Off-Topic Chatter Non-Vehicle Related Chat

CERN starts testing Today. Do you have your HEV suit ready?

Old Sep 10, 2008 | 06:41 AM
  #1  
Sendero's Avatar
Thread Starter
The Man... keeping you down.
 
Joined: August 15, 2004
Posts: 823
Likes: 1
From: Stealin' ur internetz
CERN starts testing Today. Do you have your HEV suit ready?



http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,420062,00.html

Originally Posted by Fox News
The world's largest particle collider successfully completed its first major test by firing a beam of protons all the way around a 17-mile tunnel Wednesday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe.

After a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen indicating that the protons had traveled the full length of the $3.8 billion Large Hadron Collider.

There it is," project leader Lyn Evans said when the beam completed its lap.

The startup was eagerly awaited by 9,000 physicists around the world who now have much greater power than ever before to smash the components of atoms together in attempts to see how they are made.

"Well done everybody," said Robert Aymar, director-general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said after the protons were fired into the accelerator below the Swiss-French border at 9:32 a.m. (0732 GMT).

Now that the beam has been successfully tested in clockwise direction, CERN plans to send it counterclockwise. Eventually the two beams will be fired in opposite directions with the aim of smashing together protons to see how they are made.

"The beam is the size of a human hair," Paola Catapano, a spokeswoman for the host European Organization for Nuclear Research said after the protons were fired into the accelerator below the Swiss-French border at 9:32 a.m. (3:32 a.m. EDT).

It'll be months before any usable data comes out from the experiments, but the so-called "Big Bang machine" already has physicists salivating at the prospect of unlocking the mysteries of the universe — and many other people worried it'll create a black hole or strange self-replicating particle that will gobble up the Earth.

Professor Stephen Hawking, easily the world's most renowned living physicist, came down squarely in the "it's a good thing" camp Tuesday in a interview with BBC Radio: "Whatever the LHC finds, or fails to find, the results will tell us a lot about the structure of the universe."

The researchers' top aim is to find the Higgs boson, a sub-subatomic particle that's essential to the so-called Standard Model of nuclear physics, but which has never been seen.

Previously unknown particles are also expected to pop up, if only for a millionth of a second, from the high-energy collisions of protons and antiprotons.

A pair of Russian scientists even think the LHC would be the world's first time machine, and that we should expect visitors from the future to arrive soon after it goes into operation.

For that, $10 billion dollars has been spent to build the machine, the largest supercollider on Earth ever since the project to build an even larger ring in Texas was canceled in 1993.

But the very fact that it would create unknown particles, as well as incredibly dense microscopic black holes that would almost instantly evaporate, has raised many fears.

"It's nonsense," CERN chief spokesman James Gillies told the Associated Press.

A columnist on Wired magazine's Web site said that "the likelihood of these black holes becoming the more well-known kind of black hole is nearly nonexistent."

Brian ***, a glamorous particle physicist who literally was once a rock star, told London's Daily Telegraph that he and his colleagues had been receiving death threats.

He then bluntly characterized anyone who feared the LHC would destroy the world with an unprintable term for a female body part.

That hasn't stopped several people, including a former nuclear engineer from Hawaii and a German biochemist, from speaking out against the project.

"Someone will spot a light ray coming out of the Indian Ocean during the night and no one will be able to explain it, retired Professor Otto Roessler told London's Mail on Sunday. "Very soon the whole planet will be eaten in a magnificent scenario — if you could watch it from the moon. A Biblical Armageddon. Even cloud and fire will form, as it says in the Bible."

"[T]he compression of the two atoms colliding together at nearly light speed will cause an irreversible implosion, forming a miniature version of a giant black hole," reads a lawsuit filed in March in U.S. District Court in Honolulu by Walter L. Wagner and a Spanish colleague, Luis Sancho.


The case, in which Wagner and Sancho demand that the LHC stop operations until an independent safety review is conducted, is still pending.

Wagner first became famous a decade ago when he filed suit against the opening of the smaller Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider on Long Island, claiming it too would destroy the world when it started up in 2000.

Public reaction, true to form, has been mixed.

"This is an abomination and should not be allowed to go ahead," wrote "Proud Teeside Lass" in comments attached to the Mail on Sunday story.

One colleague at FOXNews.com asked whether the LHC would really destroy the world — "My mortgage payment is due, and, I mean, what's the point?"

"This reminds me of the Millennium Bug! I love hysteria — it makes me laugh and I need a good laugh," said "Johan of Brisbane" in the comments to an Australian News Corp story.

Best of all was the posting on the same page by "KnowerOfAll": "Chuck Norris doesn't look for God Particles — he creates them."

Gillies told The Associated Press that the most dangerous thing that could happen would be if a beam of protons at full power were to go out of control, and that would only damage the collider itself and burrow into the rock around the tunnel.

