Originally posted by: CrazyHelloDeli
I think its exciting! Might get answers to some of physics toughest questions. As for it creating a black hole and destroying everything, who knows? I sure as hell lack the expertise to speculate either way. I seem to recall reading that many who detonated the first atomic weapon thought it would ignite earths atmosphere and scorch the planet, and we can see that didn't happen.
The black holes that might be created would be smaller than a single proton, and it would disintegrate quickly.
Originally posted by: BrownTown
Originally posted by: Rainsford
Am I the only one who wishes we (as a species) could spend more time on things like this and less fighting about pointless political issues? We have resources beyond imagining in any previous generation, we have reached the stage in our technological evolution where there is very little we can't do if we put our minds to it. The universe is a vast and wonderful place, and for the first time since our ancestors came out of their caves and gazed at the stars, we have the power to crack open the mysteries of the universe and peer inside. And yet for some reason we would rather focus on the minute differences between us to the point where we wage frequent and bloody wars over who prays to the right God.
On the flipside maybe we should be spending all that money to try to end wars instead of on useless science expiriments...
just playing a little Devils Advocate here, but as an engineer I don't always have the best of respect for "purse science". Sure everyone would love to have more things like this, but the question is how does finding a Higgs boson help
ME...
Without pure science, we probably wouldn't have TV's, among many other things.
"I want something to display images on boxes. To do this, you're going to need to discover the electron, then figure out how it interacts with magnetic fields. I think you should also discover that moving electrons can create magnetic fields. Then it's going to hit a screen of a substance that will glow. Get a chemist and discover phosphorus. Get to work on it right away!"
(
This is a paraphrasing and augmentation of what Carl Sagan said here.)
When phosphorus was discovered, was it so that they could use it in TV's? When it was found that coils of wire could produce magnetic fields, was
that for use in TV's? Was the discovery of the electron motivated by a desire to watch Seinfeld?
If you've ever watched TV, you owe it to this kind of pure science.
If you want to, just skip to 2:50 in that video.
MRI's, CAT scans, X-ray's- take your pick; radiology in general. Again, electromagnets - when that property of moving electrons was discovered, do you think they had in mind, "We can use this to see inside of people!" Or the same with X-rays. Or how about study of radioactive minerals? "A rock that emits invisible light that can kill people slowly. This kind of emission might be useful to save lives some day!" Now technetium is used in medicine, to help find cancer. Radiation being used to help find cancerous tumors, imagine that. Madame Curie probably never had such things in mind while she studied invisible radiation.
Pure science is critical to the advancement of our species. Many uses for natural phenomena are discovered by accident. Want fire? Striking two rocks together probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind to do this, but it can work.
Without pure science, our technology will stagnate. We'll lose the ability to find truly new things. Some of it is just to say, "I wonder what will happen," or, "I wonder why this happens." A natural thing is observed, and someone else decides, "Hey, that's nifty. I think I can use that for something!" Often times, it's completely unrelated to the original discovery. When electromagnets were first constructed, they probably never envisioned the ability to use them to move tons of metallic waste with the flip of a small lever, or their use in transportation in the form of maglev trains.
Originally posted by: Hafen
I don't think it will open a black hole. You need a fairly high critical mass to create that. Stars going nova don't often even create black holes, and that's a helluva lot bigger and more powerful than the LHC. God knows the things we are going to learn from it, but should be very exciting to see. I understand they are already designing it replacement tho...lol.
As big and crazy and expensive as that thing is, we blow that kind of dough every month in Iraq. Sheeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttt!
It might just be the mass
density that's key. Squish enough mass together, closely enough, and it would form a (tiny) gravitational field, capable of trapping light. But it's still a tiny amount of mass, and thus not dangerous.
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