Greatest Atom Smasher In The Universe,...
...ever!
Tinfoil Condition Red! LHC 7 TeV mega-blasts today
Tuesday will be a big day at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), far and away the most powerful particle-punisher ever assembled by the human race. For the first time ever, boffins operating the colossal machine will cross the streams produced in its twin mighty hadron cannons, colliding particles at never-before-seen 7 Tera- …
This topic is closed for new posts.
A title.
Ummm, does anyone know what time this is happening tomorrow. I only ask because I have exams and don't really want to spend all night revising only to find the world being destroyed around me before I even get a chance to sit them.
My time could be much better spent drinking beer and something like that is just going to annoy me.
What the eff...?!?
What's wrong with humanity nowadays? Between the anti-LHC fearmongers, the 2012 apocalyptards, and all the splinter/fringe political movements (witness: the Tea-Baggers harassing U.S. senators) it seems like humanity has smelt its end approaching and is tearing itself apart at the seams.
Or maybe it's like in that Twilight Zone episode, where aliens are manipulating our environment in order to drive us mad and attack each other. Not that we need something like that to happen...we do it fine without help.
Re: What's wrong with humanity nowadays?
Same as it ever was. Of course, the loopiest fruitcakes of several centuries ago were *in power* and called "Sir" rather than "bonkers". Nowadays the nutters are largely powerless and we can give them the derisive laughter and mockery that they (and their ancestors) so richly deserve.
And then there's modern communications which has enabled the trolls to reach a wider audience. (I bet Mr Hubbard is *still* pissing himself. Hell's fires have probably been all but extinguished by now.)
Still, it's not kind to mock the afflicted, so just in case Dr Death is an authentic nutter rather than a troll, I'll stop there.
Tea Baggers!?
I know there are the videos of the Sarah Palin lookalike, but they're going after senators now.
Alright, I'm getting it.
I...
...just love the phrase 'Apocolyptard'. I must use it more in coversation.
Carry on!
Risk assessment
I was always told when doing risk assessments that you are supposed to multiply the risk of an undesirable event by the potential damage it could cause. So, even if the risk to the Earth of the LHC is very, very small indeed, you still need to multiply it by 6,800,000,000 (the Earth's approximate current population) to calculate the potential worst-case impact. If Higgs is correct then Hawking is wrong, and therefore maybe minute black holes of the sort that the LHC could create might not actually evaporate.
(Escape because I wish I could)
collaptic explosion
There is a 49% probability that I'm misinformed, but isn't a "collaptic explosion" what people free from the mental disease the dear "Dr." suffers from just an implosion? Does not sound impressive enough, though.
It would be interesting to see and talk to such a guy in person though. Would he look and behave normally -- up to the moment when the "physics" delusions start of course? Or would one be able to spot the nutjob in a crowd even without hearing his ideas?
I wonder...
Is this really all about finding the Higgs boson and/or new particles? I mean, what's the ultimate goal here? Know everything there is to know about how the universe was created, is that it? Nothing more? And why do the media all around the world try so hard to make sure that everyone knows all about this LHC devilry, but when it comes to other huge - and equally "dangerous" - projects (like HAARP, for instance) there always seems to be a complete media blackout? Why is this? You'd almost think they were trying to shift the attention away from what they're really up to.
No, I don't trust them at all. That's why I bought myself a nice and shiny tinfoil coat today. A simple hat just won't do anymore.
Obligatory Ghostbusters reference
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
I find myself most concerned about the case
where the whole Earth explodes, leaving Geneva miraculously intact
The Doctor?
Not the actual Doctor, of course, but...
"The Doctor contends that the LHC may trigger a "magnetic trap of devil" event"
Isn't this clown some kind of Russian tractor mechanic, or is that someone else? Certainly, he needs a sidekick to insert articles before nouns unless the intended effect is to come across all über-Russian, which can be endearing, of course, but probably doesn't help to deliver his sinister message of doom.
Maybe his massed brigade of Zetor tractors is already on its way across Europe...
That's right
Mock those whose first language is not the same as yours, structurally, or syntactically. I suspect you can neither write, not converse understandably in Russian. Although if I am subsequently proved incorrect, I apologise profusely.