Full power is probably a year away.

"On Wednesday, we start small," Gillies said. "What we're putting in to start with is one single low-intensity bunch at low energy and we thread that around. We get experience with low-energy things and then we ramp up as we get to know the machine better."

Huge amounts of data will pour in — so big that the lab's computers can't sift through it all. So scientists, who will monitor the experiment at above-ground control centers, have devised a way to share the load among dozens of leading computing centers worldwide.

The result is the "LHC Grid," a network of 60,000 computers to analyze what happens when protons are hurled at each other. That computing power is needed if scientists are to find what they are looking for among the mountains of data.

"You can think of each experiment as a giant digital camera with around 150 million pixels taking snapshots 600 million times a second," said CERN's Ian Bird, who leads the grid project.

Sophisticated filters discard all but the most interesting data, still leaving some 15 petabytes to be analyzed. That's enough to fill 2 million DVDs.

The data will be sent to 11 top research institutions in Europe, North America and Asia, and from there to a wider network of 150 research facilities around the world for scrutiny by thousands of researchers.

Collaborating on such a large project has proved invaluable, said Ruth Pordes, executive director of the Open Science Grid at Fermilab in Chicago. The U.S.-government funded project is among the major contributors to the grid.

"We are doing things that are at the boundaries of science," Pordes said. "But the technologies, the methods and the results will be picked up by industry."

Even if the LHC experiment doesn't yield answers to the cosmic questions, historians may one day see it as a key step in developing networked computing.

It wouldn't be the first time that has happened at CERN. In 1990, young British researcher Tim Berners-Lee created a computer-based system for sharing information with colleagues around the world.

He called it the World Wide Web.
The sky is falling... the sky is falling...

Of course I'm going to feel like a real *** if it really happens. Nobody will be around to say I told you so; I guess that makes up for it.
Attached Thumbnails CERN starts testing Today.  Do you have your HEV suit ready?-lhc2008.jpg  
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 07:45 AM
  #2  
StangMahn's Avatar
NTTAWWT
 
Joined: January 27, 2007
Posts: 14,456
Likes: 35
From: That town you drive through to get to Myrtle Beach
im not too worried about it, these "black holes" that they will be making are microscopic, and due to the unstable nature of black holes, they should dissappear almost instantly
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 07:55 AM
  #3  
Scothew's Avatar
Stubborn Bear
TMS Staff
 
Joined: January 30, 2004
Posts: 22,692
Likes: 48
Or aliens will pop out of them and kill us all.

Btw, nice reference with the crowbar pic nathan :P
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 07:57 AM
  #4  
svopaul's Avatar
Service Manager
 
Joined: June 29, 2004
Posts: 6,784
Likes: 625
From: Odenville, AL
Originally Posted by StangMahn
im not too worried about it, these "black holes" that they will be making are microscopic, and due to the unstable nature of black holes, they should dissappear almost instantly

GREAT!...then I'll lose MORE socks in the dryer!!!
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 08:02 AM
  #5  
GoldnGT's Avatar
Huff Huff Give
 
Joined: March 6, 2006
Posts: 49
Likes: 0
From: AL
AHHH... We're all gonna die!
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 08:02 AM
  #6  
2k7gtcs's Avatar
Post *****
 
Joined: October 9, 2007
Posts: 32,808
Likes: 163
Has anyone ever thought this might be like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters:

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.
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 09:07 AM
  #7  
Knight's Avatar
Needs to be more Astony
 
Joined: October 4, 2004
Posts: 8,610
Likes: 5
From: Volo, IL
As a beleiver of god i do not see anything that we do will ever destroy earth of the human population. So until Jesus second coming, we are safe to save it will not devour the earth.
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 11:02 AM
  #8  
Sendero's Avatar
Thread Starter
The Man... keeping you down.
 
Joined: August 15, 2004
Posts: 823
Likes: 1
From: Stealin' ur internetz
Originally Posted by Scothew
Btw, nice reference with the crowbar pic nathan :P
Only true geeks get that one. We're a sad lot.
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 11:20 AM
  #9  
GottaHaveIt's Avatar
Team Mustang Source
 
Joined: January 5, 2005
Posts: 13,223
Likes: 14
uh huh that must be why Google has this :
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 11:42 AM
  #10  
presto's Avatar
V6 Member
 
Joined: September 28, 2007
Posts: 79
Likes: 0
Originally Posted by Knight
As a beleiver of god i do not see anything that we do will ever destroy earth of the human population. So until Jesus second coming, we are safe to save it will not devour the earth.
I have no doubt Who is in control, but He also seems to use the simpler methods, to do His work. This LHC is fascinating and the research will be fun to watch, but there was supposed to be a chance that the Trinity Blast would create a chain reaction and destroy the world too.
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 11:46 AM
  #11  
svopaul's Avatar
Service Manager
 
Joined: June 29, 2004
Posts: 6,784
Likes: 625
From: Odenville, AL
Originally Posted by presto
but there was supposed to be a chance that the Trinity Blast would create a chain reaction and destroy the world too.

