People both inside and outside of the physics community have voiced concern that the LHC might trigger one of several theoretical disasters capable of destroying the Earth or even the entire Universe. These include:
Creation of a stable black hole[7]
Creation of strange matter that is more stable than ordinary matter
Creation of magnetic monopoles that could catalyze proton decay
Triggering a transition into a different quantum mechanical vacuum (see False vacuum)
The Program called the Six Billion Dollar Experiment will air on BBC tonight! Click here for the full explanation.
A quote from the program:
In the coming months the most complex scientific instrument ever built will be switched on. The Large Hadron Collider promises to recreate the conditions right after the Big Bang. By revisiting the beginning of time, scientists hope to unravel some of the deepest secrets of our Universe.
Within these first few moments the building blocks of the Universe were created. The search for these fundamental particles has occupied scientists for decades but there remains one particle that has stubbornly refused to appear in any experiment. The Higgs Boson is so crucial to our understanding of the Universe that it has been dubbed the God particle. It explains how fundamental particles acquire mass, or as one scientist plainly states: "It is what makes stuff stuff..."
I think this could cause a catatrophic event.....i'm scaredO_o
Its really fun with all the people all freaked out about it :P.
Didn't they have an article about this in Popular Science? Talking about how reactions like this happen in our atmosphere all the time, that the black holes are so small and only come into existence for a short while that they don't pose any threat.
This is exactly why I hate the atmosphere ignition "lolololol" story.
Man, what the hell happened to Horizon? It used to be one of the best current affairs/documentary series' on TV. Now it's just sensationalist crap.
I don't know, looks like the good ol' Beeb has gone down the toilet (excluding Doctor Who of course). Constant dance competitions and "What the hell do we do with Graham Norton?" has really destroyed it.
This is exactly why I hate the atmosphere ignition "lolololol" story.
Man, what the hell happened to Horizon? It used to be one of the best current affairs/documentary series' on TV. Now it's just sensationalist crap.
I don't know, looks like the good ol' Beeb has gone down the toilet (excluding Doctor Who of course). Constant dance competitions and "What the hell do we do with Graham Norton?" has really destroyed it.
Your likley to find more factual science in Doctor Who.
Its 2012
Something to do with the mayans or something
It may seem off topic, but i think there's more here than a first glance can offer. Here is a link to the worlds best source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna - . (Sarcasm, but i'm too lazy to look for a proper source). Anyway, check out about half page down for Novelty Theory and "Time Wave: Zero Point". Basically what its saying is that since our beginning, there have been inventions "novelties" that have changed the way we live. When they put all these events on a timeline, they found that the time between each event shortened. The final day in which these events reach a "singularity" is December 21, 2012. DUN DUN DUUUUUNNN!
Anyway, my point is that this new machine seems like it could lend to this idea of Novelty. Turning this thing on could be an event that changes technology or science the way the industrial or agricultral revolution has changed our world. The end result (in the theory) is best summarized in this quote:
30,000 years ago, we learned how to farm. 350 years ago, we learned how to mass-produce machines. About 50 years ago, we learned how to build computers. As you can see, the _rate_ of change is increasing, as is the ability afforded by the change. With computers, we have the ability to build more efficient things, fly planes and spaceships, educate more people, etc. Each of these enabling technologies will build further development, and at a faster rate.
According to the mathematical model, we should see approximately *61* more of these species-changing developments before 12/21/2012! All of the same magnitude as the three noted above! Again, it's only a model, but they predict 18 of those changes on the last day, and 13 of _those_ to happen in the last FRACTION OF A SECOND, as things accelerate towards that infinity point. (End Quote)
The first thing to strike me about this wasn't the "omg, end of the world" , but rather the "omg, everything imaginable happening on this day..." Apparently, Terence McKenna didn't know anything about the mayan calendar, or so he claimed. Just some cool stuff to mull in that sci-fi head of yours .
Wow. I never realized the Singularity was complete BS.
The Mayan Calender thing has been around for a while in other contexts, I think. There's always some asshole claiming the world's going to end.
durandal4532 on
Do what you can to elect Harris/Walz and downticket Dem candidates in your area by doorknocking, phonebanking, or postcarding: https://www.mobilize.us/
So, after they turn this thing on the scientists will stop messing around and get to work on faster-than-light spaceship propulsion, right?
