Large Hadron Collider

[serious14]

Righto, I've been hammering on about this thing in chat long enough - time it got its own thread.....

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

http://blogs.indystar.com/geek/2008/09/large_hadron_co.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

"The LHC is the world's largest and the highest-energy particle accelerator. It is funded and built in collaboration with over eight thousand physicists from over eighty-five countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories.

When activated, it is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and missing links in the Standard Model of physics and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass."

It gets activated at 5.30pm AEST on Wednesday - I believe there's a live stream from the website of initial results and such.

I dunno about you guys and girls, but for the physics-oriented-nerdy of us out there, this shit is _the_ holy grail of everything, and has the potential to change our understanding of the very nature of the Universe itself.  Of course there's the more unhinged people who think it's going to destroy Earth and everyone on it - but hey, what's scientific advancement without a little risk??

;D ;D

 

[Jesus]

Will be interesting indeed

 

[dibo]

Of course there's the more unhinged people who think it's going to destroy Earth and everyone on it - but hey, what's scientific advancement without a little risk??

;D ;D

i thought you *were* the more unhinged people?

but seriously, same thing happened the first time a nuclear device was detonated in the atmosphere - there were a team of mathematicians who had to work out if the immmediate area of atmosphere around the blast would go critical and blow the atmosphere up like what we would now describe as an enormous h-bomb encircling the entire globe.

their answer to this crucial question, upon which the continuing existence of all life (and an atmosphere to sustain it) depended - was it going to blow?









































































we don't think so. 

(this story may be wholly or in part apocryphal, but hey, it's a neat story with a hint of topicality...)

 

[dru]

Well if it does in fact do the worse we blame the Swiss, so much for the Swiss being neutral.

 

[dibo]

Well if it does in fact do the worse we blame the Swiss, so much for the Swiss being neutral.

love it - physics and foreign affairs wrapped up in one joke. i dips me lid!

 

[serious14]

i thought you *were* the more unhinged people?

Only with regards to most things, not all. 

 

[serious14]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM

;D ;D ;D

 

[serious14]

For the nerdier amongst us who appreciates this sort of gear.....

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

 

[marinermick]

the possible formation of minute black holes is way too cool to imagine

 

[MattSimon]

Is there somewhere I can get myself a small hadron collider?

 

[adz]

try ebay

 

[Alicia]

or greys online 

 

[adz]

quick preview of this afternoon

http://youtube.com/watch?v=slRsexrhbG8

 

[dru]

the possible formation of minute black holes is way too cool to imagine

but but think of the whole world ending possibility?

Anyway small blck holes aren't impressive, we saw what happened at the grand final last year when one formed in Dannys brain! quite possibly there are some permanately located in shields and breeze heads as well.

 

[Bear]

So people, in what timeframe can we expect this black hole to consume the earth? are we talking seconds, minutes, days?

 

[Alicia]

So people, in what timeframe can we expect this black hole to consume the earth? are we talking seconds, minutes, days?

You should be prepared...  Be Alert, Not Alarmed

 

[ryan]

Now would be very bad timing......we've got finals on the weekend ;D

 

[T]

Yeah cause if it happens there won't be any warning..... blackhole = bye bye.

 

[dibo]

So people, in what timeframe can we expect this black hole to consume the earth? are we talking seconds, minutes, days?

If it happened, the first thing you'd find is that there would be enormous eathquakes and spontaneuous eruptions of magma as the earth's crust is folded in towards the gravitational well, followed by the contents of the earth's core. You'd have minutes at most.

Think of it like being on a plane - if something goes wrong there's fark all you can do about it, so hang the worry and get blasted.










But it would have already happened by now, so we're probably going to live.

 

[Bear]

So people, in what timeframe can we expect this black hole to consume the earth? are we talking seconds, minutes, days?

If it happened, the first thing you'd find is that there would be enormous eathquakes and spontaneuous eruptions of magma as the earth's crust is folded in towards the gravitational well, followed by the contents of the earth's core. You'd have minutes at most.

Think of it like being on a plane - if something goes wrong there's fark all you can do about it, so hang the worry and get blasted.

Sounds awesome

But it would have already happened by now, so we're probably going to live.

Thought it was not getting turned on till 5:30 pm today?