Did I miss the point where those of us living in this world had a chance to tell these people to leave this crap alone?!?

Because "IF" something went wrong and they say a black hole could take 4 years to engulf the planet I know that I am personally going to have a strong desire to hunt down these idiots and put one between their eyes....of course there would probably be a line for that opportunity I imagine.
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 11:49 AM
  #12  
MBK's Avatar
MBK
Mach 1 Member
 
Joined: January 31, 2008
Posts: 603
Likes: 0
Originally Posted by 2k7gtcs
Has anyone ever thought this might be like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters:

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.

Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 12:00 PM
  #13  
presto's Avatar
V6 Member
 
Joined: September 28, 2007
Posts: 79
Likes: 0
Originally Posted by svopaul
Did I miss the point where those of us living in this world had a chance to tell these people to leave this crap alone?!?

Because "IF" something went wrong and they say a black hole could take 4 years to engulf the planet I know that I am personally going to have a strong desire to hunt down these idiots and put one between their eyes....of course there would probably be a line for that opportunity I imagine.
notice the mayan calendar also runs out in 12/21/2012 in four years... Where is my tinfoil hat?Name:  tinfoil.jpg
Views: 2643
Size:  25.8 KB
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 12:06 PM
  #14  
svopaul's Avatar
Service Manager
 
Joined: June 29, 2004
Posts: 6,784
Likes: 625
From: Odenville, AL
Originally Posted by presto
notice the mayan calendar also runs out in 12/21/2012 in four years... Where is my tinfoil hat?Attachment 63182

I don't care much about a calendar.....but some things you are just asking for problems. We all know what Splitting an atom does....I don't but into the whole mutli dimension thing but it's a big universe that obviously we don't understand. I see no benefit in what they are doing and my major beef is spending billions in tax money on this crap.
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 01:20 PM
  #15  
Scothew's Avatar
Stubborn Bear
TMS Staff
 
Joined: January 30, 2004
Posts: 22,692
Likes: 48
This is mearly a joke, but a friend sent me this a bit ago.
Attached Thumbnails CERN starts testing Today.  Do you have your HEV suit ready?-hadron.jpg  
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 01:24 PM
  #16  
Scothew's Avatar
Stubborn Bear
TMS Staff
 
Joined: January 30, 2004
Posts: 22,692
Likes: 48
Originally Posted by Sendero
Only true geeks get that one. We're a sad lot.
Yeah i had an idea but the valve logo seriosuly put it over the top.
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 02:47 PM
  #17  
Tiberius1701's Avatar
Team Mustang Source
 
Joined: December 12, 2004
Posts: 1,062
Likes: 3
Just wait til Zef Cochrane develops warp drive..
(Yep I am a Treknerd)
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 02:58 PM
  #18  
presto's Avatar
V6 Member
 
Joined: September 28, 2007
Posts: 79
Likes: 0
Originally Posted by svopaul
I don't care much about a calendar.....but some things you are just asking for problems. We all know what Splitting an atom does....I don't but into the whole mutli dimension thing but it's a big universe that obviously we don't understand. I see no benefit in what they are doing and my major beef is spending billions in tax money on this crap.
I hear you on the tax money thing
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 10:27 PM
  #19  
houtex's Avatar
Legacy TMS Member
 
Joined: February 2, 2004
Posts: 7,648
Likes: 675
From: Insane
re: tax wasted....

Yes, true, what good will it bring us to know these things?

Well... perhaps the warp drive *will* be born of this, and we can get off this rock and onto that other one a few light years away. The lessons and experiments learned in trying to go into space, as well as experiments in space, have added knowledge that has helped us in various ways. I'm sure there's plenty of websites on this subject.

Talking of doomsday and whatnot... We're all doomed. Not one of us will see the end of days. Unless it's after the LHC dooms us... which I don't think is gonna happen.

No, either short term (relatively) we're gonna be smacked by a 100 mile wide asteroid, or the sun is gonna eat all it's fuel and expand, taking out the inner planets while it's at it.

Either way, we're doomed. Which is why that whole 'warp drive' thing I'm 100 percent for.

But maybe the wormhole thing would work, as well as a tesseract. Anything to get us off this rock.

/And I'm ready to go, as it happens. Always wanted to see another planet.
//Schmanet.
///Janet.
Reply
Old Sep 10, 2008 | 10:29 PM
  #20  
burningman's Avatar
Bow Chica Bow Wow
TMS Staff
 
Joined: January 29, 2004
Posts: 7,446
Likes: 12
From: Proudly in NJ...bite it FL
Sweet I'm excited!
Reply

Thread Tools
Search this Thread

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:01 PM.