On 10th September they are 'switching-on' the Large Hadron Collider. This could be a momentous occasion for science.
Since this is also my birthday I will be doubling the celebrations 
Here is a nice introduction to the experiments for those who are interested (which should include anyone interested in science) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7543089.stm How weird that your birthday of all people's should be on the same day as one of the most momentous days in science.
There were a couple of programmes about the LHC on BBC4 which I had planned to watch but i missed them unfortunately, and i can't be bothered to catch them again on iPlayer. I'll just have to catch the radio show on radio 4 on Wednesday instead.
You know, apart from the fact that the LHC will be turned on, wednesday could be a very uneventful day (assuming nothing unexpected happens 
). I mean, its going to take the scientists a while to crunch through all the images to find what they are looking for, so Wednesday could be very boring but some time next week may be very exciting indeed.
As an aside point, i encourage everyone here to check Youtube for various videos depicting what some people think might happen once the LHC is turned on, regarding black holes. They really are just so stupid, based on absolutely no scientific fact whatsoever, and yet some people still think it is true. But if you want a bit of a laugh, i suggest you check them out. Yes, I certainly wouldn't be expecting anything interesting to emerge for a while yet - the significance is largely symbolic - the birthday. The amount of data produced will be vast - 100MB per second or more - and it will take weeks to even come up with some tentative results. It could be months, or even years before definitive results are announced, but, hey, the hunt starts soon
Current betting (of a few of us on the Science Forums) is '2-1 on' for discovering the Higgs and '900-1 against' for micro black-hole formation*
*That does not mean we think there is a 1 in 900 chance of some catastrophe. Micro BHs would be a fantastic result, offering some evidence for M-Theory and almost certainly a Nobel prize for Hawking. Hawking himself puts the probability at 'less than 1 in 100' but we tend to think he is being a bit optimistic
We kicked around the various theories about catastrophic black holes and the maths shows that they are laughable.
Last edited by Bikerman on Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:29 pm; edited 1 time in total It certainly is just mind-boggling how much data the LHC will produce over just a short amount of time. I cannot even begin to think how many people must be employed to go through the data, or even the amount of concentration it must take to look through all those pictures looking for that one image that will explain everything (slight exaggeration, but hey its a big thing).
What are the odds that:
a) Nothing happens
b) We all die
c) We all die but enjoy it anyway
| Bikerman wrote: |
| We kicked around the various theories about catastrophic black holes and the maths shows that they are laughable. |
Ha ha ha. So true Well, they had to build a completely new computer network system to handle the data.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7508242.stm
Thousands of physicists will be pouring over the results worldwide so important discoveries could come from anywhere.
I think the odds are very good that some meaningful results (by which I mean either confirmation or refutation of the Higgs, at least) will emerge.
The problem with the perception of risk is that most people equate Black Holes with some ravening monster that will eat the universe. When you try to explain concepts such as the Schwartschild radius, the event horizon, and the actual size that we are discussing (Planck lengths and below) then they accuse you of trying to blind them with science or baffle them with bull.
Tentative calculations by a friend (Ed) over at the Science Forums show that any micro black-hole that did form would take several billion years to 'accrete' the matter within a 1 metre radius (presuming that Hawking is completely wrong and it doesn't immediately evaporate).
http://www.sciencefile.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1220165917/all And those are the people that are fuelling the fears over the 'black holes that are going to destroy all life' talk. I mean take a look at this video:
CERN black hole
From that, you'd think that a giant hole is suddenly going to open around Europe and suck the Earth into it, with this massive singularity at the centre. This is total rubbish. A) the black hole would take forever to get that big and B) the singularity at the centre will be so small that nothing will be able to enter.
I was thinking about how ironic it would be if this did actually happen. You have all these scientists saying it never will, and all this maths to back it up, but if it did actually happen there would be this massive clang as the irony dropped. Well, the whole furore reminds me very much of the supposedly 'informed' scare stories that went around at the time the first railway locomotives were being developed. It was asserted, with great gravitas, that the human body could not possibly breathe at speeds in excess of 27mph, because the wind would be so great, and passengers on any train travelling above such speeds would suffocate and die horribly. The fact that people regularly experienced wind conditions far in excess of that seemed to escape the notice of the doom-mongers.
