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#1
Sep 10, 2008, 04:40 AM
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Looks like the CERN accerlator did not end all of existence as we know, take that all you tech and science hating Luddites... this thing just rocks!
The organization, known by its French acronym CERN, fired the protons — a type of subatomic particle — around the tunnel in stages, several kilometers (miles) at a time. 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 startup — eagerly awaited by 9,000 physicists around the world who will conduct experiments here — comes over the objections of some skeptics who fear the collisions of protons could eventually imperil the earth. The skeptics theorized that a byproduct of the collisions could be micro black holes, subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they can suck in planets and other stars. "It's nonsense," said James Gillies, chief spokesman for CERN, before Wednesday's start. CERN is backed by leading scientists like Britain's Stephen Hawking in dismissing the fears and declaring the experiments to be absolutely safe. Gillies told the AP that the most dangerous thing that could happen would be if a beam at full power were to go out of control, and that would only damage the accelerator itself and burrow into the rock around the tunnel. And full power is probably a year away. "On Wednesday we start small," said Gillies. "A really good result would be to have the other beam going around, too, because once you've got a beam around once in both directions you know that there is no show-stopper." The LHC, as the collider is known, will take scientists to within a split second of a laboratory recreation of the big bang, which they theorize was the massive explosion that created the universe. The project organized by the 20 European member nations of CERN has attracted researchers from 80 nations. Some 1,200 are from the United States, an observer country which contributed $531 million. Japan, another observer, also is a major contributor. The collider is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel. Smaller colliders have been used for decades to study the makeup of the atom. Less than 100 years ago scientists thought protons and neutrons were the smallest components of an atom's nucleus, but in stages since then experiments have shown they were made of still smaller quarks and gluons and that there were other forces and particles. The CERN experiments could reveal more about "dark matter," antimatter and possibly hidden dimensions of space and time. It could also find evidence of the hypothetical particle — the Higgs boson — believed to give mass to all other particles, and thus to matter that makes up the universe. Some scientists have been waiting for 20 years to use the LHC LOL LOL |
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#2
Sep 10, 2008, 04:48 AM
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i was listening to one of the makers of this yesterday .... said it was 100% safe .... if not see ya t'other side of that black hole
 Jinny xoxoxoxoxoxo |
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#3
Sep 10, 2008, 08:34 AM
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Personally, I think the experiments CERN is doing are very exciting. I only understand a tiny part of the science, but the technology itself to drive the experiments blows me away.
They're really doing ground breaking research. --splitimage
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 "I danced in the morning when the world was begun. I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun". From my favourite hymn. "If you see the wonder in a fairy tale, you can take the future even if you fail." Abba 
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#4
Sep 10, 2008, 10:10 AM
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Just wait until they collide protons or lead nuclei or whatever. That's when the black holes get started!
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Now if thou would'st When all have given him o'er From death to life Thou might'st him yet recover -- Michael Drayton 1562 - 1631 |
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#5
Sep 10, 2008, 10:17 AM
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I'm glad they are working on more things than just the big bang theory, as I don't believe they can prove it ever happened that way. Hopefully, they will find that out, as a majority of scientists have found out other "theories" that don't work.
 Of course, there is always the "observer effect" and some scientists, looking for "big bang" will see it even if it isn't there. Facinating science though, eh?Tue Sep 9, 3:55 PM ET LONDON (AFP) - Renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has bet 100 dollars (70 euros) that a mega-experiment this week will not find an elusive particle seen as a holy grail of cosmic science, he said Tuesday. In the most complex scientific experiment ever undertaken, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be switched on Wednesday, accelerating sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light before smashing them together. "The LHC will increase the energy at which we can study particle interactions by a factor of four. According to present thinking, this should be enough to discover the Higgs particle," Hawking told BBC radio. "I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of 100 dollars that we won't find the Higgs," added Hawking, whose books including "A Brief History of Time" have sought to popularise study of stellar physics. On Wednesday the first protons will be injected into a 27-kilometre (16.9-mile) ring-shaped tunnel, straddling the Swiss-French border at the headquarters of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). Physicists have long puzzled over how particles acquire mass. In 1964, a British physicist, Peter Higgs, came up with this idea: there must exist a background field that would act rather like treacle. Some scientists were however more optimistic. Hubert Reeves, the French astrophysician, told the Swiss daily Le Matin that the invention could bring "unexpected results" that would change the world of particle physics forever. "This machine will probably bring unexpected results that could turn particle physics on its head," Reeves said. "It's a really impressive tool. It can go as deep underground as the length of a cathedral," he said. Particles passing through it would acquire mass by being dragged through a mediator, which theoreticians dubbed the Higgs Boson. The standard quip about the Higgs is that it is the "God Particle" -- it is everywhere but remains frustratingly elusive. While questioning the likelihood of finding Higgs Bosons, Hawking said the experiment could discover superpartners, particles that would be "supersymmetric partners" to particles already known about. "Their existence would be a key confirmation of string theory, and they could make up the mysterious dark matter that holds galaxies together," he told the BBC. "Whatever the LHC finds, or fails to find, the results will tell us a lot about the structure of the universe," he added. Hawking, the 66-year-old Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, was diagnosed with the muscle-wasting motor neuron disease at the age of 22. He is in a wheelchair and speaks with the aid of a computer and voice synthesiser.
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#6
Sep 10, 2008, 10:59 AM
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I heard that there are other scientists protest against these test that there is a small chance it could open up a black hole and kill us all. For real it was on CNN. Sounds like a cool way to go atleast. kind of be like a stargate wide world suicide.
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#7
Sep 10, 2008, 04:57 PM
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you and Packy need to lay off the Sci-Fi channel LOL
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#8
Sep 10, 2008, 05:00 PM
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Hmmm... I personally don't think any more than 1/3 of the earth will be destroyed at any one time. This could be the way it goes.
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#9
Sep 10, 2008, 06:50 PM
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a lot of money for nothing in my opinion..........they still cant top "Star Wars"
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#10
Sep 11, 2008, 03:44 AM
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Quote:
Computers The Internet Hydrogen Fuel Cells Cloning atomic power Space Flight DNA mapping Nanotechnology and many other things that you use and take for granted everday, all at some point were the product of some expensive research. The are some very important questions that could be answered with this device in the future. It is attitudes like this that are causing the US to fall behind in science. |
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#11
Sep 11, 2008, 05:47 AM
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some history on it
http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/28605 newer one not up to the date thou i am sure there is more on this paper http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/35431 |
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#12
Sep 20, 2008, 10:56 AM
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on cnn today........its broke for up to 2 mths
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science....ap/index.html |
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#13
Sep 20, 2008, 08:49 PM
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Still I feel sometimes I may join the Luddites. My brain gets muddled trying to keep up (I'm an AARP lady--54).--Suzy
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