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Post by unsub522 on Sept 9, 2008 12:01:07 GMT
Physics was my bete-noire at school, leaving me struggling to understand what the blinky flip is going to happen in Switzerland tomorrow, what they hope to achieve by it and why.
I have tried googling it but the in depth parts about particle acceleration had my eyes glazing over, and my brain diverted to what to cook for tea.
My daughter claims we will all be sucked into a black hole and die, mind, she is 12 and will look for any excuse to avoid her German homework!
So, can anyone explain it all (fairly) simply to me?
C,
xx
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Post by conbott on Sept 9, 2008 12:31:19 GMT
I can't explain it unsub522 but our 17 year old came in last night asking about Switzerland dropping nuclear weapons over here between Barnsley and Sheffield. Of course it was after 10.00pm and so me and his dad decided not to let it deter us from our tele viewing. Talk about chinese whispers. We did explain that Switzerland was a peace loving place and left him to figure it out against the EXAGGERATIONS! Of course we have to live in between Barnsley and Sheffield so we'll be the first to know. Mind you if anything happens and our computer survives it I'll be on here pronto, even if I have to use a generator to operate the PC. ;D
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Post by Mr. Jon Donnis on Sept 9, 2008 13:12:32 GMT
will people in Aus die first as they are ahead of us?
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Post by steje73 on Sept 9, 2008 14:04:17 GMT
Hehehe! Large Hardon Collider!  What? End of the world again is it? Best get the washing in.  |
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Post by starx on Sept 9, 2008 14:31:49 GMT
My son Harry, came home yesterday scared out of his wits as he was told at school that tomorrow was the end of the earth and we would all be swallowed up in a black hole........  I read this, which quite amused me: www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080405/black_hole_080405/20080405?hub=TopStories 'Black hole' machine could destroy planet: lawsuit Updated Sat. Apr. 5 2008 7:04 AM ET Parminder Parmar, CTV.ca News An American and a Spaniard have launched a lawsuit to stop scientists from firing up a machine they fear could destroy not just life on Earth but the planet itself. International scientists, including dozens from Canada, are about to launch the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27-kilometre long particle accelerator built near Geneva, Switzerland. It will shoot beams of protons at each other in an effort to recreate conditions that resemble what the universe might have been like in the milliseconds after the Big Bang. "We want to probe the most basic particles and constituents (and we're) trying to understand how matter was made," Robert McPherson, a University of Victoria physics professor who is working on the project, told CTV.ca in a phone interview from Vancouver. In the process, scientists may end up creating miniature black holes -- areas of space that have gravitational pulls so strong that not even light can escape. The more matter a black hole pulls in, the stronger it becomes. And that's what worries Walter Wagner, the American who is suing to temporarily stop the project. He says the creation of these black holes here on Earth, no matter how small, may unleash a chain reaction that could destroy the planet. Wagner says there's a possibility that black holes could just get bigger and bigger as they pull more and more matter into themselves. "Eventually, all of Earth would fall into such growing micro-black-holes, converting Earth into a medium-sized black hole, around which would continue to orbit the moon, satellites, and the (International Space Station)," according to court papers Wagner, along with a citizen of Spain, filed in Honolulu. In other words, Wagner asserts the LHC is a machine that will end up causing the Earth to eat itself -- perhaps in less than a century. It may sound fantastic, like a plotline out of a James Bond movie where an evil scientist holds the earth for ransom with a deadly weapon, but Wagner says the possibility isn't science fiction. "Science fiction can be very strange and sometimes it can come very true. This is in the realm of possibilities where fiction can become fact," Wagner told CTV.ca in a telephone interview from his home in Honolulu. Wagner, an education consultant who studied physics at Berkeley, says scientists working on the project haven't done enough studies to make sure the scenario he envisions won't actually occur. The suit -- which is filed against various U.S. agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency -- aims to get a restraining order to stop work on the project until more safety studies are completed. McPherson admits small black holes may be created, but he says the concerns are overblown. He says there is virtually no possibility that any black hole that scientists may create at the Large Hadron Collider will end up absorbing the Earth. "Assuming our wildest fantasies, how much matter can one of these black holes consume in a second, in a year, or even in several billion years?" asks McPherson. "A black hole we could make at the LHC would only consume a tiny fraction of a gram of matter from Earth. There's no possibility of causing any damage to the Earth," he said. McPherson says the black holes will decay and disappear quickly. He adds that what scientists are trying to do in a laboratory setting at the LHC happens in nature daily. "The Earth is constantly being bombarded by cosmic rays. Many of them have much higher energies than what we can create with the LHC. If something dangerous was being made in these interactions it would already have happened in cosmic ray interactions," he said. But that's no comfort to Wagner. He says the LHC is like a factory that creates a waste product without any way to dispose of it. If he's correct, the factory won't get rid of the byproduct. Instead, the byproduct will dispose of the factory -- and everything else. |
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Post by bobdezon on Sept 9, 2008 14:34:55 GMT
They make a big ring, they accelerate particles into each other at high speed. The particles smash together and obliterate each other and new energy patterns are hopefully seen. Perhaps the semi mythical higgs-bosun. That is the aim of the experiment. Will it destroy the world? Dont be silly. The worst thing that could happen is it will lose magnetic integrity and blow a bracing stand off inside the ring. WAHHHH! miniature black holes I mean wtf? Look the sun has been doing the exact same fekking thing against the earths atmosphere for 4.6 billion years with no miniature black holes being made. Why do people think this will happen now? This is why people should take the time to learn science, it makes people slightly less dumb.
edited to fix typo
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Post by ogre on Sept 9, 2008 14:56:54 GMT
I have got to say I've been really disappointed (but not surprised) at all the "Dooomeedd " woo merchants going on about the possible disasters and cost of this project.
