Large Hadron Collider

[Slimshad]

Was I the only person thinking this thread was going to be about Magic: The Gathering?

Yes, yes you where.

What sane person would think about magic cards...

Because this topic was headed as "Hedron Collider" when the actual thing is called a "Hadron Collider."

Hedrons are weird imprisonment devices that lock away huge lovecraftian rip-offs in the world of magic. One of the creatures (eldrazi) even has tentacles....

I'M NOT A FANBOY! DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT.

EDIT: Ah now that I actually read your post, I feel like an idiot. Well, there goes my self-respect for the rest of the day...

 

[Zantos]

The disaster headlines will come back soon, ALICE should be online next year with the 7TeV lead collisions.

7 TeV? Mah God, that is over 0.3 trillionths of a kilowatt-hour![/quote]

I make it about 2kWh. Couldn't get an accurate figure for the cross section of relativistic lead ions though, so it might be higher.

 

[Odinson426]

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!

Fair point

 

[McMullen]

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.

That's not why it's a non-issue.

A black hole is powered by the gravity of the mass compacted into it. A black hole created at the LHC would have a mass equivalent to a few particles. The gravity exerted by a few particles is so ridiculously small it's probably not even measurable, wouldn't be felt by anyone, and wouldn't be strong enough to overcome the forces that cause most particles to repel one another, so it wouldn't even be able to grow. And, since black holes "evaporate" through Hawking radiation, and the evaporation rate is greater for smaller black holes...

Basically, they could make thousands of the things every day for years and probably not even detect them before they disappeared.

I think most people understand that black holes do their thing through gravity, so it always surprises me when they think a black hole with the mass of a few particles is actually a threat to anyone.

 

[phantasmalWordsmith]

Didn't it prove too costly or something? Whatever the reasons were, I'm upset that the experiment wasn't completed. The black hole theory was BS if you ask me. It just seems like a waste to have something great but not complete the experiment

 

[McMullen]

I aint got a problem with science taking a while, because it does. Research, testing, enhancing, altering, adjusting, field testing, overcoming the christain lobby all takes time. Its just that the common man generally doesnt see all that going on. If you ask the man on the street about technology breakthroughs in the last 10 years or so, then most will probably just say "iPhone/pad" or "facebook, innit bruv", which is sad.

Maybe science in the west needs to be out there more in the mainstream like its shown in the far east (Japan, Singapore, China ect). Showing an experiment, saying what it does, how it works and what it could possibly lead to in the future, rather than it being portrayed in mass media as scary, destructive, "world ending", against Gods law, not working or blowing up in mid-showcase.

Scientists do try to get out there more and explain what they're doing. Then the public gets bored and goes back to the sensationalist news for their drama fix. Meanwhile the CERN website, complete with a faq about the LHC, has been there in the same place for years, and anyone who wanted to know if they were in danger from the LHC, or what the LHC has done so far, or what it will hopefully do in the future, could just go there and find out in ten minutes.

Has anyone done that?

There is very little evidence that they have.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

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?

you wrote it wrong buddy... just saying to help.

my theory: they went into another dimension then got so scared/eaten/(similar fate); they were replaced by biorobots that do stupid senseless experiments.

 

[wooty]

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

Dear moron poster,

Please stop telling us what to do and let us continue advancing knowledge the likes of which your tiny brain is incapable of comprehending.

Thanks,

Science

Dear fuckhead, I am a man of science so dont rush in on some foolish crusade and judge people without knowing.
Cheers

p.s. Why in the blue hell do people keep missing out half of my post and jumping the gun?!!!

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

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?

Welcome to science my friend. The results are slow compared to the amount of hype it got, but they're not at all slow compared to the usual speed of science.

They have to set up tests, run tests, analyze data (this is the ridiculously long part), write up reports and press releases, get papers reviewed, and that's assuming that they actually get interesting results right away (a lot of experiments inevitably don't).

 

[AndyFromMonday]

The LHC news died down once the media found something else to tout as "world ending". Believe it or not, scientific discoveries take time and since your average TV viewer doesn't know anything about the LHC except that it could possibly destroy the world and that they're searching for the "God Particle" news agencies chose to ignore it. Don't worry though, if the Boson is found a whole new wave of "controversy" will arise.

 

[Mike Laserbeam]

Haha! What's the point of this thread? No offence, but just look it up and you can find out easily enough.
The LHC is pretty much old news by now, they're moving on to bigger and better colliders.

