The end of the world was nigh. What happened? The LHC at Cern

I'm going to put a few documentaries here over the next while on this topic. This one is with Jeremy Irons and the BBC and might have been shown here before...




Brian Cox presents 'A Search for Giants' - a brief history of modern physics.

i think the speed is about 98% that of light.

its due to be run first week in sept 08. not before all the prime ministers etc go along to opening ceremony. *would that they actually disappear into said black hole!!!!*

i visited it back in june. amazing. about 3 times the size of the american (nasa) one so much more info.
i met the guy who created "anti-matter" (anti-hydrogen) for the first time. very nice guy. i believe they're trying for anti-helium next. we're some way from anti-matter torpedos yet!!!!

all applications are peaceful, the physists have sworn to that and are adamant that they'll try to prevent any arms technology.

they have created a new way to treat brain tumours, rem ted kennedy's operation, i believe that was one of the first times it was used.

zakalwe wrote:

i think the speed is about 98% that of light.

its due to be run first week in sept 08. not before all the prime ministers etc go along to opening ceremony. *would that they actually disappear into said black hole!!!!*

i visited it back in june. amazing. about 3 times the size of the american (nasa) one so much more info.
i met the guy who created "anti-matter" (anti-hydrogen) for the first time. very nice guy. i believe they're trying for anti-helium next. we're some way from anti-matter torpedos yet!!!!

all applications are peaceful, the physists have sworn to that and are adamant that they'll try to prevent any arms technology.

they have created a new way to treat brain tumours, rem ted kennedy's operation, i believe that was one of the first times it was used.

Hi Zakalwe, great to have someone here who has an inside eye on this project. As always, I'm open to be convinced, but I'm still seriously put out that experimentation can go ahead when there is a known (whatsoever not considered probable) risk of us all shrinking into a microdot by Christmas. Could this kind of work not be done by simulation, maths and observation, rather than "having a go" ?
What do you think personally will be got out of the LHC project ? Is it worth playing with things that we maybe don't yet sufficiently understand ?

cactus flower wrote:

zakalwe wrote:

i think the speed is about 98% that of light.

its due to be run first week in sept 08. not before all the prime ministers etc go along to opening ceremony. *would that they actually disappear into said black hole!!!!*

i visited it back in june. amazing. about 3 times the size of the american (nasa) one so much more info.
i met the guy who created "anti-matter" (anti-hydrogen) for the first time. very nice guy. i believe they're trying for anti-helium next. we're some way from anti-matter torpedos yet!!!!

all applications are peaceful, the physists have sworn to that and are adamant that they'll try to prevent any arms technology.

they have created a new way to treat brain tumours, rem ted kennedy's operation, i believe that was one of the first times it was used.

Hi Zakalwe, great to have someone here who has an inside eye on this project. As always, I'm open to be convinced, but I'm still seriously put out that experimentation can go ahead when there is a known (whatsoever not considered probable) risk of us all shrinking into a microdot by Christmas. Could this kind of work not be done by simulation, maths and observation, rather than "having a go" ?
What do you think personally will be got out of the LHC project ? Is it worth playing with things that we maybe don't yet sufficiently understand ?

it was explained to me as follows (from a prof in theoretical physics to someone with not much formal science training but much interest):
currently the rules (laws) we know today (einsteins, boyles, newtons etc) can only explain 5% of the mass of the universe. there are huge amounts of ignorance out there as to the composition of the universe within which we live. this experiment may increase it by a factor of 10. if we understand what black holes are (much further down the line as all this test will do is shed some insight into subatomic particles) we may develop an understanding about as much as 50%.

of further interest, and little known, is that some of the particles will be syphoned (not a correct description) into another system and "shot" to a sensor in rome. the particles will pass through the earths crust without impedment. thats the equivalent of shooting a gnat's liathroidí out from 100m with an airrifle!!!!

