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

[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]