The Large Hadron Collider was tested this weekend and a black hole hasn't destroyed the Earth...yet

VentureBeat ^ | August 10th, 2008 | MG Siegler

[SunkenCiv]

The science blog Cosmic Variance has a great rundown of what the LHC could find. At the top of this list is the Higgs boson, which is the only particle in the Standard Model (the theory that describes the fundamental interactions between the particles that make up all matter), that hasn't yet been detected. The site thinks there is a 95 percent chance the LHC finds this particle, and that could lead to a much better understanding of how our universe works.

Other notable possibilities on Cosmic Variance's list include finding extra dimensions (these could be so-called "warped" hidden dimensions or a large dimension we have not yet detected), evidence for or against String Theory (perhaps the most popular "theory of everything" in recent times), dark matter (the matter that theoretically makes up most of the Universe but we can't see it), dark energy (invisible like dark matter, but theoretically making up some 70 percent of the universe -- much more than matter), and a bunch of sub-atomic particles that you've probably never heard of and I won't go into...

The likelihood of the LHC creating a stable black hole that could destroy the work is 10 to the negative 25th power, according to Cosmic Variance's list. For some perspective, the likelihood of finding God is 10 to the negative 20th power, according to the same list.

After the initial test this weekend, the LHC will start up for real on September 10th. At that time, a full-power beam will travel around the accelerator's 17 mile course and reach 99.99 percent of the speed of light, according to Wired.

[MHGinTN]

Hey, ya can’t get there from here, didn’t ya know?

[Telepathic Intruder]

Change the temporal coordinates and it is a completely different reality

Now you've lost me completely. Relativity is complicated enough without adding branes and hyper dimensions. Hypothetical physics that exceeds our ability to test is just that.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Actually 99.999999999999999999995% c is just the more recognizable equivalent to the short-hand 1 - (5 * 10^-24) c.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-energy_cosmic_ray

[SunkenCiv]

:’) Of course, it’s not only amusing, it also contains a particle of truth...

[Octar]

So then if a single nucleon leaves Chicago heading towards New York at 99.999999999999999999995% c, and another single nucleon leaves New York 45 minutes later heading towards Chicago at 99.99999999999999999874655% c, approximately what time will the first nucleon pass Erie, Pennsylvania?

Daylight Saving time, or Standard?

[SunkenCiv]

That's actually a good one. The effect isn't like a bullet hitting a bullet most of the time, but when it does happen, it'll make prittteee sparks.

IF a particle were created in the collision which left through the 'cloud chamber' at greater than the speed of light, how would it be registered on the recording devices?

The amount of energy needed to get that last fraction of the velocity of light exceeds the energy needed to get it to that near-light velocity in the first place (according to Albert). So it won't happen in this device. Probably. Even if the streams were headed in the same direction, crossing the streams would do something completely anti-intuitive, rather than imparting momentum to the frontmost billiard ball (as it were) and producing a tachyon which would register before the interaction took place. That would in itself be a monumental discovery -- but I'm pretty sure that, after a few years, we'll all be glad that the LHC was built in Europe with mostly European money.

I think I linked to some other topics regarding the search for the Higgs boson, and there are those who think (probably correctly, IMVHO) that earlier experiments have failed to turn up any evidence for its existence. That's not to say that -- as with the failed neutrino detection experiments -- an ad hoc save-the-theory expediency won't be cooked up, to allow physicists to totter along with the Standard Model another forty years or so. ;')

[SunkenCiv]

Now you’re just scarin’ me. The whole Solar System or our whole galaxy could be inside a Black Hole right now, and we’d probably never know it. Maybe we’d see some artifacts, such as apparent lensing by apparently far-off objects, or an apparent “wall” of galaxies... hey wait a minute...

[MHGinTN]

F-theory will topple the Standard Model within the next ten years and be proven, too.

[SunkenCiv]

See, who knew that the jokes would just jump right out of a topic on something this dry and academic?

[SunkenCiv]

Luckily for all of us, the LHC will have to be shut down soon, because the electricity used (off peak loading I’m sure, but still) will create too much CO2, melt the icecaps, and drown half the world’s population (living within 220 feet of current sea level).

[MHGinTN]

Bwahahahaha, thanx, I needed a good laugh this evening, er this morning!

[SunkenCiv]

If not, at least there are plenty of letters left in the alphabet. ;’)

[stuartcr]

That’ll probably take about 4 yrs also.

[MHGinTN]

Here's a little thing to help conceptualize, if you actually need such ... forgive me if this is a redundancy for you:

An interesting application of warped 5th dimension has been developed by Lisa Randall. In this model, the 5th dimension is located in between two 3-D branes. It is found that the extra dimension is severely warped in the form of de Sitter space with positive curvature by the presence of bulk and brane energy even though the branes themselves are completely flat (see Figure 10s). The strength of gravity depends on the position of the 5th dimension. As shown in Figure 10s (in term of graviton's probability function), it can be very strong on the Gravitybrane but becomes feeble on the Weakbrane where all the forces and particles in the Standard Model are confined. Only the gravitons can move anywhere in the branes and in the bulk. This model explains why gravity is weak in our world although it can be Figure 10s Warped 5-D [equations and images at http://universe-review.ca/I15-71-LisaRandall1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://universe-review.ca/R15-17-relativity.htm&h=450&w=384&sz=36&hl=en&start=14&um=1&tbnid=26auiPISaR7vIM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=108&prev=/images%3Fq%3DLisa%2BRandall%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:*:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7TSHB%26sa%3DX] very strong in another brane. It also introduces a new way to solve the hierarchy problem of huge difference in mass between the Planck scale and the Electro-weak scale. If the Planck scale mass is set at the Gravitybrane, then the mass of particles on the Weakbrane would be reduced by a factor of 1016 to the Tev range as expected.

[Telepathic Intruder]

No, it’s not redundant. It echos a few things I’ve heard about theories of gravity, but really anything beyond Einstein’s theories is just hypothetical. Without being really into it, actually, it sounds ridiculous. But an outsider shouldn’t judge...

[MHGinTN]

When Richard Feynman presented the fundamentals of his Feynman diagrams, they were immediately stamped ridiculous. Brane theory was laughed at by some reknowned Physicists even as the equations were being explored by curious Physicists. Without the curiousity of the Kaluza Klein dimensional studies, Einstein's SR might have been rejected as too strange.

[jakster]

I see allot of people posting that the machine has been tested. I do not think it was tested. I understand that they injected the matter stream into the tunnel. That is not the test people. Only when both streams of matter are injected and collide which is the key word. When they smash together then it is a test or a big mistake what ever the outcome. They if it works will continue to increase the amounts of energy and matter until they get the big bang or a really big bang. Anyway maybe it would be best to know at what hour on Sept 9th-10th it will be fired up. I say ninth because of the time line. I would like to sin in my yard with a good stiff drink and a joint just in case it goes bad have a front row seat to the show.

[LukeL]

This does have me a little concerned, doesn’t the presence of cosmic rays and oh my god particles prove nothing will happen? I have heard some say this isn’t true because it isn’t a head on collision. But I would assume cosmic rays must collide head on all the time as well.

[SunkenCiv]

I really hate it when the Fourth of July firecrackers start popping all over late in June and continue all hours of the night around here until the kids run out of them. I hope some dopey permissive parent doesn’t cross state lines and bring in some hadron colliders, or the whole neighborhood will be vanishing into black holes every night for weeks.