Scientists start up giant particle-smashing machine (CERN Hadron Collider)

Reuters (excerpt) ^ | September 10, 2008 | Robert Evans

[HAL9000]

Excerpt -

GENEVA, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) started up a huge particle-smashing machine on Wednesday, aiming to re-enact the conditions of the "Big Bang" that created the universe.

Experiments in the Large Hadron Collider, a 10 billion Swiss franc ($9 billion) accelerator built underneath the Swiss-French border, could unlock the remaining secrets of particle physics and answer questions about the universe and its origins.

[GeoPie]

It is the end of the world as we know it;P

[ari-freedom]

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Is this what heaven feels like? Or maybe the other place?

[43north]

I KNEW there was some reason that things were crazy here in the ER tonight!

[bruinbirdman]

Large Paranoia Collider!

The Big Bang Theory

Best Case: The Large Hadron Colliders' ALICE experiment successfully creates quark-gluon plasma, a substance theorized to have existed just milliseconds after the Big Bang. By generating temperatures more than 100,000 times hotter than the sun, scientists hope to watch as this particle goo cools and expands into the particles that we know. That could help scientists answer why protons and neutrons weigh 100 times more than the quarks they're made of.

Worst Case: Scientists inadvertently make a micro black hole, and the earth is quickly erased from existence.

yitbos

[F15Eagle]

I don’t know if this is significant but my calendar now shows the year as 1982.

I’m typing this on a Commodore 64. Gotta go play Jupiter Lander now.

[Enchante]

How will we know if the worst case happens? Or will it all be over before we even sense anything?

I’m not ready for the world to end today, thank you very much.

[bruinbirdman]

"How will we know if the worst case happens? Or will it all be over before we even sense anything?"

Think of where you will be in the twinkle of an eye.

yitbos

[CharlesWayneCT]

I don’t feel so good. ..........

:-)

[CharlesWayneCT]

But the good news is that there apparently is a maximum size to a black hole......

[jonrick46]

I can't understand why they went through the expense and trouble to build this machine. All one has to do is look at the imploding Obama campaign to know the nature of matter inside a black hole.

[bruinbirdman]

Then again, we made it through Y2K.

[bruinbirdman]

Best Case: Scientists detect certain types of supersymmetric particles, aka sparticles, which physicist Michio Kaku calls, "signals from the 11th dimension." This would show that string theorists have been on the right path and that the universe really is made up of the four dimensions we experience and then seven others that unite the forces of nature.

Worst Case: String theory's basic assumptions are violated. The LHC will be the first particle accelerator capable of allowing scientists to study W bosons, the elementary particle responsible for the weak force. If they don't scatter in certain ways, it'll be back to the drawing board for a generation of string theorists, or as one physicist told New Scientist, "If we see these violations, people will start working very feverishly on some sort of alternative that will produce these violations."

[atomic conspiracy]

Hmmmm. We seem to still be here. Take that, ignorant luddites!

Oh, wait. I see a strange purplish light in the northeast. It goes right through my eyelids and has red fringes. Too bright....the floor is starting to rumble under my feet.

Could we have been wrong abou

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Or will it all be over before we even sense anything?

The CERN LHC isn't considered to be nearly large or powerful enough to create a micro black hole. If one did manage to get created, it would almost certainly disintegrate immediately. If a micro black hole somehow defied these odds, it's effect on the earth would take a relatively long time to become noticeable - long enough for all of us to realize what was happening.

But it's worth noting that particle collisions equal in power to what the LHC will achieve happen in our atmosphere regularly due to cosmic ray activity - and we're all still here.

[ari-freedom]

Worst Case: String theory’s basic assumptions are violated.

but hey, that’s progress!

[ari-freedom]

[ari-freedom]

Atomic Conspiracy. Member since Nov 29, 2002.
FR will never be the same.

[ari-freedom]

[atomic conspiracy]

False alarm.
That was just my neighbor’s stupid kid coming in from a party with his stereo blaring and those weird blue lights on his truck.

