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A worker wearing a hardhat is dwarfed by the ALICE detector's red magnet assembly in the Large Hadron Collider.
The world's biggest particle collider has switched over from shooting beams of protons to shooting heavy ions -- leading to experiments that could cook up the kind of "soup" produced by the big bang. And even before those experiments have begun, critics have cooked up a fresh batch of doomsday talk as well.
For the past year, the Large Hadron Collider has been smashing protons together at progressively higher energies, 300 feet (100 meters) below ground at the French-Swiss border, in a ring-shaped tunnel that measures 17 miles (27 kilometers) around. A milestone was reached last month when the beams' luminosity hit its target for the year.
"This shows that the objective we set ourselves for this year was realistic, but tough, and it's very gratifying to see it achieved in such fine style," Rolf Heuer, director general for Europe's CERN particle physics center, said in a news release issued today. "It's a testimony to the excellent design of the machine as well as the hard work that has gone into making it succeed."
High-energy proton collisions could unlock the secrets of higher dimensions, or reveal the nature of dark matter and antimatter, or point to an as-yet-undetected field that is thought to give some particles mass while leaving other particles massless. The particle associated with this field is called the Higgs boson, sometimes known as the "God particle."
But when it comes to creating the conditions that existed just after the big bang, the LHC needs heavier ammo. That's why CERN has switched from protons to lead ions -- that is, lead atoms that have been stripped of their electrons. The ions are more than 200 times heavier than protons, and when they're smashed into each other at nearly the speed of light, the blast is expected to shatter particles into a hot soup of free-flying quarks and gluons.
Current theory suggests that the whole universe existed as a dollop of super-hot quark-gluon plasma in the first few millionths of a second after the big bang. Since then, quarks have been virtually impossible to pull apart -- but an ion-smasher in New York, known as the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider or RHIC, is thought to have done it five years ago. Such experiments help physicists understand exactly how the universe was, and is, put together.
CERN says the LHC should be able to collide heavy ions with energy levels 28 times higher than those achieved at RHIC. Some theorists have suggested that at those energies, the big bang soup would no longer exist as a liquid, but as a gas. And so, for the next few weeks, the LHC's spotlight will turn to a huge detector called ALICE (which stands for "A Large Ion Collider Experiment").
More than 1,000 physicists, engineers and technicians are on the ALICE team, but they're able to take data only during the four weeks of the year that precede the LHC's winter break. So they didn't waste any time getting started. The proton-on-proton action finished up this morning, and the first test beam of lead ions made 75 laps around the LHC tunnel tonight, CERN spokesman James Gillies told me.
"It's going well," Gillies said. "We're looking at the first collisions in the next few days."
Two other detectors at the LHC, the Compact Muon Solenoid and ATLAS, will also be taking data during the heavy-ion run. Then the beams will be turned off for maintenance during the winter break. The schedule calls for proton beams to start up again in February, Gillies said.
CERN physicist Detlef Kuchler holds a piece of the lead source material used to create heavy ions for the LHC.
Return of the strangelets
This week's heavy-ion switch is good news for physicists at the LHC ... but it has also sparked a renewed campaign by folks who worry that the collisions will destroy the world. Remember them? Before the LHC's startup in 2008, some critics voiced concerns that high-energy collisions could give rise to catastrophic phenomena ranging from globe-gobbling black holes to atom-wrecking particles. Similar objections were raised about RHIC, and in response, CERN conducted a series of safety reviews that concluded LHC operations would be safe. The critics were unsatisfied, however. With the switch to heavy ions, they're shifting their focus from the black-hole scenario to the atom-wrecking scenario.
A group called Heavy Ion Alert claims that the LHC could create a dangerous breed of strangelet -- that is, a never-before-seen combination of quarks that includes some with a strange flavor. In this case, "strange" is a technical term, representing one of the six flavors of quarks. (The others are up, down, charm, bottom and top.) The claim is that just the wrong kind of strangelet could turn nearby atoms into strangelets as well, setting off a catastrophic chain reaction.
The case for killer strangelets is similar to the case for globe-gobbling microscopic black holes. If there's any chance at all that the LHC could produce an Earth-killer, the experiment should not be done. "For Earth, one [chance] in 1,000, or one in 100,000 is still something you don't want to do," James Blodgett, a member of the group, told me this week.
