particle accelerator - big bang

[Asset]

I'm a bit freaked about this imminent occurence.

It was supposed to happen earlier this year but is happening in the next couple of weeks. Been 16 years in the planning.

Is anyone else?

[????]

nope

[Keef]

Not heard anything about it. A link perhaps...

[????]

Keef its somemile long vacuum tube underground (Switzerland?/France) to shoot particles down............er that's the sum off my misinformation...but it has been talked about for years so you must dislike science even more than me

[bigbadwolf]

Are you talking about linear or circular. You do know that your T.V is a particle accelerator as it smashes light. I don't really know where you're goimg with this and haven't got a clue what you're on about, do you?

[Asset]

big bang

[aidokel]

It's called The Large Hadron Collider.

At best it will answer some questions that have been bugging physicists for years, heralding a whole new era in scientific understanding; at worst it'll create a black hole and we're all goona die.

BBC Radio 4 are doing a live broadcast on September 10th from 6am. It's called "Big Bang Day". Andrew Marr's presenting it. It may possibly turn into another installment of his "Britain From Above" series...

Here's some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadron_collider

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/bigbang/programmes.shtml

[SteveT]

An expensive do-nut shaped euro trough, for euro snouts to revel in.

Or am I being cynical?

[Huguenot]

Hmmm, I think that depends upon your initial answer to a couple of questions:

- Do you believe that society should continue to develop new technologies?

- Do you believe that humanity should continue to strive for greater understanding of the universe in which we live?

- Is there a benefit to working together to meet these goals?

If your answer to those questions is either not at all, or only a little bit, then you'll never see any benefits in the LHC so you can pretend it's anything you want - jobs for the boys, euro snouts etc. etc.

The Large Hadron Collider LHC essentially breaks down the building blocks of matter by hammering them into each other at high speed and seeing what the fragments look like.

Whilst this is interesting from a purely scientific point of view, it will undoubtedly lead to new technologies and applications that help us all. Key questions they are looking to resolve are 'what/why is mass (weight)?', 'what is the missing 96% of the universe made of?' and 'where is anti-matter?'.

You could expect answers to these questions to have a major impact on long term strategies for energy and transport.

Intriguing questions that may be resolved include where are the missing dimensions...? Doctor Who anyone?

Its construction has cost us each 35p a year for the last 12 years. Not exactly breaking the bank.

If anyone remains to be convinced, then you should be aware that the internet was created at the same set of laboratories that are giving us the LHC. This is a copy of the world's first ever web page. There's proof of the benefits if ever you wanted it ;-)

If anyone's still not convinced, you should probably join the neo-Luddite movement. There's looms and threshing machines out there waiting to be destroyed...

[SeanMacGabhann]

Consider my cap doffed in your direction young Hugo... splendid post

I read about the experiment some weeks back and meant to follow it up - it is exciting stuff (but one does feel a tinge of what Asset posted about - especially if one was raised on a diet of science fiction as a nipper)

[Keef]

Sure I read about this in Dan Brown's Angels and Demons.

Did you also know that Jesus and Mary Mag were gettin it on!

[Brendan]

As I understand it one of the consequences may be that our universe ceases to have ever existed at all. Which will be totally fine because you can?t miss that which you never had.

Of course then the doughnut doomsday machine will have never existed to stop the universe from ever having existed so it will still be here to stop everything from ever existing.

So don?t worry yourself about it. It?ll be fine.

[AcedOut]

I'd be more worried about December 21, 2012 than this!

[david_carnell]

And the Millenium Bug!

Bloody IT geeks on the make there.

[*Bob*]

Science is important.

Without us* having been** to the moon (solely in order to get one up on the Russians at a cost of $25billion) there'd be no velcro.

*America

** Or did they?

[david_carnell]

Urban myth.

Velcro was invented long before that. Astronauts merely made its use popular.

[SteveT]

Dear Huguenot,

Myself and the new luddites would like to thank you on the information you have supplied us, and we admire the depth of your knowledge on this new fangled do-nut shaped, death ray machine.

Me and the boys (new luddites to a man) wonder if you have a timetable of the security monkeys posted around this Devil machine and does anyone sell big hammers near by to the do-nut mountain?

I am thanking you sir in anticipation,

The full membership of the New Luddites East Dulwich Branch.

[Asset]

Did you know that burrs were the inspiration for the invention of velcro?

[*Bob*]

Apologies, velcro fans!

I think my point was (it could be argued that) the cost of going to the moon was too high in relation to the tangible benefits for mankind (other than wow factor, the popularisation of velcro, and an entertaining movie by Ron Howard)

Unless you believe all that giant leap business.

[Brendan]

Surely the best reason for going to the moon was, because it's there and we just might have a shot at it.

The fact that strippers no longer have to sew their buttons back on every day was just a bonus.

[*Bob*]

Don't get all gooey-eyed about it, Brendan.

America only went there to teach the Russkies who was boss.

As expected, they found nothing there when they arrived. Then they proceeded to return (several times) in order to not find anything again.

[david_carnell]

So in fact the moon landings prematurely brought about the demise of the USSR as its economy collapsed under the attempts to beat the Yanks in the space race.

That's a bonus, right?

[Brendan]

Yeah but that was back when by 2008 we were going to have a holiday resort up there. We were also going to have flying cars and clothes made out of tinfoil. And what have we got? Walkie-talkies and fuking facebook. I would much rather fly to the moon and be locked in intergalactic battle with the forces of communism than get repetitively poked by that specky kid from high school.

[david_carnell]

Whatever happened to space battles?

I mean, they look sooo cool on tv, do we still not have the technology for it? With lasers and what not. I wanna join SpaceCorp!

[*Bob*]

david_carnell Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> So in fact the moon landings prematurely brought

> about the demise of the USSR as its economy

> collapsed under the attempts to beat the Yanks in

> the space race.

>

> That's a bonus, right?

Of course the Americans knew that from the outset. Right?

Like it, David. There's nothing like a healthy bit of revisionism.