Re: That's right
Oh, hello Mr High Horse!
First of all, no, I don't speak Russian, but I do know Russian-speaking people who speak English and other languages very well. I don't mock these people, and if they ask me for advice, I help them sensitively with whichever area they feel needs improving. However, any fool who threatens people with violence (and you should recall that some scientists actually received death threats in the first round of LHC paranoia) can tolerate a bit of humour at their expense - mild humour at that.
Secondly, while I derive a certain level of pleasure from the idiosyncrasies of others' English, it isn't through derision: if anything, we learn something about their native language in the process of observing how they use another. I know that my own foreign language abilities are far from perfect, but beyond the daily use of those abilities where they mostly suffice, I would almost certainly have someone look over any "really important" public announcements that I may wish to disseminate widely, especially if I wanted to be taken seriously.
And finally, the harshest critics of people's foreign language usage, where that foreign language is often English, are frequently people of the same nationality and culture. If the clown in question were an actual scientist, I'm sure many of his Russian colleagues would have harsher things to say about his prose (not to mention his message) than I do.
Time to dismount, I think.
More Energy, Scotty
My predictions, which I make after a long bout of drinking alone with a notepad, a pan and a book on Lie Algebras:
1. Explosion of the whole Earth – 0%.
2. Extermination of Geneva – 0%.
3. Extermination of Europe – 0%.
4. Other harmful unpredictable consequences – 0%.
5. Discovery of new subnuclear energy sources – 0%.
6. Outcomes with no harm and no use – the rest.
GO GO GO! I want to see those papers before I die!!
"Crude estimate"
Didn't realise that phrase had been redefined to mean "pulled out of my ass on a whim"
The thing is - prove him wrong folks... I could flip 10 heads in a row, doesn't prove the odds weren't 50-50.
Well....
Environment suits and crowbars at the ready chaps.
Don't cross the streams
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
Don't cross the streams!
"There's something very important I forgot to tell you. Don't cross the streams, It would be bad"
I, for one, welcome our black hole overlords
"*Though of course he faces stiff opposition in the fruitcake rankings from retired chemistry prof Otto Rössler, who feels that LHC boffins might avoid imploding the Earth only to carelessly compact the Moon down to the size of a pea, or perhaps put out the Sun."
Think of the advantages. Putting out the Sun will definitely prevent global warming. Besides, a nearby singularity might be pretty exciting. We can drop things into it, like asteroids perhaps, and bathe in the radiation produced.
I have faith that this won't happen....
The government will never let this happen. At least not until I send in my tax return....
*clap* *clap* *clap*
"famed wheelchair robovoice savant"
10/10
Hang on...
On the 19th, you said (in "LHC boffins crank beams to 3.5 TeV redline") that the LHC would be limited to 3.5 TeV this year: "work within this limit this year". After that, power connections would be replaced before they ran at the full 7 TeV. Both articles can't be right.
maths
two 3.5 TeV beams cloiding head on makes 7Tev colision
@Hang on...
3.5 TeV each way, when two beams running at 3.5TeV hit the combined force would be 7TeV (3.5+3.5). When they get to 7TeV the beams will hit at 14Tev
@hang on
after a year or so of 3.5TeV beams colliding at 7TeV, they are taking the machine offline for upgrades. when it comes back online the beams will run at 7TeV for 14 TeV collisions. i think that may be what the article was refering to.
Is it me...
...or is Dr Energy channelling amanfromMars here?
what's the point of posting
if no one's going to be here tomorrow to read it? *runs off into the forest and starts clapping*
Dude, everybody cries...
I never married Alyson Hannigan. Firefly was cancelled just when it was getting interesting. I haven't won the lottery. Work sucks (actually having to do it). The list goes on an on and on. You think I give a damn about a souped-up tazer in the arse-end of reality? This reality is broken. Move along, nothing to see here... not anymore.
Graveyard symbol because we may be dead this time tomorrow. Blinked out as an ephemerol insect lives and dies in the transient evanescence of the cruelty upon which we bestow the name "nature". I guess I should care, but I just can't find it in me to do so. I am numb. Too far gone. I cannot save myself either.
yer
"I never married Alyson Hannigan. Firefly was cancelled just when it was getting interesting. I haven't won the lottery"
same here man same here I feel your pain
April fools disaster headlines looming
Is it just me or is the colossal earth destruction possibility event just a day before April Fool's day?