[ari-freedom]

glad that you’re back OK :)

[I see my hands]

I'm kissing Sandra Oh now.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

LIVE:

http://wwwc.aftonbladet.se/special/webbtv/wmlive/wmp6.html

[count-your-change]

Black holes are odd things, I know since I have one in my garage. Sometimes it will suck a 1/2 or 9/16 inch wrench out of my tool box and leave all the others. At other times it will suck all the gas out of the spare gas can. Over the week end it got the can too.
Most amazing of all a black hole swallowed up my lawnmower only to have it reappear in my brother-in-law’s backyard. He said he had no idea how it got there so the only explanation is a black hole transporting it or possibly a black 95 f150.
There are different kinds of black holes too. One variety only works during the night on my bottle of Jack Daniels.
I went to sleep with it almost full and in the morning the bottle is half gone. I guess having that black hole so close to me causes the headaches too.
But truly the most astounding event was when the wife got caught in a black hole and came out the other side in Florida at her mother’s house two weeks later. She suffered from some sort of time shift because she said it only seemed like a few minutes of being away. And, and she even looked younger like she went back in time.
Those black holes are something to be feared alright.

[bruinbirdman]

"We seem to still be here. "

So now we find out this is only a test.

Later, after some stuff goes 99.99999% of the speed of light in one direction. They will move some stuff in the other.

Then later (after the election?) they are going to cause the stuff going in different directions to collide.

yitbos

[edh]

That’s funny....I wound up a little later in 1985, but this temporal connection to the Internets via my Timex Sinclair seems to be OK. A few things though....maybe my memory is fuzzy :

1> Who’s this President Mondale I keep hearing about on the radio?

2> Have the Cubs really won 25 World Series since 1908?

3> When were we admitted to the USSR?

I guess I am not remembering history very well.

[FredZarguna]

The bad news is that the universe was completely destroyed this morning. The good news is that it was replaced by a perfect copy, and because of the indistinguishability of particles, nobody is any the wiser.

[17th Miss Regt]

Does that mean Rosie O’Donnell will be spared?

[monkeyshine]

long enough for all of us to realize what was happening

Glad to hear it. There will be plenty of time for each of us to get in our spacecraft and move to another solar system.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

Correct. Oprah can attest to that. Her audience has begun to shrink.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

Oh...you meant black hole, no black ho’. oops.

[FastCoyote]

[But it’s worth noting that particle collisions equal in power to what the LHC will achieve happen in our atmosphere regularly due to cosmic ray activity - and we’re all still here. ]

Or are we??????????

[Wynotoo]

Is this a “Back to the Future” moment, or could “Men In Black” be for real?

I don’t relish the idea of being inside a subway locker in Central Park, but a universe on ‘Orion’s Belt’ is a bit claustaphobic for me.

[Aussiebabe]

Hello, Hello.........Hello. Is anybody out there?

[geezerwheezer]

I’ve fallen into a black hole and I can’t get out!

[InterceptPoint]

"But the good news is that there apparently is a maximum size to a black hole......"

Yes. As I understand it, only Socialist Europe will be affected.

[bmwcyle]

Maybe it will just take out Europe.

[LRS]

"Hey! Any of you guys see Max?"

[wolfcreek]

Same dude?

The world’s most interesting man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNYHoI47fw0&feature=related

[LRS]

LOL. On the other side of the black hole, anything is possible...

[wildandcrazyrussian]

“Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe?” or am I confusing titles?

[FredZarguna]

It's actually a speculative metaphysical interpretation of the Feynman path integral formulation of quantum mechanics. Some people call this the "many worlds" interpretation. In view of the fact that to do path integration over all the state vectors you'd need an uncountably infinite number of worlds, "many" is probably the understatement of all time.

It's been going around in various guises since the late 1940's. I don't know if it inspired Douglas Adams or not -- and I didn't have him in mind when I posted -- although I enjoyed his stuff.

[mysterio]

Ok, who divided by zero?

[dfwgator]

I’m not ready for the world to end today, thank you very much.

The fact that the world didn't end, means that the Cubs will not win the World Series.

[steve-b]

Oh, piffle. These speculations about "disruptions to the space-time continuum" are just Chicken Little nonsense.

Even President Gore says so.