Also, that crap about the black hole? It got the whole thing loads of publicity which is why everybody heard about it, and it was all just spouted by some moron chemist or somebody to stir things up.

(I'm not hating on chemists, I'm just saying whoever said it didn't know jack)

 

[Dumbfish1]

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.

Actually, If it spawned a black hole, nothing would happen. Common misconception. If we were orbiting a sun that went supernova and became a black hole, our planet would still orbit it at the same distance, as the mass hasn't changed, in fact it's a little lighter. It's just VERY densely packed.

Boring sciency stuff: Take our planet as an example, the closer you get to the surface, the stronger the force gravity has on you, so people on the top of Everest weigh slightly less than people at sea level. But once you enter the planet, gravity doesn't become any stronger. This is because all the matter the earth is made up of isn't directly underneath you anymore (Pulling you down), it's spread out all around you, above, below, and to either side. At the centre of the earth you're actually weightless, as the matter of the planet is pulling you from all directions. So the strongest place gravity will act on you is the Earths surface.
Of course, In a black hole because the matter is all densly packed together, it's a much smaller object, meaning you can go past where the surface used to be, and gravity will still increase. At one point you'll get the "Event Horizon" which is where you need to be going so fast to escape gravity's pull that not even light can escape it.

Next week: How much does light weigh?

 

[bakan]

[...]

What is the nature of the dark matter that appears to account for 23% of the mass of the universe?
[...]

Just a litte thing, you should call it (mass-)energy density, because 23% of the mass of the universe is probably misleading and you could think it only makes up 23% of all the matter and in reality it's over 80%.

Edit: and could we stop using the term 'god particle' ...

Edit2:

Haha! What's the point of this thread? No offence, but just look it up and you can find out easily enough.
The LHC is pretty much old news by now, they're moving on to bigger and better colliders.

Also, that crap about the black hole? It got the whole thing loads of publicity which is why everybody heard about it, and it was all just spouted by some moron chemist or somebody to stir things up.

(I'm not hating on chemists, I'm just saying whoever said it didn't know jack)

The LHC isn't even completed and it is by no means old news.

 

[Charli]

We're in the black hole, no one wanted to be the one to say anything. Seemed rude.

In other words you won't hear much else until they either find the Higgs Boson Particle or Disprove it's existance.

 

[PeePantz]

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?

One of my friends, who now lives in Geneva, works for CERN and is part of the project. Actually, it's pretty exciting what they're doing. They've had a few more runs and have gotten "the black hole" to last even longer. They did have a set back a little while ago, but now they're right on track and are busier than ever.

 

[Varanfan9]

The Large Hadron collider actually can't destroy the world as any black hole it would make would be so small it would collapse in on itself. I don't know thats why my physics teacher told me when we were talking about colliders as there apparently are several.

 

[Raeil]

yeah, the best part of science is the *****-fights.

Hawking's a hero. How much of an egotist do you have to be to name the God particle after yourself? Kick his teeth in, Steven! Well...run over his foot at least.

Seriously? You do realize that the name "Higgs Boson" came before the idiotic colloquialism "God Particle," right? The person who came up with that name, Leon Lederman, came up with the idea when writing a book on the particle, but initially wanted to call it "The Goddamn Particle." His editor wouldn't let him use that title, so "The God Particle" it became. The actual scientist who theorized the Higgs Boson hates the name it's been given, because he's "not a believer" and "think it's the kind of misuse of terminology which ... might offend some people."

Science is about competing hypotheses. The one which is shown to be most faithful to reality is the one that wins, that's all it is. Hawking's hypothesis of a Higgs-Boson-less universe could be true, but it wouldn't be a problem for Higgs. The more hypotheses that get shot down in our pursuit of that which is correct, the better.

Edit: Source for the quotes is at "http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jun/30/higgs.boson.cern"

 

[Sum1else]

As for how evidence supports hypotheses... here's a mathematical explanation using probability theory: http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes

Basic overview of Baysian reasoning.

 

[Rhaff]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but the LHC was never supposed to recreate the big bang, or create black holes (micro, primordial, supermassive or otherwise). The whole purpose of the LHC is to find the "god particle" aka higgs boson. Being that higgs boson is completely theoretical, they have yet to find it, but they are finding related particles every once in a while.
Also the chance for a black hole are so slim that I can't be bothered to find the statistics right now.

 

[PingoBlack]

BTW, just a heads up to OP:
LHC is at this moment running 3.5 TeV proton beams.

Does anyone else find it funny they are showing the LHC status real time online?