I think they'll make a pit stop at disease ridding nano technology first, than move to hyperspace. Which makes sense really, you don't want disease in space...that shit is EVERYWHERE.
The Mayan Calendar thing actually does creep me out a bit. Well, five more years and we'll find out.
There's a wikipedia article on it
basically, while 2012 is the ending of a cycle, it's just a cycle of the calendar
the real "end of the world" and beginning of a new one is slated to be something like December 12th, 4772
According to Nostradamus (or according to what people reading a variation of his works which are written in an archane variation of foriegn language and then mixed with hidden codes in the bible ect) it's supposed to be 3797. I don't know why it ends then it just does.
It'd be interesting if the world ends by contractual obligation.
what does it mean to have matter that is more stable than ordinary matter? Isn't stability... a good thing?
OH SHIT --
I can't clear the memory, but isn't there an old cartoon episode where someone is saying something like...."YOU MUST ...HAVE...STABILITTYYYYY" while he is being flung around or something...shit...
And the winner for the most vague reference IS! ...me
Ok, so the purpose of this thing is not to model the start of the universe. The purpose of this thing is to throw particles at eachother a lot faster than we could throw them before. This allows scientists to probe into higher energies than have previously been available, which allows them to explore a lot of stuff in particle physics, such as looking for the Higgs Boson, testing the Standard Model, and, yes, figuring out what when down with the big bang.
Okay, I went back 1 page, and realized that this thread had been heavily assaulted in an ungentlemanly fashion by very bad things.
Rescue attempt:
Anybody read Lisa Randall's Warped Passages? She is one of the first female bigwigs in the field, and her theories are garnering attention: namely, that an extra dimension might be infinitely large and that we live in a three dimensional pocket within a general higher dimensional universe. Her number-crunching suggestes that gravity is a much stronger force outside of our "pocket."
One of my biggest hopes for the LHC is that we get one of these two outcomes:
1: My BIGGEST hope is that we find evidence for higher/extra dimensions
2: At the very least, direct detection of gravitational waves
The LHC can't be used to detect gravitational waves, directly or indirectly.
They've already had one interuption in the timeline for the LHC.
One thing is for certain... they won't be creating any supermassive black holes with this beast. It would be a violation of pretty much all laws of physics because you'd end up with more mass than you started with. Micro-black holes, maybe. It would be neat if it could happen though, because then we'd have to completely rewrite all the old laws of physics, including the laws of conservation of energy and locality (The mass would have to come from *somewhere*)... although at that point there would be no one left to rewrite the rules.
Its interesting that people are willing to roll the dice on whether or not mankind understands the Universe when it's quite obvious (someone mentioned the Higgs?) that we don't.
However, I'd say that they'll run into a continuing series of problems just getting the LHC up and running. Pushing the cost well beyond the original budget.
Yay for determined scientists and government funding.
Yay for tax dollars being pissed away on dangerous experiments.
If it's delayed until the 2011-2012 solar storm, it might never see operation at all.
I swear to a non-specific deity there is a lot of stupid in this thread. Apparently most of the world's physicists telling you what can't happen, what's monumentally unlikely to happen can be refuted by one conspiracy nut saying "but we don't know for sure!" while apparently not fearing for his life when he's on the second story of a house.
Now y'see, I don't have a good grasp of science. I am aware that science is there, that it happens. It's happening as I speak, from what I understand. That's good. Science is good. It keeps the world spinning. But I can't even begin to understand what this device is for, what mankind will actually achieve by switching it on, or whether or not I'll still be in one piece to read the findings.
From what I understand, this contraption is effectively a giant catapult, flinging a particular type of particle at speeds we are currently unable to fling them at. And from what I understand, by doing this we might be able to discover something about energy. You'll have to forgive me here, as despite my rather impressive C:C grade in GCSE Science, most of what I know about Energy I learnt from Lucozade commercials.
But there is a risk, according to what some of you are referring to as Bad Science, that the Universe will implode. Or explode. Or that the Earth will be sucked into a Black Hole, or lots of little Black Holes. Or something. I imagine as Energy is involved that they will, in fact, be Orange Holes, as everyone knows that the colour of energy is orange. But that's according to Bad Science, so there's no risk. Right?
I swear to a non-specific deity there is a lot of stupid in this thread. Apparently most of the world's physicists telling you what can't happen, what's monumentally unlikely to happen can be refuted by one conspiracy nut saying "but we don't know for sure!" while apparently not fearing for his life when he's on the second story of a house.
