Scientists in search of the God particle may find more than they bargained for!

[SuperjetMatt]

And just a simple question to you, OP: What exactly do you want?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: SlickSnake
I just can't support endless weapons research just for the sake of making more of them. Unless there really are aliens out there, then go for it. Otherwise, the weapons industry is just eating up endless tax dollars with no good return for the tax payers. An old nuke is just as good at going boom as a new nuke is, isn't it? And the delivery systems are pretty much a moot point, if you can pack one on a burrow and ride it over the border.

Particle accelerators have been around for decades - since the 1930's, I believe. Actually, since the very end of the 19th century if you want to include cathode ray tubes. Particle accelerators have just gotten larger and more energetic since. The goal of this research is for a fundamental understanding of particle physics and ultimately, the universe, not weapons research.

There have been many spin-off benefits for the public due to this pursuit of pure scientific knowledge: radioisotopes for use in treating cancer, lasers, solar cells, CAT scans, PET scans, x-ray lithography, superconductors... These particle accelerators give us a much better understanding of the universe. No one really knows what new applications may be found from this research. Who could have imagined many of these applications only a few decades ago (very insignificant amount of time, compared to how long mankind has been around.)

Last time I was at Cornell, they had experiments in biology going as an off-shoot of their particle accelerator (harvesting the x-ray radiation from the accelerator). A student I had three years ago has been doing research at Cornell's acclerator the last two summers related to a project in ceramic engineering (she's at Alfred University).

But, you're right, just maybe there will be some application from these super-colliders that can be harvested as a weapon. Just like in the movie Real Genius, we can now aim giant lasers at enemies and vaporize them. Lasers can be used as weapons, oh no! Of course, the weapon application came much much later than: laser printers, lasers used in surgery, CD's and DVD's, cool laser light shows...

It was only a little more than a 100 years ago that the electron was discovered. And, that was from the first "particle accelerator." Do you have any clue how much of today's technology owes its existence entirely to our understanding of the atom and sub-atomic physics? It's not a hunt for weapons, it's a hunt for knowledge. We don't even have a clue what sorts of applications we may stumble upon along the way. However to help alleviate your fears of a strangelet gun - it certainly wasn't a concern with much smaller colliders - they were too small! You can't shrink this technology down - it takes bigger and bigger colliders to achieve these energy levels.

Your position that LHC's goal is weapon's research is nothing short of fearmongering to the general public who knows little about science and isn't interested in pure science. Of course, that's the same general public who benefits from applications derived from this purely scientific endeavor.

And with that, a link to the master himself.

I particularly like his rhetorical example of Queen Victoria going to her science adviser in 1850 and asking him to construct a box that would display moving pictures of some remote location. "What would you do about it?"
3:15 is about where this part starts.
Moving pictures in a box. What's the first thing someone might think of? Subatomic particle manipulation and electromagnetic interactions? Yeah, sure.
"Moving electrical charges" - pure science, big deal, we can move electrons. Totally useless waste of money.



Just wait until they find the anti-Higgs boson. Anti-gravity devices, here we come! Of course, manufacturers of wheel bearings would be really really pissed off by that kind of technology.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: SlickSnake

Originally posted by: Born2bwire

Originally posted by: SlickSnake

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: SlickSnake
The vast majority of science research is funded by the military in whatever country that has one worth funding. Just because professor Peabody don't tell you were the funding comes from for science research projects, don't stupidly assume it isn't from the military. And he would most likely be under orders not to divulge that fact.

The NSF is NOT the military. They are no more related than any other federal agencies. There is a spiderweb of links between any two major organizations if you care to dig deep enough, but these links aren't forged out of raw titanium. The military does NOT dictate to the NSF what to fund and what not to, and the NSF certainly doesn't tell the military how to fight wars. I could probably find a link between Al Qaeda and the Boston Poodle Fanciers' Club if I followed tenuous enough strands, but only a true oddball would think that this was proof of some greater conspiracy.

As for "under orders"? Don't make me laugh. Have you ever WORKED in an academic research setting? They post the source of their funding EVERYWHERE! Everyone knows what teat to suck on, and what in-vogue terms to use to start the milk flowing. It's not some shadowy world of secret drops, codephrases, and banned research...you watch too many movies.

Your worldview is a combination of depressing naivety and outlandish conspiracy theories.