Thus it is with the LHC. The fact that cosmic rays exceed, every moment of our existence, any energies that can be delivered at the LHC, seems to be completely ignored...
That's exactly it.
The basics behind their argument is that 'the science shows that it could possibly create a black hole' and yet when you actually stop and think about it, the science shows that it is not possible. Its as though they are not interested in any scientific fact, but simply getting a good story, and don't care if there is no proof whatsoever to back up their argument. And even when scientists who are at the very heart of the project say 'it will not create a black hole', people still don't listen, they still believe the rumour-mongering idiots that have absolutely no scientific knowledge whatsoever.
I'm surprised there are so many people freaking out about this on the youtube comments. Maybe I should take advantage of this occasion and organize a huge "end of the world orgy".
We should offer those who are worried a space-shuttle. They can go and hide in orbit around the sun until the experiment is done. If they are worried that it might be a bit warm near the sun, we'll promise to send them at night.
They will probably believe that as well.....
Bikerman, your post completely summarises the hilarity of the situation.
Perhaps another solution would be to simply tell them to hide under the edge of the Earth, as the flat shape would provide perfect cover from any possible danger. As for sending them up to the Sun at night, i would have thought SPF 50 would work just as well.
| Bikerman wrote: |
Current betting (of a few of us on the Science Forums) is '2-1 on' for discovering the Higgs and '900-1 against' for micro black-hole formation*
*That does not mean we think there is a 1 in 900 chance of some catastrophe. Micro BHs would be a fantastic result, offering some evidence for M-Theory and almost certainly a Nobel prize for Hawking. Hawking himself puts the probability at 'less than 1 in 100' but we tend to think he is being a bit optimistic
We kicked around the various theories about catastrophic black holes and the maths shows that they are laughable. |
Didn't Hawking bet against the Higgs? i'm sure i read that somewhere.
Course it may just be one of his hedge bets. He doesn't have the best reputation with scientific bets either. Damned if i'd ever trust his word at the track. | Indi wrote: |
| Bikerman wrote: | Current betting (of a few of us on the Science Forums) is '2-1 on' for discovering the Higgs and '900-1 against' for micro black-hole formation*
*That does not mean we think there is a 1 in 900 chance of some catastrophe. Micro BHs would be a fantastic result, offering some evidence for M-Theory and almost certainly a Nobel prize for Hawking. Hawking himself puts the probability at 'less than 1 in 100' but we tend to think he is being a bit optimistic
We kicked around the various theories about catastrophic black holes and the maths shows that they are laughable. |
Didn't Hawking bet against the Higgs? i'm sure i read that somewhere.
Course it may just be one of his hedge bets. He doesn't have the best reputation with scientific bets either. Damned if i'd ever trust his word at the track. |
Not sure Indi...I know he does tend to hedge bet (as with his two Black Hole bets on Cygnus X-1, and information loss).
Late breaking news; Yes you are perfectly correct. I checked around and found that Hawking has wagered £100 that the Higgs will not be found - a classic Hawking hedge bet.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7598000/7598686.stmFirst things first,
Happy birthday Chris! 
Well it was turned on and now they are speeding those protons up.
Meanwhile someone in delphi has commited suicide because of some stupid people who said it would cause a black hole and would kill everyone, well we are still very alive.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26641652/
| Quote: |
BHOPAL, India - A teenage girl in central India killed herself on Wednesday after being traumatized by media reports that a "Big Bang" experiment in Europe could bring about the end of the world, her father said.
The 16-year old girl from the state of Madhya Pradesh drank pesticide and was rushed to the hospital but later died, police said.