The reassurances from particle physicists follow a similar format as well. The most recent LHC safety report says theory as well as observations would rule out such a catastrophe. If such strangelets could arise, they would have been observed beyond Earth, where there are cosmic-ray collisions far more powerful than anything the LHC can dish out. The report's authors say it's theoretically harder to create the dangerous kind of strangelets at higher energies -- which means that if anything bad could happen, it would have happened at RHIC.
"For this reason, the likelihood of strangelet production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions can be compared to the likelihood of producing an ice cube in a furnace," the authors write.
'A teachable moment'
The LHC's critics point to earlier reports from researchers, speculating on the prospects for producing stable, negatively charged strangelets -- the supposedly scary kind. They cite this as evidence that "CERN has misled the public." But some of those reports date back 15 years or so and don't reflect the latest thinking about the production of exotic matter.
Other reports are more recent, but refer to what might be found using a subdetector known as CASTOR. The CASTOR researchers themselves voice no concern about a catastrophe. Instead, they see their experiment as a straightforward effort to find evidence of exotic phenomena previously associated with cosmic-ray collisions, including centauros and strangelets. The doomsday connection is being made by the doomsayers themselves ... plus maybe a few physicists exercising their imagination.
A newly published book about the quest for the Higgs boson, titled "Massive," devotes an entire chapter to the strangelet controversy, recounting how it grew out of a speculative comment that Nobel-winning physicist Frank Wilczek made in an 1999 magazine article. "I thought I'd use the opportunity as a teachable moment," the book's author, Guardian science correspondent Ian Sample, quotes Wilczek as saying.
At the time, Wilczek didn't realize his strange speculation would set off a years-long debate. And even if the hubbub over strangelets settles down over the next few weeks, that's unlikely to end worries about the end of the world. Here's how Sample puts it in "Massive":
"History suggests there will always be some world-ending entity lurking among scientists' theories, and the chances of unleashing it by accident will almost certainly be shrouded in uncertainty. If dangerous strangelets and magnetic monopoles are ever ruled out, another possibility will emerge from physicists' theories. How then should society decide whether an experiment that has a minute risk of causing total disaster be carried out? In the distant past, the consequences of an experiment gone wrong affected only those involved or nearby. One argument says that, since particle colliders are primarily of direct benefit only to pure science, we have already come too far. But that is short-sighted. High-energy physics experiments have brought us revolutionary technologies as disparate as the World Wide Web and ion beams for cancer treatment. When we make progress in pure science, technological benefits often follow. Perhaps the best we can hope for is a truly open and public debate in which real risks are laid out. Without that, society as a whole has no chance of making an informed decision. How we achieve this will only become a more pressing issue as science advances."
What do you think? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.
Update for 4:20 p.m. ET Nov. 5: More than two years ago, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit that sought a halt in operations at the LHC due to concerns about strangelets, black holes and other doomsday scenarios -- but the plaintiffs (Walter Wagner and Luis Sancho) have nevertheless been keeping the case alive on appeal. Richard Penner, who has been following the appeal process closely, reports that judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the plaintiffs' request for a rehearing today.
I've also heard back from a couple of the physicists involved in developing the CASTOR detector -- Edwin Norbeck and Yasar Onel -- and they say they don't expect any dangerous strangelets to be created by the LHC. In fact, they don't expect to see any strangelets at all, even though that's one of the phenomena that the detector was designed to spot. Since the original papers about CASTOR came out, experiments at RHIC have led physicists in a different direction. "The theoreticians are changing their minds," Onel told me.
CASTOR's goal, however, is the same: What is behind these anomalous cosmic-ray events known as centauros? Maybe they're caused by hypernuclei ... or maybe it's some other phenomenon at work. "Nobody knows what they really are," Norbeck told me. "They're not strangelets. [CASTOR] is prepared to look at these unusual cosmic-ray events, whatever their cause is."
More from MSNBC:
- Special report on "The Big Bang Machine"
- Nightmares and dreams at the LHC
- What's a hadron? Tour the particle zoo
More from the Web:
- CERN: The safety of the LHC
- CMS Times: Looking forward with CASTOR
- APS: Looking for strangelets ... and not finding them
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
So, just for argument sake, lets say that the Domsday people are right and the CERN does create a evil particle that causes the world to end. What would the end effect feel like to the rest of the worl. Would it be instaneous or would it be like getting pulled into a black hole? Would the Particles that it creates slowly kills us or would we all end up with super muntant powers? I am asking because I am thinking of writing something for my school as a short story. Leave your thoughts below....