While I hate to reference WIKI on debates like this, the fact is even numerous WIKI posters acknowledged the close association of the military to science funding, particularly in physics. Huh, go figure. So much for all those heavily salted conspiracy nuts. The NSF is just operating as another arm of the military industrial complex. That's why they call it a complex. Part of why homeland security was so darned important, was so the military could step in during a crises and take control of all civilian forces from one command facility. Including the NSF. To deny that the NSF is working outside the military branches and control is a frivolous debate at best. NSF = DARPA = military funding and research.

The government also has thousands of ways to disguise military grant money through sham private enterprises and unrelated funding sources that are next to impossible to trace back. And the top research scientists who get the government and "private" enterprise grants and work at universities, know this already. But if they spill the beans about it, they might lose the grants, so they don't talk about it. And the college students doing the research certainly are not privy to this. But if they are smarter than a can of beans, they would suspect it.

What's so bad about military funding?

Oh, I dunno.

The fact they use it to kill you?

I can use a car to kill people, but I'm not going to bust out crying if we get funding from GM. I'm more than happy to be paid by the military and if they think they can get some use out of what I'm doing then more power to them.

Do you honestly think they are spending 8 billion plus massive operating and maintenance expenses to build you a better microwave oven? WTH else are they spending all this scratch for, huh? If it's not obvious to you now, you certainly won't notice the results from the research in black box projects later, either. Since they are secret and stuff. So there you go.

You don't eat like paint chips do you?

 

[PottedMeat]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire

Originally posted by: SlickSnake

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
What's so bad about military funding?

Oh, I dunno.

The fact they use it to kill you?

I can use a car to kill people, but I'm not going to bust out crying if we get funding from GM. I'm more than happy to be paid by the military and if they think they can get some use out of what I'm doing then more power to them.

Do you honestly think they are spending 8 billion plus massive operating and maintenance expenses to build you a better microwave oven? WTH else are they spending all this scratch for, huh? If it's not obvious to you now, you certainly won't notice the results from the research in black box projects later, either. Since they are secret and stuff. So there you go.

You don't eat like paint chips do you?

DON'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION!

He's just going to use his evil government money to improve his death ray to fry your brain!

 

[PottedMeat]

Originally posted by: SuperjetMatt
And just a simple question to you, OP: What exactly do you want?

He wants you to live in a fantasy world.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: PottedMeat

Originally posted by: Born2bwire

Originally posted by: SlickSnake

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
What's so bad about military funding?

Oh, I dunno.

The fact they use it to kill you?

I can use a car to kill people, but I'm not going to bust out crying if we get funding from GM. I'm more than happy to be paid by the military and if they think they can get some use out of what I'm doing then more power to them.

Do you honestly think they are spending 8 billion plus massive operating and maintenance expenses to build you a better microwave oven? WTH else are they spending all this scratch for, huh? If it's not obvious to you now, you certainly won't notice the results from the research in black box projects later, either. Since they are secret and stuff. So there you go.

You don't eat like paint chips do you?

DON'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION!

He's just going to use his evil government money to improve his death ray to fry your brain!

Hush, the targeting system only works if his body has ingested sufficient quantities of lead.

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
OK OK....Slicksnake wins. They're using particle acceleration experiments to build super zapper weapons to fight off aliens of whatever you would do with such a thing. All those experiments on "what is the nature of matter" and "how did the universe come to be" are just silly fronts so that darn "government" can make X-Wing fighters with lasers that go "ptew ptew ptew".

Thanks for enlightening us Slick.

Conceded.

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Just wait until they find the anti-Higgs boson. Anti-gravity devices, here we come! Of course, manufacturers of wheel bearings would be really really pissed off by that kind of technology.

Yeah, but you're forgetting the obvious military use for such a device. "ptew, ptew, ptew" from the anti-Higgs boson gun and Al Quaida floats away into space.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Silverpig, I thought I read an article within the last 2 years that they had evidence that they had created black holes? However, there's no way they have enough energy to create a stable black hole.

Nope... if they had the string theorists would be jumping up and down

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Silverpig, I thought I read an article within the last 2 years that they had evidence that they had created black holes? However, there's no way they have enough energy to create a stable black hole.

Nope... if they had the string theorists would be jumping up and down

Ahhh, you're right. The early stories (the ones written by journalists, not scientists) were based on some statement or something written by Nastase about producing the analog of a black hole. The popular media picked up on the story and reported that they had produced a black hole at Brookhaven. I found this article on it at the RHIC site. Here is one of the articles I had originally read a couple years ago: Nat'l Geographic where they claimed that Nastase claimed he created a black hole.