Her father, identified on local television as Biharilal, said that his daughter, Chayya, killed herself after watching doomsday predictions made on Indian news programs.
|
Last edited by Klaw 2 on Wed Sep 10, 2008 7:24 pm; edited 1 time in total | Klaw 2 wrote: |
| Meanwhile someone in delphi has commited suicide because of some stupid people who said it would cause a black hole and would kill everyone, well we are still very alive. |
He took the cowards way out 
BTW: Happy Birthday Bikerman. | SlideR.nl wrote: |
| Klaw 2 wrote: | | Meanwhile someone in delphi has commited suicide because of some stupid people who said it would cause a black hole and would kill everyone, well we are still very alive. |
He took the cowards way out
BTW: Happy Birthday Bikerman. |
It was a she...
I was still editing my post
But I don't really think she took the easy way out, she was simply traumatized. By some pseudo scientists who needed some attention. There were discussions on TV however I doubt there were any discussions going on with people who actually understood it fully and specialized in the subject. Or at least that the people who claimed there would be a black hole knew enough about it.Not only have the idiot-scientists been proven wrong, but someone has lost their life because of it. This to me just seems completely unnecessary. If people had actually stopped and thought about the science behind the idiot-scientists theories, they would have realised they were blowing smoke. But instead they decided to believe a bunch of idiots as opposed to the thousands of physicists who have conducted numerous feasibility reports and run numerous tests and proven that their argument holds no truth.
Maybe this will prove to the rest of the world how dangerous rumour-mongering can be. We are so quick to believe what people say, and yet are unwilling to believe cold hard facts from proper experts. If this had been different, maybe that girl would still be alive.
On a slightly happier note, the LHC has been going great. The tests they have performed have i believe gone without a hitch, and this just opens it up for what is yet to come. Maybe now we can truly begin to understood just how the universe works.
And, of course, a happy birthday to Bikerman.
Keep it real Thanks to all for the good wishes.
I've just got back from my birthday treat - a visit to the LHC (Local House of Curry).
| Indi wrote: |
| Bikerman wrote: | Current betting (of a few of us on the Science Forums) is '2-1 on' for discovering the Higgs and '900-1 against' for micro black-hole formation*
*That does not mean we think there is a 1 in 900 chance of some catastrophe. Micro BHs would be a fantastic result, offering some evidence for M-Theory and almost certainly a Nobel prize for Hawking. Hawking himself puts the probability at 'less than 1 in 100' but we tend to think he is being a bit optimistic
We kicked around the various theories about catastrophic black holes and the maths shows that they are laughable. |
Didn't Hawking bet against the Higgs? i'm sure i read that somewhere.
Course it may just be one of his hedge bets. He doesn't have the best reputation with scientific bets either. Damned if i'd ever trust his word at the track. |
Stephen Hawking lost his last best.
What are the odds that he loses 2 in a row?
I understand the current bet is that Stephen will pay out at 100-1 odds if Higgs are real. (?)
If Higgs are real, his theory survives and the odds increase on future bets.
If Higgs are not real, he keeps the stake.
He cannot lose by issuing such a bet. Garrett Lisi did similar with supersymmetry in a recent youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzSHLQGBKI4At the other end of the spectrum, a friend of mine doing physics with me was very excited by all the 'end of the world' talk. They didn't buy into any of it, but yeah. Not quite sure why they felt this way, but it was an interesting positive reaction to it.
I think that all this talk about the world ending made them happier to be alive.
when are they actually going to let those protons hit each other?
see I agree the LHC seems safe but this experiment has never been done before, you cannot tell me that those scientist are 100% sure nothing will happen, you are messing with the beginning of time and other dimensions (if they are real we shall soon find out) who knows? is all i have to say.
no one believed Einstein when he was trying to prove his theory and then he proved himself right now we have a bunch of scientist who have never done this experiment before telling us that its 100% safe.
this isn't a missile they are making, this is not a gun not even a nuke, all of which we can survive from, this is making miniature big bangs, this is making black holes, this is science its more mysterious now then it ever was.
I WOULD laugh my ass off if in a couple of days those LHC scinetists come out of their bunkers and tell the world " erm guys sry to say but we made a black hole and its getting bigger by the day, the world will end in 10 years, again really sorry we did it for science"
like i said before, this is science guys this is mystery at a grand scale
21st of October is when the actual collisions happen I think.
