Particle Accelerator

Okay, so maybe it’s been discussed before, and I don’t have any great links or sources to an article concerning the subject, but has anyone heard of this shit?

I heard about it a while ago, but recently heard that they’re booting it up in August, with it being funtional in October. It’s some thing where they shoot protons at neutrons faster than the speed of light and the speed of sound. It’s being developed, I believe, underground in a European country.

Positives:

If it works, it gives us incredible new insight into technology, and potentially different dimensions.

Negatives:

It creates a black hole and we all die instantaneously.

Anyone know what I’m talking about here? I’m down with science, but this is just wreckless.

large hadron collider ? don’t worry about the black holes, micro black holes are formed constantly in our atmosphere

[quote]SSC wrote:
Okay, so maybe it’s been discussed before, and I don’t have any great links or sources to an article concerning the subject, but has anyone heard of this shit?

I heard about it a while ago, but recently heard that they’re booting it up in August, with it being funtional in October. It’s some thing where they shoot protons at neutrons faster than the speed of light and the speed of sound. It’s being developed, I believe, underground in a European country.

Positives:

If it works, it gives us incredible new insight into technology, and potentially different dimensions.

Negatives:

It creates a black hole and we all die instantaneously.

Anyone know what I’m talking about here? I’m down with science, but this is just wreckless.[/quote]

You’d be talking about this then?..

A Large Hadron Collider. Link was emailed to me by a friend and I’d not actually heard of one being built on this scale.

Interesting stuff and although I have some small knowledge & interest in such technology it is way beyond my grasp to really have a solid argument for what is likely to happen when they turn it on.

There are others in existance, not so big fair enough, but they haven’t swallowed the earth up in a black hole yet. Or at least I can only assume they haven’t - If they did would we really notice?

As I discussed with my friend, if we survive it being brought up to speed then the scientists will surely find all sorts of interesting things out about our universe.

These things will give insite into new dimensions, dark matter, black holes, all sorts of things. It has been suspected in some areas that contained black holes would be an incredible source of renewable energy.

They would also be an incredible weapon. I wonder who is really footing the bill for this.

So one way we get sucked into a black hole and destroyed by accident, the other way we learn a load of stuff, make weapons out of it, and get sucked into a black hole and destroyed on purpose. :wink: (jk)

Stephen Hawking reckons it’s safe enough. I’ll go along with him even if he does talk funny.

A project leader said that the chances of a catastrophe are like 1/100,000,000

One of the main purposes of this machine is to try and verify the existence of the Higg’s boson. I’ve read that it is an integral part of the Theory of Everything.

[quote]LiftSmart wrote:
A project leader said that the chances of a catastrophe are like 1/100,000,000
[/quote]

Call me conservative, but when we’re talking about the existence of the planet, those are terrible odds.

This guy does an awesome job of relating physics news to non-scientists and scientists in other fields. I can follow most disciplines but I have a hard time following advanced physics. His take is that if this thing could destroy us, it would have happened naturally millions of years ago.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/

To play a little devils advocate on that first comment…

[quote]LiftSmart wrote:
A project leader said that the chances of a catastrophe are like 1/100,000,000[/quote]

People still win the lottery though :wink:

Indeed it is. When you split an atom small enough you get a bunch of stuff with no mass - Massless elementary particles.

How come a load of stuff with no mass can get together and have a mass? (jokes welcome…)

Waveickles have similar weird properties that it hurts my head to think about - A particle that had measurable mass travelling as a wave and just like a wave is capable of passing through two or more points in space simultaneously. [Warning - please don’t try to think about this when you are drunk]

Lots of things we don’t understand about the universe. Can you just imagine the minds that these people must have?

[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
LiftSmart wrote:
A project leader said that the chances of a catastrophe are like 1/100,000,000

Call me conservative, but when we’re talking about the existence of the planet, those are terrible odds.[/quote]

Good point, but as I kind of referred to, if it hasn’t happened in 4.5 billion years, we’re probably good.

[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
LiftSmart wrote:
A project leader said that the chances of a catastrophe are like 1/100,000,000

Call me conservative, but when we’re talking about the existence of the planet, those are terrible odds.[/quote]

What are the odds of the planet making it if we just give up on physics? Who is going to stop those asteroids, supernova gamma rays, and all the other shit that can happen any day now. Nope, I’ll go ahead and take the odds. Besides, these loons said the same thing about the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and it hasn’t ended the world yet.