Too many variables unaccounted for in the experiments.
The lack of understand of what *MASS* is of all things should be a good indicator.
Suppose, for example, that they don't discover the Higgs with the LHC? They've already pushed the lower bounds to the limits. They can't raise the energy level any higher and expect to find the Higgs because they'll have already ruled out its lower bound. It's not that the science is contradicting itself... it's just that in a best case scenario, we find the Higgs, see Hawking Radiation in action, etc.
Worst case scenario, there are so many uncounted variables (like an asymetrical pressure load when the Fermi magnets quenched) that any number of them could result in a dangerous situation.
It's literally a dice roll... lacking a finer understanding, we're searching for answer with bigger tools and praying that the best case scenario holds out. Although in this case the dice are already loaded.
Yeah, except the realistic "worst case scenario" actually involves...well, nothing happening, and people trying to prove the Standard Model getting rather peeved.
Its going to try and mimic the big bang within an area as small as a shoe box. This should help the smart people learn more shit.
So they're going to try and create another universe inside a box
didn't they do that on Futurama
Yes. They created a parallel universe inside a box. At the same time, the professor in the other universe created a box with our universe inside of it. To fix it, professor and bizarro professor pulled each other's boxes through themselves. End result: each had a box containing their own universe.
Hah! You know what would be trippy, if an alien race a long time ago tried this, fucked it up and now their part of the galaxy is being eaten up, but because it is soooo far away, it still hasn't reached us...
Come to think of it though, I would loooove to live in the end of times. I might be fucked morbid like that, but it would be really intresting. Kind of like living in those Majora's Mask commercials with timers and clocks counting down the hours everywhere....
Kinda irrelevant but their are some interesting things about population curves and something like the majority of people who have ever lived being alive right now.....
Posts
Its really fun with all the people all freaked out about it :P.
Should we switch on the LHC?
Man, what the hell happened to Horizon? It used to be one of the best current affairs/documentary series' on TV. Now it's just sensationalist crap.
I don't know, looks like the good ol' Beeb has gone down the toilet (excluding Doctor Who of course). Constant dance competitions and "What the hell do we do with Graham Norton?" has really destroyed it.
Your likley to find more factual science in Doctor Who.
It may seem off topic, but i think there's more here than a first glance can offer. Here is a link to the worlds best source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna - . (Sarcasm, but i'm too lazy to look for a proper source). Anyway, check out about half page down for Novelty Theory and "Time Wave: Zero Point". Basically what its saying is that since our beginning, there have been inventions "novelties" that have changed the way we live. When they put all these events on a timeline, they found that the time between each event shortened. The final day in which these events reach a "singularity" is December 21, 2012. DUN DUN DUUUUUNNN!
Anyway, my point is that this new machine seems like it could lend to this idea of Novelty. Turning this thing on could be an event that changes technology or science the way the industrial or agricultral revolution has changed our world. The end result (in the theory) is best summarized in this quote:
30,000 years ago, we learned how to farm. 350 years ago, we learned how to mass-produce machines. About 50 years ago, we learned how to build computers. As you can see, the _rate_ of change is increasing, as is the ability afforded by the change. With computers, we have the ability to build more efficient things, fly planes and spaceships, educate more people, etc. Each of these enabling technologies will build further development, and at a faster rate.
According to the mathematical model, we should see approximately *61* more of these species-changing developments before 12/21/2012! All of the same magnitude as the three noted above! Again, it's only a model, but they predict 18 of those changes on the last day, and 13 of _those_ to happen in the last FRACTION OF A SECOND, as things accelerate towards that infinity point. (End Quote)
I got that from - http://www.sculptors.com/~salsbury/Articles/singularity.html - .
The first thing to strike me about this wasn't the "omg, end of the world" , but rather the "omg, everything imaginable happening on this day..." Apparently, Terence McKenna didn't know anything about the mayan calendar, or so he claimed. Just some cool stuff to mull in that sci-fi head of yours
The Mayan Calender thing has been around for a while in other contexts, I think. There's always some asshole claiming the world's going to end.
I think they'll make a pit stop at disease ridding nano technology first, than move to hyperspace. Which makes sense really, you don't want disease in space...that shit is EVERYWHERE.
what does it mean to have matter that is more stable than ordinary matter? Isn't stability... a good thing?
