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[lepeep]

Originally Posted by Flash@TMB

Let them eat Higgs boson.

higgs neeps and tatties? (and a wee dram)

[Chris]

So far they've managed to get the beam round 3 times, which is a days worth of progress into the experiment in under an hour.

[lepeep]

Originally Posted by Ithaca

Because I've been fortunate enough to be born in a developed country where people take simple things for granted every day (I'm not discounting myself from this!). Are you saying that I can't make a post quoting fact and opinion of this ilk unless I'm thirsty everyday? Forgive me, you're right. I'll crack on with the rest of my easy life, give my weekly £2 to water aid, fuck my girlfriend and go to sleep with a big smile on my face knowing a big fuck off science experiment will explain the universe to me and I've done my little bit. Thankyou for you're insight.

that's a bit harsh, I think the point was "and there's plenty other shit in the world that's tantamount to injustice, whilst people suffer"....how much has the Iraq war cost to date? $6 TRILLION (the CERN is $5 BILLION) 'Iraq War cost so far: $6 trillion': Stiglitz | Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

...so, a drop in the ocean on the "grand scheme of things". If we did save everyone in the world - we'd all die a bit sooner....but if you go down that road, (moaning about "fixing health issues"), we should jack in our scanners, medicines etc. I think "relativity" plays a big part in all this. it's the luxury of a "developed" nation to concern themselves with such "trivial" things.

If you are that bothered about world health, go volunteer in africa, if you are that disturbed by it?

[Chris]

The experiments being done at CERN will affect everything over time. Calculations based on the theories developed by physicists are used to make everything from bridges to top end electronics.

Science should be the last thing sacrificed to help others, as in the end science pushes developments that will trickle down into the developing world be it dwarf wheat that turned India and Mexico into net exporters of food when they'd previously been on the brink of famine or improved water pumps, engines and communications technology for remote parts of Africa.

[Lucky Rathen]

Originally Posted by soundian

To put it simply:
The reason there were no protons at that point was because the universe had too much energy for the constituent particles of protons to "stick" together. You can use the analogy of ice and steam if it helps, with ice being protons and steam being the "soup" of elementary particles.
The only way to force protons apart into their elementary particles is to shove them together at such high velocities that there is enough energy created when they "crash" to separate them out.

Black holes are "fuzzy", i.e. they emit energy .
Quantum black holes, like the ones they might create in the LHC, are incredibly tiny, much less mass than a proton iirc and since E=mc² they don't have a lot of energy .
Quantum black holes radiate so much energy compared to their mass that their lifetime is the merest fraction of a second.
To use another analogy, think of two spheres*. The smaller the sphere has the larger proportion of surface area to volume, i.e. it can radiate more of it's total energy than a bigger sphere. As the sphere gets smaller, the proportion of total energy emitted gets larger, so the "evaporation" process speeds up.

So, they're you go, nothing to worry about.
Unless every top brainy person in the last 100 years or so has got things incredibly wrong.

*surface area of sphere=4Πr²
volume of sphere=4/3Πr³

That was not simply.

[Ithaca]

Originally Posted by lepeep

that's a bit harsh, I think the point was "and there's plenty other shit in the world that's tantamount to injustice, whilst people suffer"....how much has the Iraq war cost to date? $6 TRILLION (the CERN is $5 BILLION) 'Iraq War cost so far: $6 trillion': Stiglitz | Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

...so, a drop in the ocean on the "grand scheme of things". If we did save everyone in the world - we'd all die a bit sooner....but if you go down that road, (moaning about "fixing health issues"), we should jack in our scanners, medicines etc. I think "relativity" plays a big part in all this. it's the luxury of a "developed" nation to concern themselves with such "trivial" things.

If you are that bothered about world health, go volunteer in africa, if you are that disturbed by it?

Apologies if I came across as harsh. It is easy to 'shout from the sidelines'. Talk is indeed VERY cheap! I hope on some level people can see where I'm coming from and what is motivating my point of view...

[Chris]

A reminder from El Reg that today isn't really the day that might bring about armageddon:
Today is not Hadron Collider Day | The Register

The real fun will happen next year.

Still not going to stop me spending most of today listening to radio 4 and geeking out. Though I suppose we're really into nerd territory now...

[Chris]

Don't let my previous post get in the way of good satire:

EVERYONE DEAD BY TEATIME - The Daily Mash

[soundian]

Originally Posted by lepeep

That's a great response, thanks for that...but it still flys in the face of "reason". Even if ripping apart atoms creates the same energies / "possible" particles at the begginging of the big bang - it still strikes me as incorrect to state that it will be the same conditions as the start of the universe. The "difficult" aspect (and what is at the root of all "science Vs Religion" arguments is, we should be creating "something from nothing".


To put it simply, I have a vision that it's like smashing two busses together, saying that the wreckage will explain what happens when two elephants smash together...(does that make sense?) - but - this again is obviously an oversimplification. I'll write a letter to the new scientist. that's what I'll do.

I agree that it flies in the face of reason. We only see the macroscopic world and we judge how things "should" act according to how things around us act. Once you're down to the quantum level it's a whole different set of rules.

[Justin]

apparently its supposed to happen at 11. 10 minutes to go