And about the girl who killed herself in India. It's rather sad, but they only have the media to blame. How many times have I heard the oft-quoted "The LHC will be recreating the big bang" if that was true, I would be freaking scared. To those who don't know, it should say something like "The LHC will have conditions similar to that a billionth of a second after the big bang".
My physics teacher said that if they did make a micro-blackhole it would take 4 years to swallow the whole Earth, of course you would die earlier than that because the Earth's atmosphere will be the first to go.
Here's my theory on the LHC. They turn it on, for no apparent reason all the penguins in the world die, then spontaneously combust, because the internet has never existed without penguins, the internet will too 'die'. Scientists will spend the next 10 years figuring out why the internet cannot exist without penguins, then spend a further 10 years developing an internet that isn't reliant on penguins.
So in short, the LHC isn't making big bangs, its not making black holes, and say your last goodbyes to your beloved penguins.
i'm surprised no one's commented on the hack attempt yet.
| Bannik wrote: |
| no one believed Einstein when he was trying to prove his theory and then he proved himself right now we have a bunch of scientist who have never done this experiment before telling us that its 100% safe. |
Wait, what? ^_^;
| Bannik wrote: |
| I WOULD laugh my ass off if in a couple of days those LHC scinetists come out of their bunkers and tell the world " erm guys sry to say but we made a black hole and its getting bigger by the day, the world will end in 10 years, again really sorry we did it for science" |
You have an odd sense of humour.
| dualR wrote: |
| And about the girl who killed herself in India. It's rather sad, but they only have the media to blame. |
No, they don't. The only blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the idiot girl. Yes, she was an idiot. No one wants to say these kinds of things because they are "disrespectful to the dead" and they hurt the family's feelings. But on the other hand it's just wrong to scapegoat the scientists or the media OR the religious culture (that some journals are blaming now) for that idiot girl.
And yes, she was an idiot girl, and not because she didn't understand the science. You don't need to know a lick of science to know how idiotic killing yourself over the possible destruction of the world is. If the world gets destroyed, you'll be dead... so what's the point of killing yourself earlier? And if it's going to be a slow death so you don't die right away, the question still stands. But since the possibility exists (at least!) that the world won't get destroyed... what's the point of killing yourself until you know for sure?
This was not the media's fault, nor was it the fault of the religious craziness in India that got so worked up over it all. While they may not have helped, and while they may have contributed, they are not responsible. The girl was an idiot. If you don't have the stomach to call her that, fine. But if that's the case, just say nothing. Don't blame the wrong people. The girl was an idiot, but thanks to the culture surrounding her, no access to education and the such.
Just look at Pascal's Wager. LOADS of uneducated people still hold it as true, logical, brilliant... They were raised that way, never to think, never to question, just to believe. The girl could've thought about the chances of dying, and that not killing herself would be more beneficial, but hey, why think when all you have to do is believe, aight?
Anyways, I just can't wait 'till they stop the testing and just start the experiment, it's great to be alive in this day and age.
My opinions on LHC:
The death of that girl was very unfortunate but I think it was mainly down to lack of understand and media exageration. The scientists and anyone to do with the building of LHC is not to blame at all. A sad loss however. On a brighter note I hope they find the higgs boson, it will be a great discovery and prove a lot of blanks in science which have been purely theoretical beforehand.
A b elated happy birthday to Bikerman.
I too am eagerly awaiting the results, but we've got a long wait. I think it'll take until 2011 to analyse the first few tests.
As for the black hole thing - PFFFT! Chances are it would take 10^16 times more power than the LHC can achieve to create them.
| DoctorBeaver wrote: |
| A b elated happy birthday to Bikerman. |
Thanks.
I've just got back from London - went to see my old mate's band - Swervedriver - as a birthday treat it broke down. like it already has so many times.
they don't know when they will have it fixed this time. I wonder if it is God that stops it from working.
| joomla wrote: |
| I wonder if it is God that stops it from working. |
Nah, doesn't sound like his style.
Usually when he doesn't like something he turns the area surrounding it into salt, or smites it with frogs, flies and other things.