Of course, the title of Nastase's paper was "The RHIC fireball as a dual black hole", probably leading to the confusion. Here's a paper that's painful to read that discusses Nastase's claim: link

 

[OCNewbie]

The idea crosses my mind of a supremely advanced form of alien life out there somewhere observing this experiment, knowing full well that the end result will be the equivalent of lighting a stick of dynamite off in one's hand and saying to each other "OMGLOLZ, you gotta see this! Look at what these humans are about to do!" These would be internet-slang using superior lifeforms btw.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: OCNewbie
The idea crosses my mind of a supremely advanced form of alien life out there somewhere observing this experiment, knowing full well that the end result will be the equivalent of lighting a stick of dynamite off in one's hand and saying to each other "OMGLOLZ, you gotta see this! Look at what these humans are about to do!" These would be internet-slang using superior lifeforms btw.

I just hope we don't cancel any tv shows they like.

+

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Of course, the title of Nastase's paper was "The RHIC fireball as a dual black hole", probably leading to the confusion. Here's a paper that's painful to read that discusses Nastase's claim: link

Whoa. [/neo] The "Journal of American Science" is quite an interesting little publication. K00kboi central.

 

[Ns1]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
OK OK....Slicksnake wins. They're using particle acceleration experiments to build super zapper weapons to fight off aliens of whatever you would do with such a thing. All those experiments on "what is the nature of matter" and "how did the universe come to be" are just silly fronts so that darn "government" can make X-Wing fighters with lasers that go "ptew ptew ptew".

Thanks for enlightening us Slick.

win

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Just wait until they find the anti-Higgs boson. Anti-gravity devices, here we come! Of course, manufacturers of wheel bearings would be really really pissed off by that kind of technology.

Yeah, but you're forgetting the obvious military use for such a device. "ptew, ptew, ptew" from the anti-Higgs boson gun and Al Quaida floats away into space.

Good. Maybe the true nutjobs will see this and steal the guns to use on themselves as a quick way to get to Heaven.

 

[SlickSnake]

UPDATE:

Scientists Not So Sure 'Doomsday Machine' Won't Destroy World

Still worried that the Large Hadron Collider will create a black hole that will destroy the Earth when it's finally switched on this summer?

Um, well, you may have a point.

Three physicists have reexamined the math surrounding the creation of microscopic black holes in the Switzerland-based LHC, the world's largest particle collider, and determined that they won't simply evaporate in a millisecond as had previously been predicted.

Rather, Roberto Casadio of the University of Bologna in Italy and Sergio Fabi and Benjamin Harms of the University of Alabama say mini black holes could exist for much longer ? perhaps even more than a second, a relative eternity in particle colliders, where most objects decay much faster.

Under such long-lived conditions, it becomes a race between how fast a black hole can decay ? and how fast it can gobble up matter to grow bigger and prevent itself from decaying.

Casadio, Fabi and Harms think the black hole would lose out, and pass through the Earth or out of the atmosphere before it got to be a problem.

"We conclude that ... the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible. Nonetheless, it remains true that the expected decay times are much longer (and possibly >> 1 second) than is typically predicted by other models," the three state in a brief paper posted at the scientific discussion Web site ArXiv.org.

FoxNews.com can think of a few other things that didn't seem possible once ? the theory of continental drift, the fact that rocks fall from the sky, the notion that the Earth revolves around the sun, the idea that scientists could be horribly wrong.

We're also wondering how often the LHC might create individual black holes, since longer-lived ones have a greater chance of merging with each other, and, um, well, see ya.

If the worst comes to pass, and there's now a slightly greater chance that it might, at least it might explain why we've never heard from extraterrestrial civilizations: Maybe they built Large Hadron Colliders of their own.

But it was just one TINY mistake in the calculations, REALLY. :shocked:

Just take our word for it there are not any other mistakes in the mathematics, OK? :roll:

Seriously, we have already calculated the odds against destruction on our trusty abacus that there is nothing to worry about or anything!

 

[Brainonska511]

All this crap in the mainstream media makes me want to roll my eyes. My PChem Quantum Mechanics professor said last quarter that they (PChemists) like to use fancy terminology in papers just to keep people not in the know out of their science. It seems like the people doing calculations on the LHC need to take some tips from my professor.

 

[SSSnail]

Some of you, may die (due to your own idiocy), but that's the risk I'm willing to take.

There's a chance some of you may get laid too, but I'll bet on the black hole destroying the earth first.

 

[Jeff7]

There's already a thread going in P&N on this latest journalistic idiocy.
Link


As has been said there, in this thread, and in other threads on the subject, even in the impossible event that ALL of the matter and energy present in the LHC at any one time, during a test run, were to coalesce into a black hole, you might get a few micrograms of matter.