is it worth the money? i don't know. maybe. if, eventually we understand the nature of energy, and "dark" energy specifically maybe we can eliminate inequality. i feel that energy inequality and the scarsity of energy is the underlying principle behind capitalism/communism/

zakalwe wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

zakalwe wrote:

i think the speed is about 98% that of light.

its due to be run first week in sept 08. not before all the prime ministers etc go along to opening ceremony. *would that they actually disappear into said black hole!!!!*

i visited it back in june. amazing. about 3 times the size of the american (nasa) one so much more info.
i met the guy who created "anti-matter" (anti-hydrogen) for the first time. very nice guy. i believe they're trying for anti-helium next. we're some way from anti-matter torpedos yet!!!!

all applications are peaceful, the physists have sworn to that and are adamant that they'll try to prevent any arms technology.

they have created a new way to treat brain tumours, rem ted kennedy's operation, i believe that was one of the first times it was used.

Hi Zakalwe, great to have someone here who has an inside eye on this project. As always, I'm open to be convinced, but I'm still seriously put out that experimentation can go ahead when there is a known (whatsoever not considered probable) risk of us all shrinking into a microdot by Christmas. Could this kind of work not be done by simulation, maths and observation, rather than "having a go" ?
What do you think personally will be got out of the LHC project ? Is it worth playing with things that we maybe don't yet sufficiently understand ?

it was explained to me as follows (from a prof in theoretical physics to someone with not much formal science training but much interest):
currently the rules (laws) we know today (einsteins, boyles, newtons etc) can only explain 5% of the mass of the universe. there are huge amounts of ignorance out there as to the composition of the universe within which we live. this experiment may increase it by a factor of 10. if we understand what black holes are (much further down the line as all this test will do is shed some insight into subatomic particles) we may develop an understanding about as much as 50%.

of further interest, and little known, is that some of the particles will be syphoned (not a correct description) into another system and "shot" to a sensor in rome. the particles will pass through the earths crust without impedment. thats the equivalent of shooting a gnat's liathroidí out from 100m with an airrifle!!!!

is it worth the money? i don't know. maybe. if, eventually we understand the nature of energy, and "dark" energy specifically maybe we can eliminate inequality. i feel that energy inequality and the scarsity of energy is the underlying principle behind capitalism/communism/

That's tantalising Zakalwe - is it the search for the grail, or the secret of alchemy, or sound science that will transform our capacity to understand the universe. I really don't know. From the risk assessment point of view, it gets nul point, from the point of view of exploration, curiosity, risk taking and adventurousness it gets many points.

I'm unconvinced that anything learned would not be used by the military. Since one person first picked up a stone and clobbered another person, everything has been used by the military.

I think the one question I didn't ask was was it worth the money. 6 billion is small beer in terms of the expansion of knowledge being dangled in front of us.

Your suggestion that the problem with world governance is a problem of managing finite resources - that would be a good thread. I don't think I agree as I think capitalism is driven by the potential for profit and accumulation and reinvestment of private wealth.

When capitalism started, there were vast energy resources available. I would agree that the growing cost of energy is seriously reducing the rate of profit, and that imo is one of the things throwing the economic system into crisis.

Rakes of the atom is empty space so large, neutral particles can pass through them like a pterodactyl flying through the buildings of Manhattan. The particles aren't drawn to parts of the atom at all because they are neutral but massive. This is the Higgs particle and it is hoped it'll be found there at CERN.

In the Brian Cox videos above he explains this quite well using groups of students standing around in clumps on the lawn of oxford or somewhere. When a popular professor tries to cross the lawn then he might get drawn in by the clumps of people and asked questions, so he slows down i.e. he has 'mass' but Brian Cox is a boring one and no one wants to talk to him so he sails through like a neutrino.

Now, it is believed there is a field down there at that level with which the particles we know of interract in certain ways to give them mass. Some particles like the photon and electron do not interract with the same field so are massless. The mass-giving field in the Higgs field and it is supposed to be mediated by a particle, the Higgs boson, which they are looking for. As far as I understand it anyway.

