World may end in August 2008

Richey

Richey

Well-known member
joking of course, laugh out loud ..

however you may need to watch this just to see the sheer size of this ..

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=67q_2V6xOxE&feature=related

its a sixteen billion dollar science project thats taken decades to build,

the origin of the mass of particles to discover new particles, the energy is huge and the purpose is to find a clear picture of how the universe started soon after the Big Bang!

this is massive news and is due to be siwtched on this month after a failed attempt last year in november ..

there is a slim chance that this experiment may cause a small black hole that could potentially eat the entire surface area of the earth ...

who says science can't be fun eh? :p

" Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva - the biggest, most complicated machine ever built. Once switched on, it will allow scientists to recreate the conditions that existed in the first moments after the Big Bang. Brian and other CERN scientists explain what results they hope will emerge from the most exciting scientific experiment of our time"

the tunnel is over 29 kilometres in circumfrence, that is insane!

if the experiment doesn't brew any results, oh well its only 16 billion dollars, no problem right? ..right? ..WHAAAAT
 
strawberrybrunette

strawberrybrunette

Well-known member
Oh my god, things like this annoy the hell out of me. What's the point of researching that kind of stuff? It's not like it's going do anything or help anyone. And sixteen billion dollars?!!? Government funded, i presume? Why would the government fund something so stupid!! That's sixteen billion dollars that could have been spent on cancer research - or something USEFUL and PRACTICAL. Nothing pisses me off more than an exortionate waste of money that could be used to help alieviate suffering.

Those scientists are being silly, persuing needless research. Sure, it might be interesting - but sixteen billion dollar for something that's vaguely facinating? Come on! Those scientists should pack up their stupid research, and spend their time doing something that would benifit humanity - like researching how to stop global warming, or a cure for social anxiety, or a HIV/AIDs cure, or...did i mention a cure for social anxiety? :roll:
 
Helyna

Helyna

Well-known member
My father works on that.

There are useful things. They just aren't obvious. I have to point out that CERN (a previous experiment in it) pretty much invented the web, and we wouldn't be here if it weren't for them, would we? They have contributed greatly to health care. Imaging techniques, for instance. Believe me, it's worth it, provided they do find things, as Richey pointed out, but I think they're looking for so much that they'll figure out something. At the CERN museum, they addressed the "what-does-it-matter" question. Someone pointed out, "No amount of research and development on the candle could make the electric light. :idea: It had to be done by pure science."

Don't worry about it. It's in Switzerland/France. It will not kill us all. But the world is still going to end in August. Beijing has the Olympics, and someone will drop an atomic bomb on someone. :D :D

Not to be annoying, but this definitely belongs in "Off Topic."
 
strawberrybrunette

strawberrybrunette

Well-known member
Helyna said:
My father works on that.
Click to expand...

Sorry, didn't mean to offend...what i meant is, to me at least, spending that much research money on something like that, when it could be used in something that would directly benefit mankind, seems a bit frivolous.

But that is pretty cool that your dad works on it. He must have, like, a PhD in astro-phsyics - or something like that. That's pretty damn awesome.
 
Richey

Richey

Well-known member
Its a huge amount to fork out for an experiment that may give more insight into higgs particles and if they truly exist or if extra dimensions exist, big bang theories and such ..

its exciting to ponder the possibilities these results may yield but what happens once the experiments finish? demolish it all ..

so the experiment cannot fail because no result proves the original theories wrong and a result proves they are right, both outcomes lead to an answer that will help science overall, but really its like something you'd believe happening in an epic doctor who movie, and is this disposable?

some people say the results could even end the theory that god created the universe if the creation of the universe is proven to be purely scientific and based on particle energy, dark matter expanding which as we all know already is more the probable then the former
 
Helyna

Helyna

Well-known member
It's actually particle physics. High-energy particle physics, to be exact. I think it's all pretty cool. I don't think it will convince intelligent-design people that God doesn't exist. Nothing can do that. I know the money is a lot, but it's better to spend money on physics than, for instance, a war.
 
LostViking

LostViking

Well-known member
There's pretty much no chance for it to 'end' the theory about the universe being created by (a) god. Most worldwide religions are very adaptable, and I find it unlikely any religious person will see the light all over again and convert to atheism no matter what CERN discovers.
 
Rodox

Rodox

Well-known member
There will be spin off technologys,just like some people think going to space is useless,but with any research there will be something to benefit us common people,I am pretty sure most of you know how the microwave was invented....
 
Helyna

Helyna

Well-known member
Seriously one of the best editorials I have ever read...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/376370_collinsonline26.html

(Found it originally in a slightly abridged form in my city's newspaper.)

Read!

Digging ourselves a black hole

By GAIL COLLINS
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

Exciting times coming up, people. Democratic convention! Republican convention! And then, on Sept. 10, the start-up of the Large Hadron Collider!

The Large Hadron, you may remember, is the 17-mile-long particle accelerator being built near Geneva. Once it's up and running, its designers believe it will take particle physics research to a whole new level. Its critics think it may create a black hole that will swallow up the universe. This is what is known as a wide range of possibilities.

I am bringing this up now because it is always important to remember that things could be worse. You may be worried about a new Cold War or a major bank failure, or afraid of losing your job or your house or your credit rating. You may be depressed by your first look at the fall TV schedule.

Whatever your concerns, it is important, in these dark moments, to remember that other people have been having a worse summer than you. To name just a few: John Edwards, the mayor of Detroit and all the people involved in the making of "The Love Guru."