There's a wikipedia article on it
basically, while 2012 is the ending of a cycle, it's just a cycle of the calendar
the real "end of the world" and beginning of a new one is slated to be something like December 12th, 4772
It'll be so stable, the universe will explode!
According to Nostradamus (or according to what people reading a variation of his works which are written in an archane variation of foriegn language and then mixed with hidden codes in the bible ect) it's supposed to be 3797. I don't know why it ends then it just does.
It'd be interesting if the world ends by contractual obligation.
Not if its matter we can't use.
Also especially not if its a black hole. Those tend to be hard on anything in the local neighborhood. :P
The coming US presidental election does look terrible, but this might be an overstatement.
OH SHIT --
I can't clear the memory, but isn't there an old cartoon episode where someone is saying something like...."YOU MUST ...HAVE...STABILITTYYYYY" while he is being flung around or something...shit...
And the winner for the most vague reference IS! ...me
Trying to better understand how the universe began by recreating the conditions of the Big Bang, only smaller (hopefully).
:^:
So they're going to try and create another universe inside a box
didn't they do that on Futurama
It's been done before.
True dat, but this one has the possiblity of a black hole. A BLACK FUCKING HOLE. And if we're extra lucky, a Supermassive Black Hole.
the only thing better would be if Muse was playing in the background...mmm
Dude, this thing will not destroy the universe. I bet you the universe I'm right.
The LHC can't be used to detect gravitational waves, directly or indirectly.
Might as well go big
One thing is for certain... they won't be creating any supermassive black holes with this beast. It would be a violation of pretty much all laws of physics because you'd end up with more mass than you started with. Micro-black holes, maybe. It would be neat if it could happen though, because then we'd have to completely rewrite all the old laws of physics, including the laws of conservation of energy and locality (The mass would have to come from *somewhere*)... although at that point there would be no one left to rewrite the rules.
Its interesting that people are willing to roll the dice on whether or not mankind understands the Universe when it's quite obvious (someone mentioned the Higgs?) that we don't.
However, I'd say that they'll run into a continuing series of problems just getting the LHC up and running. Pushing the cost well beyond the original budget.
Yay for determined scientists and government funding.
Yay for tax dollars being pissed away on dangerous experiments.
If it's delayed until the 2011-2012 solar storm, it might never see operation at all.
From what I understand, this contraption is effectively a giant catapult, flinging a particular type of particle at speeds we are currently unable to fling them at. And from what I understand, by doing this we might be able to discover something about energy. You'll have to forgive me here, as despite my rather impressive C:C grade in GCSE Science, most of what I know about Energy I learnt from Lucozade commercials.
But there is a risk, according to what some of you are referring to as Bad Science, that the Universe will implode. Or explode. Or that the Earth will be sucked into a Black Hole, or lots of little Black Holes. Or something. I imagine as Energy is involved that they will, in fact, be Orange Holes, as everyone knows that the colour of energy is orange. But that's according to Bad Science, so there's no risk. Right?
Am I getting this so far?
Too many variables unaccounted for in the experiments.
The lack of understand of what *MASS* is of all things should be a good indicator.
Suppose, for example, that they don't discover the Higgs with the LHC? They've already pushed the lower bounds to the limits. They can't raise the energy level any higher and expect to find the Higgs because they'll have already ruled out its lower bound. It's not that the science is contradicting itself... it's just that in a best case scenario, we find the Higgs, see Hawking Radiation in action, etc.
Worst case scenario, there are so many uncounted variables (like an asymetrical pressure load when the Fermi magnets quenched) that any number of them could result in a dangerous situation.
It's literally a dice roll... lacking a finer understanding, we're searching for answer with bigger tools and praying that the best case scenario holds out. Although in this case the dice are already loaded.
Yes. They created a parallel universe inside a box. At the same time, the professor in the other universe created a box with our universe inside of it. To fix it, professor and bizarro professor pulled each other's boxes through themselves. End result: each had a box containing their own universe.
Come to think of it though, I would loooove to live in the end of times. I might be fucked morbid like that, but it would be really intresting. Kind of like living in those Majora's Mask commercials with timers and clocks counting down the hours everywhere....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQMD4XudxoE
EDIT: Also guys, this is a very interesting read.
http://press.ucsc.edu/text.asp?pid=939