the scientists won't announce until they're sure what they have isn't a fluke. Good news is that they're coming close to either finding or ruling out the Higgs boson, and machine is no-where near it's max capacity, which it'll reach in a few years after it's upgraded.

 

[Daverson]

What were people expecting, exactly? God to suddenly pop down the second it was turned on and say "oh hey that's pretty cool, anyway here's how the universe works..."

Also, it's Hadron.

If it did spawn a blackhole it would be only a micro-blackhole which aren't visible to the human eye and dissipate almost immediately

Well, by definition all black holes are invisible to the human eye, that's what makes them black holes!

 

[Von Strimmer]

They had Technical issues with it initially, computer glitches and the like. Some suggested it was sabotage and those claims were being investigated. I'm fairly sure that they havent had the test yet that recreates the big bang (the one that is supposed to creat the Micr black hole).

They already created a miniature big bang back in 2010 apparently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11711228

Eh let the boffins do boffin things. As long as they dont fuck up the world then they can keep plugging away. Besides I would rather the worlds best and brightest focusing on the LHC than on the next skynet :/

 

[Versuvius]

Hadron, it's Hadron. Also you obviously understand nothing of what it does, OP. Go do some research before threads.

 

[sms_117b]

Do you remember the hype when scientists finally invented a machine so colossal it warrants an underground city in order to recreate the Big Bang?

People were so excited, and if not, fucking scared that it was going to spawn a black hole and devour the entire planet (a couple emo teens already committed suicide when they heard about this).

Haven't heard a single fucking word about it since. Did it get abandoned or are the results really slow?

It's not operating at full capasity yet, won't be for a while, they're still doing lower mass collisions, does take a lot of time and energy not to mention money, to create anti-matter.

I went there in April, there's more to it than just the main collider, it's got 4 linear accelerators, 3 more circular accelerators and a number of testing sites (one in Italy of all places) on top of that they're developing "The Grid" the upgrade to the internet so they can handle the amount of data that te full impact collisions are expected to create, not to mention the other hundred or something experiments the place is conductiong.

As for the black hole creating, the scientists there are really good, but have little common sense, and even less media savey when asked if it would do something like that, they're responce was scientific, anything can happen, nothing is truely impossible mathematicaly, even if something has a ridiculously low probability, i.e 10^-1000000, so their responce reflected that, and of course the media love a shit storm.

 

[Von Strimmer]

Haven't heard a single fucking word about it since. Did it get abandoned or are the results really slow?

It's still running, just you've hit the nail on the head already, the results are going to be really really slow coming and the scientists won't announce until they're sure what they have isn't a fluke. Good news is that they're coming close to either finding or ruling out the Higgs boson, and machine is no-where near it's max capacity, which it'll reach in a few years after it's upgraded.

Tevatron in the United States got abandoned. Recently too I believe it was this month it got shut down.

 

[wooty]

I heard that they did create the particle and caused a reaction.............but then someone lost it.........

Most of the complaints boil down to:-

Dear science, stop wasting money and develop something useful for once

 

[PingoBlack]

I heard that they did create the particle and caused a reaction.............but then someone lost it.........

Dear science, stop wasting money and develop something usefull for once

They have ... LHC is actually a Proton Beam weapon!
http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/components/beam-dump.htm

A bit hard to carry around tho ... But hey, it would make a great headline. Come on, proton beams! It's like Gundam or something.

Pretty fancy, eh?
In reality, science is actually very interesting, just can be hard to understand. And this is no joke, when LHC has to dump the circulating beams, they actualy shoot them into special targets. Just like Gundam, except actual proton beam is invisible in vacuum.

 

[Hoplon]

Yeah, It's going to be a while before they have anything concrete to publish since you can't just do it once and go "sure it worked that time lets leave it there"

also it doesn't do anything that doesn't happen all the time in the upper atmosphere, it's just easier to measure if you know when and where to put the detectors.

I'd rather they found Cold Fusion than some damn boson.

...Yes. That would be useful. they could also look for the Loch ness monster and big foot while they are at it.

 

[Zantos]

The disaster headlines will come back soon, ALICE should be online next year with the 7TeV lead collisions. I mean, they're still nothing compared to the OMG cosmic rays, but the media doesn't like to whip up a scare unless they can blame someone.