Sure it's big and expensive, possibly dangerous and possibly of no use, but the sheer fact that HUMANS have imagined it, built it and are trying it is one of the best aspects about being human.
Those wandering around the place moaning are probably the descendants of luddites, saboteurs (original meaning) and doommongers who said men couldn't breathe at speeds greater than 20 mph. Damn their fears, lack of vision and courage let's get out there and LEARN.
Though I have to admit I don't really understand it myself, I only got a CSE Physics. I totally support these chaps and chapessess.
I'm REALLY P*SSED OFF that the BBC has to involve those brain dead cardboard cutouts from Torchwood in this. It shows they know the droolmonkey (swidge yuh brayn orf id's onni en-duh-dain-munt) brigade will only get interested if there's a chance of a gay snog somewhere. Now if the scientists could design a mouse trap that could get all the Torchwood fans in to one place and send them to another dimension, the average IQ of the planet would increase exponentially.
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Post by gizzy1 on Sept 9, 2008 17:53:32 GMT
wish I'd know sooner, would have saved me paying all the bills today, could have had a decenbt take away and a boozy night !! ;D
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Post by unsub522 on Sept 9, 2008 18:49:32 GMT
It's my brother's birthday tomorrow, so if the world does end it won't matter so much that i forgot to buy him a card today. ;D
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2008 21:22:15 GMT
They make a big ring, they accelerate particles into each other at high speed. The particles smash together and obliterate each other and new energy patterns are hopefully seen. Perhaps the semi mythical higgs-bosun. That is the aim of the experiment. Will it destroy the world? Dont be silly. The worst thing that could happen is it will lose magnetic intergrity and blow a bracing stand off inside the ring. WAHHHH! minuture black holes I mean wtf? Look the sun has been doing the exact same fekking thing against the earths atmosphere for 4.6 billion years with no miniture black holes being made. Why do people think this will happen now? This is why people should take the time to learn science, it makes people slightly less dumb. Amen to that! I got so fed up with having to tell all of my colleagues today that no, we were not going to die, that in the end I just nodded solemnly and said "why do you think I'm pulling a sickie tomorrow?" I realise now I shouldn't have said it as they may be huddling together with their families right now fearing their final moments. Thinking about it, I wonder how many people WILL pull sickies tomorrow incase they die? haha... "I won't be in today, I'm waiting for the black hole to suck me up" |
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Post by farsideofthemoon on Sept 9, 2008 21:37:56 GMT
This is as simple and clear as it gets: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7604293.stmI don't think we'll all die tomorrow, the collisions are a few days away yet (assuming it all works first time, which it probably won't). I'm immensely excited about this. Hugely excited in fact. I'm no physicist by any stretch, but I think it's unfortunate that most of the discoveries from this experiement will be impenetrable to the average man in the street. It will just seem meaningless, however I've no doubt that the findings will make their way into all sorts of future technologies. |
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Post by O.M.S. on Sept 9, 2008 22:14:03 GMT
I think it's wrong that $5bn has been spent on this.
Everyone knows that the meaning of life is Phi, or 1.61803399.
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Post by hyppydylan on Sept 9, 2008 23:15:07 GMT
It's my brother's birthday tomorrow, so if the world does end it won't matter so much that i forgot to buy him a card today. ;D It's my birthday too so I expect that's the excuse I'll get for no cards or prezzies again. Woe is me ;D |
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Post by Amaris on Sept 10, 2008 1:02:18 GMT
Save me from these proclaimers of doom! I would think the majority are religious zealots whose previous attempts predicting the end of the world have, quite obviously,  come to nothing 
It's science and funnily enough it's science that has taken us from those uneducated days of, well not that too distant a past actually, and advanced our knowledge of the world and universe we are living in.
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Post by starx on Sept 10, 2008 7:23:48 GMT
And to throw you all off course  here's a prediction from Nostradamus.......... Nostradamus quatrain 9 44:
Leave, leave Geneva every last one of you,
Saturn will be converted from gold to iron,
"Raypoz" will exterminate all who oppose him,
Before the coming the sky will show signs. ;D |
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Post by redbaron on Sept 10, 2008 8:44:54 GMT
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Post by lucan on Sept 10, 2008 8:57:38 GMT
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Post by lucan on Sept 10, 2008 8:58:27 GMT
had Teflon
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Post by starx on Sept 10, 2008 11:38:10 GMT
Wow, thanks for the link Lucan, i never knew about this.  |
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Post by unsub522 on Sept 10, 2008 12:03:42 GMT
Well, we're all still here so i'd best go buy my brother a birthday card!
Happy birthday happydylan.
x
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come to nothing 
here's a prediction from Nostradamus..........