It's complex and interesting and there's plenty of good enough explanations of it.
http://teachers.web.cern.ch/teachers/archiv/HST2003/publish/ask%20an%20expert/website/FAQs/Higgs.html

i mean in a more fundamental basis than that.

all wealth, all things human are derived by energy. develop "free" energy and you liberate humanity. its not about the cost of oil. all money we have is a store of work done in the past, whether by us, by our ancestors or stolen from others who performed the work.

free energy, or nearly free energy will end the requirement for wealth, will end the inequality throughout the world (assuming its regulated for the benefit of mankind and not an elite). i'm a free marketeer, because i think its the best form of allocation/administration of human society (with a bit of interventionism by the state for necessities) as things stand. create free energy and i'd be the first to kick capitalism to the kerb, all in the interests of humanity of course!!!!

read asimov's "the gods themselves" for an idea of a human society with free energy provided by a "proton pump". intruiging!

Auditor #9 wrote:

Rakes of the atom is empty space so large, neutral particles can pass through them like a pterodactyl flying through the buildings of Manhattan. The particles aren't drawn to parts of the atom at all because they are neutral but massive. This is the Higgs particle and it is hoped it'll be found there at CERN.

In the Brian Cox videos above he explains this quite well using groups of students standing around in clumps on the lawn of oxford or somewhere. When a popular professor tries to cross the lawn then he might get drawn in by the clumps of people and asked questions, so he slows down i.e. he has 'mass' but Brian Cox is a boring one and no one wants to talk to him so he sails through like a neutrino.

Now, it is believed there is a field down there at that level with which the particles we know of interract in certain ways to give them mass. Some particles like the photon and electron do not interract with the same field so are massless. The mass-giving field in the Higgs field and it is supposed to be mediated by a particle, the Higgs boson, which they are looking for. As far as I understand it anyway.

It's complex and interesting and there's plenty of good enough explanations of it.
[url=http://teachers.web.cern.ch/teachers/archiv/HST2003/publish/ask%20an%20expert/website/FAQs/Higgs.html

http://teachers.web.cern.ch/teachers/archiv/HST2003/publish/ask%20an%20expert/website/FAQs/Higgs.html[/quote[/url]]

correct. i've heard it called the "celebrity" phenonomen! in a party everyone floats about randomly but once posh spice enters the room, she develops clumps or "mass" as she crosses the room as people are attracted to her!

zakalwe wrote:

i mean in a more fundamental basis than that.

all wealth, all things human are derived by energy. develop "free" energy and you liberate humanity. its not about the cost of oil. all money we have is a store of work done in the past, whether by us, by our ancestors or stolen from others who performed the work.

free energy, or nearly free energy will end the requirement for wealth, will end the inequality throughout the world (assuming its regulated for the benefit of mankind and not an elite). i'm a free marketeer, because i think its the best form of allocation/administration of human society (with a bit of interventionism by the state for necessities) as things stand. create free energy and i'd be the first to kick capitalism to the kerb, all in the interests of humanity of course!!!!

read asimov's "the gods themselves" for an idea of a human society with free energy provided by a "proton pump". intruiging!

Intriguing thought Zakalwe: but at the end of the day, unless the energy is in some way used in association with human labour, is it of any benefit to us? I think I need to read Asimov's book though, it sounds interesting.

zakalwe wrote:

i mean in a more fundamental basis than that.

all wealth, all things human are derived by energy. develop "free" energy and you liberate humanity. its not about the cost of oil. all money we have is a store of work done in the past, whether by us, by our ancestors or stolen from others who performed the work.

free energy, or nearly free energy will end the requirement for wealth, will end the inequality throughout the world (assuming its regulated for the benefit of mankind and not an elite). i'm a free marketeer, because i think its the best form of allocation/administration of human society (with a bit of interventionism by the state for necessities) as things stand. create free energy and i'd be the first to kick capitalism to the kerb, all in the interests of humanity of course!!!!

read asimov's "the gods themselves" for an idea of a human society with free energy provided by a "proton pump". intruiging!