Your computer will exert millions of times more force on surrounding matter, due to its gravity well, than this black hole could ever hope for. Thus far, your computer has yet to destroy the planet by sucking in all its matter.

The only black holes people hear about are things with the mass of a large star. You don't hear much about black holes with less mass than a mosquito fart.

I doubt energetic particle collisions can cause dangerous black holes. Quasars are incredibly energetic objects, spewing out insane levels of EM radiation and highly charged relativistic particles. Yet we detect quasars, instead of immense clumps of black holes formed by the bombardment of stars and planets by these high-energy particles.

Originally posted by: Brainonska511
All this crap in the mainstream media makes me want to roll my eyes. My PChem Quantum Mechanics professor said last quarter that they (PChemists) like to use fancy terminology in papers just to keep people not in the know out of their science. It seems like the people doing calculations on the LHC need to take some tips from my professor.

"Give us more money or we will destroy the world!"

 

[shoRunner]

to the OP, it is not a giant gay sex toy...it is a HADRON COLLIDER

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: shoRunner
to the OP, it is not a giant gay sex toy...it is a HADRON COLLIDER

They're really just trying to create a sex toy for god, a special ring for his mighty Member, such that he may plant the seed of happiness squarely in our faces.

 

[SlickSnake]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
There's already a thread going in P&N on this latest journalistic idiocy.
Link


As has been said there, in this thread, and in other threads on the subject, even in the impossible event that ALL of the matter and energy present in the LHC at any one time, during a test run, were to coalesce into a black hole, you might get a few micrograms of matter.

Your computer will exert millions of times more force on surrounding matter, due to its gravity well, than this black hole could ever hope for. Thus far, your computer has yet to destroy the planet by sucking in all its matter.

The only black holes people hear about are things with the mass of a large star. You don't hear much about black holes with less mass than a mosquito fart.

I doubt energetic particle collisions can cause dangerous black holes. Quasars are incredibly energetic objects, spewing out insane levels of EM radiation and highly charged relativistic particles. Yet we detect quasars, instead of immense clumps of black holes formed by the bombardment of stars and planets by these high-energy particles.

Yea, thanks for pointing it out. I rarely go over there because it smells funny over there. And others that post in here seem to agree.

I noticed this new article elsewhere and it fit the doomsday scenario I had already posted about here months ago.

Well, it's supposedly a fact black holes are at the heart of many galaxies. And they had to start somewhere. Maybe just a crazy idea in a mad scientists mind is all it takes. And not to mention the fact the large hadron collider isn't a tiny table top model kit run on battery power, is it? It uses incredible amounts of power to achieve the results they want. And as I stated before, even if they fail to accidentally make a black hole, they could encounter other unexpected results like dragons (?) and once the dragons start flying around, turning it off most likely won't help a whole lot.

Oh, and everytime I turn on my computer and use it to post here, my brain matter gets sucked into a giant black hole, and I think most of the other posters brains here are also sucked in by the black hole phenomena.

 

[Eeezee]

This is the shittiest OP in ATOT history. Seriously, science created the arms race? I guess all of the politicians had nothing to do with it, it was just a bunch of mad cackling scientists :roll:

The people who think that the LHC will destroy the world never seem to even know anything about how the LHC works, or anything about physics beyond a basic undergraduate level in fact. They don't know WHY a black hole could be created, they just understand a poorly constructed sci-fi interpretation of what a black hole IS, but even that happens to be mostly incorrect. And when arguments are brought up disproving the ludicrous claims, there's always some journalist that brings up completely unrelated science in an attempt to further fuel sales.

But hey, it's okay because doomsday predictions sell well even if they have no more chance of occurring than your computer spontaneously turning into a jello mold of Rick Astley's left nut.

A wise man once said that anyone who believes that the LHC will destroy the world is a twat. A greater truth has never been spoken.

 

[So]

Originally posted by: SlickSnake

Originally posted by: Jeff7
There's already a thread going in P&N on this latest journalistic idiocy.
Link


As has been said there, in this thread, and in other threads on the subject, even in the impossible event that ALL of the matter and energy present in the LHC at any one time, during a test run, were to coalesce into a black hole, you might get a few micrograms of matter.

Your computer will exert millions of times more force on surrounding matter, due to its gravity well, than this black hole could ever hope for. Thus far, your computer has yet to destroy the planet by sucking in all its matter.

The only black holes people hear about are things with the mass of a large star. You don't hear much about black holes with less mass than a mosquito fart.