Perspective is all. If you're going to fret, I say, fret about that black hole. For one thing, it makes it much easier to schedule unpleasant tasks for the second half of September. Heads, the planet survives. Tails, the root canal never happens.

The vast majority of the scientific community believes that the Large Hadron will not lead to the destruction of all life as we know it. Or at least as Greg Landsberg, a physicist from Brown University, was quoted as saying, the chances are "totally minuscule."

"Totally minuscule" are excellent odds when it comes to, say, risking a tornado on your wedding day. I think I speak for us all when I say that I would like something more conservative when it comes to planet-eating black holes.

So I called Landsberg, who explained that in physics, there is no such thing as zero chance. "For instance, if all the molecules of air in the room where you're sitting would suddenly cross to one side, you would not have any air to breathe. This probability is not zero. It is in the 10 to the minus-25 range."

Black hole eats everything. All the air molecules decide to march off to the other side of the room and hold a caucus. I have totally gotten over worrying about reforming the Electoral College.

Landsberg thinks people should concentrate on more likely dangers, such as nuclear war or global warming. "The universe is a pretty safe place to live unless we mess it up," he noted. This sounded very wise. However, fretting about black holes is more fun than worrying about global warming; it feels very cutting edge and does not require recycling.

Almost everybody agrees that the Large Hadron Collider may be capable of producing little tiny, black holes. In a way, that's the idea. Landsberg says he doesn't think the probability of creating black holes is more than about 1 percent, but you could easily have gotten 100-1 odds a year or so ago on John McCain and Barack Obama being the presidential nominees.

The idea that humankind has gone to extraordinary effort and expense to construct a black-hole-making machine shouldn't be all that startling. This is the same humankind that went out of its way to invent nuclear warheads, SUVs and deep-fried Twinkies-on-a-stick. There is nothing we enjoy more than sealing our own doom in the most creative ways possible.

Unlike radiation and trans-fat, the black holes have a winning tendency to evaporate the second they're produced. And if one did last longer, Landsberg figures the odds are very, very remote that it would hang around Switzerland. "It would just disappear somewhere into space," he said.

This is what we like best of all, really. Creating a problem and then sending it off to live in somebody else's universe.

In truth, we've been down this road before. There's an ion collider in Long Island named Rhic that critics thought might create something called strangelets, which have similar earth-gobbling talents to black holes. One report estimated that the possibility of strangelets popping up was only 1 in 50 million -- odds that Dennis Overbye noted in The New York Times were actually more favorable than some government-sponsored lotteries.

Still, we've had the collider in the New York metropolitan area for some time now with no ill effects and have turned our attention to more important projects, such as never finishing construction of the 9/11 memorial. If there are any strangelets, they have adapted and merged into the general population. Some of them are no doubt running for the state Legislature at this very moment.

Gail Collins is a columnist for The New York Times. Copyright 2008 The New York Times.
Click to expand...
 
noblame4

noblame4

Well-known member
That scares the hell out of me. "So there's a chance that we could obliterate the planet? It's TOTALLY WORTH IT to prove creative design wrong."

WHAT?! Okay! Okay! I surrender, athiests! Just dont make earth be over!

~Annnd may I add, that even if this experiment works, it doesnt prove jack. This isnt just happening on it's own. Someone is making it happen.
 
D

Dave_McFadden

Well-known member
I remember hearing about this collider about 10 years ago on a late night radio show called "Coast-to-coast AM" hosted by a guy named Art Bell. And he had some expert on the show describing the possibility of a black hole developing as a result of the operation of this collider. I think his last name was "Dixon" but I don't remember the first name.

I've always been sort of a cosmology buff, and so things like this interest me. I like to read books about the universe. And, you can't talk about the infinitely big without talking about the infinitely small. There are always people proposing this or that theory about the origin of the universe, and about how the subatomic particles present at the beginning of the universe will eventually determine whether or not the universe will ultimately recollapse. It seems to me that these possibilities are more theoretical than actual. What happens is someone gets an equation, and they solve it. And then they say "Hey, according to this equation, there is some particle out there than can make me an omelet and shave me in the morning". And then they think that if they can just get things to smash into each other at high enough speeds, this magical particle will pop out of there somewhere. But it never does, and then they think it was because they weren't smashing particles together fast enough. And then someone says they need an even better collider, and then they'll find the axion, WIMPs, MACHOs, neutrinos, gravitons, Mario, and Luigi. With the cure for cancer in there somewhere.

The gist of all of this is, I don't think we have anything to worry about. There is always a nonzero probability of something happening in quantum mechanics. For example, this can of beer could end up getting me drunk without me actually drinking it, since all of the molecules could spontaneously decide to move into my liver. But it's never going to happen in the real world.

And, of course, if I end up being wrong, no one will be around to remember how wrong I was.
 
Pyrophosphate

Pyrophosphate

1
A black hole (and a strangelet, in case anyone's still afraid of those) grows by sucking in the surrounding matter, which can't happen in a particle accelerator, because it's a vacuum, and there is no surrounding matter. If it can't get any matter, a black hole will pull in on itself until it doesn't exist. NASA practically guarentees that a meteor large enough to destroy all life on Earth will hit us eventually. So we have the black hole's 1 in 50,000,000,000 odds, versus the meteor's almost certainty, and yet, we haven't been hit by such a meteor. I don't think the black hole is ever gonna happen.
 
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