Intriguing thought Zakalwe: but at the end of the day, unless the energy is in some way used in association with human labour, is it of any benefit to us? I think I need to read Asimov's book though, it sounds interesting.

Here's Grandad on it last year but he has an update written too.
http://www.headrambles.com/2007/05/03/the-end-of-the-world-is-nigh/

Apparently it will generate 7 terrabytes of data per second.

evercloserunion wrote:

Apparently it will generate 7 terrabytes of data per second.

That's a lot. I'm wondering how the Higgs yoke is expected to manifest itself? It has no magnetic field but huge mass. There must be some yoke that collects it and detects it.

Some great pics (especially the last one) of the LHC posted here: LINK.

Hermes wrote:

Some great pics (especially the last one) of the LHC posted here: LINK.

Those are amazing pictures Hermes. The rescue team was the least impressive aspect.

Scientists get death threats over Large Hadron Collider - Telegraph

Quote :

The head of public relations, James Gillies, says he gets tearful phone calls, pleading for the £4.5 billion machine to stop.

"They phone me and say: "I am seriously worried. Please tell me that my children are safe," said Gillies.

Emails also arrive every day that beg for reassurance that the world will not end, he explained.

Pity we didn't start up a company selling black-hole extinguishers... just a small adjustment to the below using a home-made sticker or paint...



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

Thanks for that Auditor #9. I will buy one of those and sleep easy

We finally start to get some coverage of this in the press:

Quote :

The LHC will do something essentially very simple: record what happens when protons are smashed together.
This way of finding out about Nature might seem crude, but there is no alternative: protons, each about a tenth of a thousandth as wide as an atom, are much too small to see, cut up or probe in any other way.
This strategy of arranging brutal, sub-atomic smash-ups has paid handsome dividends over the past three-quarters of a century.
Its first great success was the talk of the country in 1932 when the Cambridge experimenters John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton split the atom by firing protons into the core of lithium atoms, producing atoms of a different type, helium.
In a piece of nuclear alchemy, they had turned one type of chemical element into another.
Science has come a long way since then. Cockcroft and Walton's particle accelerator was a pea-shooter compared with the LHC, which delivers protons with 10 million times the energy.
The particle beams in the new collider circulate in a tunnel 17 miles long, about 100m below the Swiss-French border. The collisions take place in huge detectors, one of them called Atlas, so vast it would only just fit inside Westminster Abbey.

I still contend it is a "suck it and see" operation: but here is a million-hit youtube rap video from alpinecat at CERN. Apparently the science is good, haven't listened to the rap yet.

A scare at bedtime....

Wednesday is the day. The biggest ever scientific experiment ever.
Smashing particles ! Big Bang ! and then what ?

My sincere hope is that it does less, rather than more, than they anticipate.
A microscopic black hole might happen but the project team say it would be counteracted by Hawkings Radiation. But then they are not sure if that exists, and it has never been observed.


Mikio Kaku, scientist and author works in string theory expects a "theory of everything".
A wise fool, or a foolish wise man.



If the LHC creates a black hole and Hawkings radiation turns out not to exist...

That last video makes me think about the economy more than the LHC

Anyway, today's the start off - and its the 10.9.08 and I'm posting at 7.06.

Sitting at my desk in work and realising................................bloody hell, I am alarmingly close to Geneva

Slim Buddha wrote:

Sitting at my desk in work and realising................................bloody hell, I am alarmingly close to Geneva

Perhaps some of that nice Swiss chocolate would help

cactus flower wrote:

Slim Buddha wrote:

Sitting at my desk in work and realising................................bloody hell, I am alarmingly close to Geneva

Perhaps some of that nice Swiss chocolate would help

Good advertising stuff there, cactus flower! "If you feel you are disappearing down a black hole, let Toblerone ease the journey!"

We're saved - The people of this forum http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=23040 are saying that today isn't the big day at all - today is a test run and the collision won't happen for a few weeks. CNN is saying the same this morning.

Phew.

Still there, Slim Buddha ?