End of the World 9/10/08

[VonMessa]

Everyone knows the end of the world wont arrive until the Vogons get here to make way for a new hyperspace expressway

I'll be long gone before that. 

My towel is already packed.

I'm not sticking around for any of their damn poetry     

[Shifty]

On a serious note, those wacky euros are starting up the Hadron Collider tomorrow.   Could be curtains for us all, or maybe  the answers to the mystery's of the universe. At least here's an informative article on what to tell your kids on your last day on earth http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/09/the-large-hadro.html

Hmm maybe I should call the bank, cancel the mortgage and car payment checks and then go party down?? 

[trax1]

Isn't there one of these in Louisiana or somewhere that is currently operating and producing anti-matter?

The one that your thinking of is actually not that far from my house, it's the Tevatron at Fermi lab here in IL, this one is only 4 miles in circumference, the LHC is 17 miles in circumference, now with it being bigger they can speed the particles up to speeds closer to the speed of light, I think at the LHC the protons will travel around the 17 mile accelerator 11,000 times a second, then have anti-protons sent around in the other direction and then have them collide together, and with the bigger particle accelerator they'll be able to learn more about the big bang.

[Yossarian]

Well if it blows up everything we will never know about it.

Actually, you probably would.  Despite all our jokes at school about "no more maths prep for us", our physics teacher told us that any black hole formed would probably be around the size of an atom, and would take hundreds or thousands of years to begin doing any serious damage.

[Maniac]

They say very small black holes could form from this, that dissapears really fast. Alltough im not at ease with creating any kind of black holes down here on earth. Imagine if one of those things starts to get larger...

[AKIron]

I think it's hard to know if a black hole can get larger. If it gains mass as matter is sucked into it then yes, it is getting larger. It might also be simply a hole in space where matter is forced into another dimension or area of our own which does not alter the hole itself.

[Furball]

They are hoping to spot Dark Energy, which they know is in the Universe but cannot detect it yet.

Stupid question... how do they get particles to collide? Must be heck of a shot to get something that small going that fast to hit eachother

[AKIron]

I think they are shooting a stream of protons in opposite directions which they are able to steer into each other.

[Sabre]

I just find it interesting that all the expert scientific minds say it will be not harmful

Weren't those expert scientists who blew up nuclear bombs in the western US while sitting in the fallout - expert scientists?

 

NwBie

Most, but not ALL scientists, though those actually voicing concerns are certainly a tiny minority.  Regarding the Los Alamos scientists of which you speak, there's an interesting historical note I read in the book "Day of Trinity" (at least that's where I remember reading it), which was about the Manhattan Project.  As those very learned men sat in the New Mexico desert counting down the last minutes before the first atom bomb was tested, some were engaged in a quite lively and serious debate.  The subject was whether or not the atomic explosion would in turn ignite the Earth's atmosphere and destroy all life on the planet.  We which side won that debate; guess we'll all find out at the same time who wins this one.

[Bruv119]

as a side note if this is a potential black hole that we create on our door step and it starts swallowing up all mass lighter than itself including us surely some intelligent Aliens will come along and take our toys away from us.   

Maybe it is a pre-emptive attack and they wont intervene.

[Wyld45]

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[Hoffman]

Aw hell why does the world end on my first day of school?  Bloody Europeans, you couldn't end it two months ago when I was engrossed in my dedication to spending as much time as possible in a warm and comfortable bed and would have welcomed the end of the planet as then I wouldn't have had do anything silly; like eat, go to the bathroom, take the occasional shower, or excercise?

(Best summer routine... ever: Wakeup, hygiene, excercise, shower, breakfast, go back to bed.  Wakeup, hygiene, lunch, light excercise, go back to bed. Wakeup, grumble, dinner, hygiene, go back to bed until morning. Random bathroom breaks inbetween events.)


As far as the accelerators go...  I'm betting on nothing more than a massive release of energy in a small space.  No real world-ending event, just really expensive fireworks.

[Yeager]

When an individual dies, does the universe end for them?  If so then who gives a ****

We all get to die.

[AKIron]

When an individual dies, does the universe end for them?  If so then who gives a ****

We all get to die.

Even ignoring the possibility of a supernatural existence the law of conservation of energy suggests that individuals don't cease to exist.

[Gh0stFT]

im very anxious to watch this experiment start, not only because i live close to Cern
only dumb people are scared, but those people who work at the LHC (aprox 4000) are not dumb,
this is our elite trying to find answeres about the beginning/creating Matter
just after the Big Bang. We maybe will find the Higgs boson, dubbed the "God Particle".

Watch a live broadcast here tomorrow:
http://webcast.cern.ch/index.html

here are good Picture from the LHC:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/the_large_hadron_collider.html