[quote]HoratioSandoval wrote:
This guy does an awesome job of relating physics news to non-scientists and scientists in other fields. I can follow most disciplines but I have a hard time following advanced physics. His take is that if this thing could destroy us, it would have happened naturally millions of years ago.[/quote]

Totally correct - The sort of thing that will be happening on a tiny scale inside the Large Hadron Collider is actually happening in our atmosphere right now on an absolutely huge scale.

My comment on the lottery was made with my tongue firmly in my cheek.

[quote]Flop Hat wrote:
What are the odds of the planet making it if we just give up on physics?[/quote]

Very very high indeed. The earth has managed on it’s own for quite a few billion years despite a slight hiccup or two. Fairly good odds IMO.

I’ll get my cape.

[quote]Nope, I’ll go ahead and take the odds. Besides, these loons said the same thing about the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and it hasn’t ended the world yet.
[/quote]
I’ll ask again - Are you SURE that the world hasn’t ended yet? How would you know?

I’m not saying that the accelerator is a bad idea, just that saying “don’t worry about it, the odds are 100,000,000:1” is silly.

[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
I’m not saying that the accelerator is a bad idea, just that saying “don’t worry about it, the odds are 100,000,000:1” is silly.[/quote]

I wonder where they actually came up with those odds. I doubt somebody could even work out the chances of it going wrong as they simply do not know what’s going to happen in the first place for sure.

I strongly suspect, given what’s going on in the atmosphere and the distinct lack of us all being compacted down to the size of a pea, that the odds are even greater than that.

Just maybe they are a whole lot shorter though, a whole lot shorter…

Would it suck up god too?

[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
I’m not saying that the accelerator is a bad idea, just that saying “don’t worry about it, the odds are 100,000,000:1” is silly.[/quote]

I just think there are so many other world enders with so much better odds of happening that the LHC is worth it for the chance to figure this place out. Besides, if it does end the world, it will happen so fast you will never know it.

[quote]rsg wrote:
Would it suck up god too?[/quote]

Which one?

Yahweh and Zues are goners, but I hear that Thor has a great grip.

[quote]rsg wrote:
Would it suck up god too?[/quote]

I was wondering whether to bring god into the discussion. I shyed away for two reaons…

1 - All shit will break loose if we start discussing it as it’ll turn into a does god / doesn’t god exist in the first place.

2 - The mods cancelled his account last week for posting too many photos of naked ladies so he can’t have a say even if he wanted.

[quote]Renton wrote:
rsg wrote:
Would it suck up god too?

I was wondering whether to bring god into the discussion. I shyed away for two reaons…

1 - All shit will break loose if we start discussing it as it’ll turn into a does god / doesn’t god exist in the first place.

2 - The mods cancelled his account last week for posting too many photos of naked ladies so he can’t have a say even if he wanted.[/quote]

Shit, I wondered where he’d gone too. I thought it was my imagination or something. evil grin

[quote]rsg wrote:
Renton wrote:
rsg wrote:
Would it suck up god too?

I was wondering whether to bring god into the discussion. I shyed away for two reaons…

1 - All shit will break loose if we start discussing it as it’ll turn into a does god / doesn’t god exist in the first place.

2 - The mods cancelled his account last week for posting too many photos of naked ladies so he can’t have a say even if he wanted.

Shit, I wondered where he’d gone too. I thought it was my imagination or something. evil grin[/quote]

LMAO - Christ mate - errr i mean… :wink:

[quote]SSC wrote:
Okay, so maybe it’s been discussed before, and I don’t have any great links or sources to an article concerning the subject, but has anyone heard of this shit?

I heard about it a while ago, but recently heard that they’re booting it up in August, with it being funtional in October. It’s some thing where they shoot protons at neutrons faster than the speed of light and the speed of sound. It’s being developed, I believe, underground in a European country.

Positives:

If it works, it gives us incredible new insight into technology, and potentially different dimensions.

Negatives:

It creates a black hole and we all die instantaneously.

Anyone know what I’m talking about here? I’m down with science, but this is just wreckless.[/quote]

It won’t be brought up to full power until December of 2012. What’s the worry?