First post yeah!! I gainz +600 internets bonuses
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One would think it must be comparable to the nuclear reaction seen in an atomic explosion. I would say the speed of it all probably depends on what kind of atom is being turned into a strangelet. I don't think it would be instantaneous. That is only a guess though.
The BBC special "End Day" delved into this... You could check out this video starting at about the 49:00 point:
http://videosift.com/video/Horizon-End-Day-5-apocalyptic-disasters-documentary-drama
I think we will never find out about a world ending event. It isn't going to happen. If these "evil" stranglets are possible, they would have been created at the time of the big bang and have already done to the universe what these doomsday sayers believe it will do to the earth. After all, at the moment of the big bang, they say particles moved faster than light due to the exotic conditions of the universe at the time. And with all the matter in the universe collected in that small bit of space, it is impossible to believe that nothing ran into something else with energy we can not possibly produce. So since the big bang didn't destroy the universe, I don't feel this will destroy it either. With the energy we are using, and mass of matter we are colliding, I don't think we will be creating another universe either. At least not one that is more than a "." in size.
What if the big bang did turn all the atomic particles into "strange" matter which is what we interact with on a daily basis. The LHC could possibly turn it back to "normal"? Don't get me wrong, I don't believe any ill effects will be suffered from the LHC. I just don't think this scenario can be so easily discounted with out knowing the true nature of matter.
If they do destroy the world, I don't think any of us are going to be around to be worried about it.
Viva Le Hadron.
Doomsday nah! Throwing a single at a single may only discover the make up of the single. Throwing complex at complex would scare me more. Not that a single isn't complex.
I like to think of everything as layers, spherical layers. We are currently limited to playing with the level that we exist within.
I think they will be disappointed with the results.
I would be more scared of the thought of being able to disconnect the attraction at an atomic level. Turn of gravity so to speak. Turn off the positive to negative attraction.
Good news is that these experiments will be looked at 50 years form now the same way we look at Leonardo's experiments. Its a good time to be alive and interested in science.
I have a split personality on this science. On one side, I applaud it. I marvel at it. I cheer it on. Our thirst for knowledge and progress must be fed. On the other side I fear it. I am suspicious about it. I dread certain conclusions from it. I sense somehow we have already done this before! Strange things can happen on the way to both progress and ignorance. I wonder whether the same "strangelet produces this irony.
I guess what I fear most is a certainty. And that is if the big Bang happened, something caused it. We don't understand it. And the LHC won't give us all of the answers. And that event, from a singularity the size of a millionth of a needle head displaced all of something else that now comprises the Universe as we know it. What happened to what was displaced? Was anything displaced at all? Was another universe absorbed, moved aside, expanded or swallowed up. Is mankind just caught in a LHC type time vortex, duplicating the exact same experiment from a flawed scientific perspective over and over again for eternity. In many ways that could even explain a certain theory of God. Meaning it could be us trying to free ourselves from a time loop infinity we erroneously induced upon ourselves. Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony. Infinite man, at the end of time, yearning hopelessly for the simplicity of mortality of man and random events at the beginning of time.
Either way, this is a done deal. We invented it so we are going to try it. So let's sit back. Cross our fingers. And enjoy the ride while it lasts. Because just as certain as the singularity itself, we will one day go too far and make a catastrophic mistake that ends everything. It's just in our nature. Even if you subscribe to the theory of Adam's fall from grace.
I love the LHC. Absolutely fascinating.
CERN you are go for full throttle up!
Isn't it exciting?? I remember being glued to the news in 2008 when they first switched it on. It's never been far out of mind since then either.
It is exciting to see us achieving such high energies. However our sensors are lagging too far behind, so at the end of the day we will still rely on our math and present physical formulations to figure out what we think we are observing.
Unfortunately temperatures and speeds at the "point" of ignition will be too high to "see" anything. We will be sensing events that will occur further down.