I doubt energetic particle collisions can cause dangerous black holes. Quasars are incredibly energetic objects, spewing out insane levels of EM radiation and highly charged relativistic particles. Yet we detect quasars, instead of immense clumps of black holes formed by the bombardment of stars and planets by these high-energy particles.

Yea, thanks for pointing it out. I rarely go over there because it smells funny over there. And others that post in here seem to agree.

I noticed this new article elsewhere and it fit the doomsday scenario I had already posted about here months ago.

Well, it's supposedly a fact black holes are at the heart of many galaxies. And they had to start somewhere. Maybe just a crazy idea in a mad scientists mind is all it takes. And not to mention the fact the large hadron collider isn't a tiny table top model kit run on battery power, is it? It uses incredible amounts of power to achieve the results they want. And as I stated before, even if they fail to accidentally make a black hole, they could encounter other unexpected results like dragons (?) and once the dragons start flying around, turning it off most likely won't help a whole lot.

Oh, and everytime I turn on my computer and use it to post here, my brain matter gets sucked into a giant black hole, and I think most of the other posters brains here are also sucked in by the black hole phenomena.

Look, it's been discussed a million times: in no uncertain terms, there is NO chance that the LHC will destroy the earth, almost no chance that it will create a black hole, and a 100% chance that millions of higher energy particle collisions happen in an uncontrolled fashion at the edge of the atmosphere every day, yet here we are.

And the people who brought that lawsuit were either dumb as posts or just looking for their fifteen minutes of fame.

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: SlickSnake

Originally posted by: Jeff7
There's already a thread going in P&N on this latest journalistic idiocy.
Link


As has been said there, in this thread, and in other threads on the subject, even in the impossible event that ALL of the matter and energy present in the LHC at any one time, during a test run, were to coalesce into a black hole, you might get a few micrograms of matter.

Your computer will exert millions of times more force on surrounding matter, due to its gravity well, than this black hole could ever hope for. Thus far, your computer has yet to destroy the planet by sucking in all its matter.

The only black holes people hear about are things with the mass of a large star. You don't hear much about black holes with less mass than a mosquito fart.

I doubt energetic particle collisions can cause dangerous black holes. Quasars are incredibly energetic objects, spewing out insane levels of EM radiation and highly charged relativistic particles. Yet we detect quasars, instead of immense clumps of black holes formed by the bombardment of stars and planets by these high-energy particles.

Yea, thanks for pointing it out. I rarely go over there because it smells funny over there. And others that post in here seem to agree.

I noticed this new article elsewhere and it fit the doomsday scenario I had already posted about here months ago.

Well, it's supposedly a fact black holes are at the heart of many galaxies. And they had to start somewhere. Maybe just a crazy idea in a mad scientists mind is all it takes. And not to mention the fact the large hadron collider isn't a tiny table top model kit run on battery power, is it? It uses incredible amounts of power to achieve the results they want. And as I stated before, even if they fail to accidentally make a black hole, they could encounter other unexpected results like dragons (?) and once the dragons start flying around, turning it off most likely won't help a whole lot.

Oh, and everytime I turn on my computer and use it to post here, my brain matter gets sucked into a giant black hole, and I think most of the other posters brains here are also sucked in by the black hole phenomena.

The largest black holes that could possibly be created at the LHC would have a diameter several orders of magnitude below the Planck length. Below this scale gravity is dwarfed by the other forces. In other words, keeping in mind that even atoms are mostly empty space, a black hole of this size would never interact with anything. It might reach the Planck length after a few billion years, perhaps around the time the sun has turned into a red giant and the Earth has become uninhabitable anyway.

And that's assuming that the black holes are even possible in the first place, which requires a lot of very specific parameters in a few string theory models. No one takes string theory models seriously unless they're one of the creators of that particular model (or your adviser had a hand in it).

You COULD make an argument that maybe there's some galaxy somewhere that was created by a particle collider that was
1) Not already located inside of a galaxy for some reason, requiring matter to be transported vast distances just to construct this thing
2) Was on the scale of several solar systems and was powered by an energy source on par with our sun (or maybe they just have a really large amount of matter+antimatter and transported it out there)
3) Maybe, if certain string theory models have their parameters set in just the right way, turned into a supermassive black hole after only a few thousand years of operation

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: So
And the people who brought that lawsuit were either dumb as posts or just looking for their fifteen minutes of fame.

The ringleader of that charade has shown up with a lawsuit for the start of every new particle experiment for the past few decades, and he's not a scientist but a nuclear safety technician. These people have no clue.