Are we going to have disaster headlines on Wednesday?
"Earth being turned into a giant omlette courtesy of the LHC"
"Strange beings seen leaving CERN"
"Bread now toxic to birdlife after strange glow emitted from the French/Swiss border"
Geneva saved?
I note that the extermination of Geneva is only as probable as the extermination of Europe, so why did he single out Geneva? Is there a probability that Europe will be exterminated **except for Geneva**?
Geneva is still in Europe, right?
There again, there is a 48% probability that the whole Earth will explode, but Europe will NOT be exterminated.
Mine's the one with the plane tickets to Geneva in the pocket.
49% chance
that we will be spared the horror of global warming . climate change etc.
Hum....
And I did not have sex today.....damn. If the planet is doomed I should have the opportunity to score that swedish massage therapist at the University before I hear the BANG tomorrow. It is not fair....
Paris, cause we know the end is near ...
Compact the moon, put out the sun!
Great.
There's absolutely nothing on TV to watch!
Bring it on.
Er, hang on
49% chance of blowing up teh entire wurldz but only 1% chance of laying waste to Geneva?
The boy's a fool.
49% chance we'll all die
Well with my reasoning that means I should only do 49% of work today and by some strange co-incidence that means it's time for me to go home - WOO HOO!!
Predictions..
The Higgs boson theory is wrong. Hawking is right.
You'll get a shower of small particles which vanish as they go out of scope.
Oh...if you play your cards right, you could end up with a conjoined proton which is bad*
bad* = dimensional iffyness, periodic table gong titsup, whacking great isotopes hoving into view, that sort of thing.
And trust me...in the space between space, something wakens ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
You get the gist.
Election Delay
This is obviously part of Gordon Brown's plans to avoid having to call an election. If the world gets sucked into a black hole (other than the one he helped create) then he won't have to make a decision.
More like old tin foil hat
Weren't the ghostbusters crossing proton beams in excess of 10TeV decades ago??? Proof that nothing untoward will happen.
Oh dear !
The armchair prophets are in a turmoil ! The end is nigh !
Excuse me while I consider the vast implications of the proclamations made by wise entities who haven't got a clue.
Hmm, seems to me there are no implications. Sounds rather like Paco Rabanne prophetizing the dreadful land-impact of Mir, and in the end such pie-in-the-sky foretellers will be proven to be just as wrong as he was.
I mean really, if it was so easy to divine the end of the world, given the number of times I've had Jehovah's Witnesses falling over themselves to warn me I think we'd already be done with the whole thing and playing our harps in the rosy clouds.
No, the world is not going to end. Not before the Sun goes nova anyway. Suck it up, doomsayers, and go rant about porcine fever or something.
"...nuclear weapon borrowed from Osama bin Laden..."
'Borrowed'? Is he going to give it back when he's finished with it?
(Adopting dodgy middle eastern accent)
"What the hell is this? I let you borrow my perfectly fine wmd and now look at the state of it! Completely vaporised! No, I don't care what you've done to Geneva, I want my bomb back. You better go round to Kim's and get me another. Ptah, you can't trust anyone with your stuff these days."
Judging by the press...
...they should have called this the "Large Headline Collider". Why can't they just wait until after the experiment and tell us all about it in tomorrow's edition - if there is one.
cos we then could not use it
I plan to try this out in a bar tonight
http://xkcd.com/474/
In perspective
7Tev is 1.12 micro Joules.
However that is per *particle*
there are a *lot* of particles in this thing.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Popular Whitepapers
- The BI Inflexion Point
Information is a right, not a privilege - VPN security - if you want it, come and get it
Attention WiFi hotspotters: You want it - The Register Guide to iSCSI
A primer on Internet SCSI, a protocol to transport SCSI commands over IP - Secure Mobile Working
Beyond the Technology - The Impact of IT Security Attitudes
Putting the pieces in place for effective security delivery - The Register guide to unified communications
A primer on the implications of unified communications for enterprise IT