We should be investing much more to improve our sensors.
a krell like scenario??
mr. dressler......write quickly;-)
Sounds like someone's got a particle problem. You know how it is... the kids in the neighborhood all said it was the cool thing to do, so you started with just a little try, and pretty soon you were hooked! You thought you could handle it. It was just a few hadrons now and then, you know, just for kicks, but it's threatening to get out of control. Soon, just to feel the same the same rush, you'll be needing the Higg's boson! And wouldn't you know it, they're starting to whisper, "Maybe the LHC needs to start attending 12 step meetings at P.A." (Particles Anonymous)
Good one MikeyMike! I agree, getting a little in over their heads and needing a 12-step program to calm their brains and egos.
Sorry guys, I know you scientists are intelligent human beings, but what's it all good for? Tell me that?
If they do find a particle that gives objects/other particles their mass (Higgs Boson) then future scientists can build on that and may be able to manipulate the mass of objects without actually destroying them. Would be definitely useful in countering the weightlessness of space travel.
It's scientists like these and experiments like this that have lead to every single new invention you get to buy and take home. The search for knowledge and the ingenuity to overcome difficulties is what drives us to learn more. It's easy to say this is a waste of money, just like the trillions we'd save by killing our space program, but when you do that, when you cease looking for new knowledge, you stagnate.
I'm always amused by people using a computer to question the usefulness of basic scientific research.
Unless your computer runs on vacuum tubes, you're already benefiting from it. Come to think of it, vacuum tubes came from basic scientific research, too.
Practically every advance in Solid state physics has been possible thanks to Advances in quantum physics. Solid state physics is what allows your computer to be built, which allows you to whine to the world wide web (Which was invented for a particle physics experiment) about why we shouldn't be researching quantum physics.
Brilliant.
LOL, Mike. That sounds like a good plot for "The Big Bang Theory".
@ Physicist-retired
Are your particles no longer vibrating at a higher excitational state? :-) You missed the fact that Mr. Spock built a computer out of stone knives and bearskins.....
And as for computers built with vacuum tubes, I've always wanted to take a trip to see the rebuilt Colossus at Blechley Park in England.
Mark,
I just knew someone would call me on that one!
As for the Colossus, I haven't seen that one yet, either. Sure would be fun. Then again, I actually remember the ENIAC. And punchcards...
the "strangelets" are crying doom. worst case, there will be a nasty ion that breaches the containment of the machine, breaking the vacuum, shutting it down very, very hard.
kind of like crashing into a tree at 60 mph protects all the little kiddies at nursery school crossing the street a few blocks ahead from you.
I am still trying to convince people that too much hot sauce makes me halucinate but hey thats just me. What if it created a micro wave effect in that we lost gravity because of the machine and the only thing to stop it. Would be for us to build more machines to counter act the process. Yup, thats what Im afraid of....
First, these scientists want to cook up something like the alleged "big bang". Then, when someone says under that theory, the universe came from something smaller than the collider itself (in an instant to boot!). Oh, they say, that won't happen? Therefore, the "big bang" theory is called into question. You can't have it both ways. This machine was a very expensive toy for a few high paid "reseachers". It turned out to be a piece of junk when they first tried it. Shut it down. This is good money following wasted money.
I think you just need to read a physics book and get a better understanding of the scientific process before you comment any further.
I don't think you have a very good grasp of the science in question.
And it certainly didn't turn out to be a 'piece of junk'. The researchers you mentioned are smart people who have devoted themselves to studying the world they live in...why does that earn your scorn?
The fan bois are just as bad as the doom bois. Y'all need to get a life. If it all goes poof it won't really matter. What I'm excited about is all the theories that will die.
Oh and a magic man in the sky who waved his hands and we all now exist DOESN'T sound primitive and ignorant? I'll take the big bang theory over that anyday.
They both seem equally weird to me. And I'm an atheist.
Why was there a bang? What was there before?
They are not attempting to create the big bang, they are attempting to create the extremely high energy density that was present immediately after the big bang.
"Why was there a bang? What was there before?"
Actually, 'Big Bang' was a derisive term created by supporters of the alternate 'Steady State' theory. However, subsequent evidence is more consistent with a Universe that somehow emerged to its present state from a 'hot dense state' (as the theme from the TV series says), and not a Universe that, while changing, has existed more-or-less as we see it, expanding, but with new matter being somehow gradually 'created' in the intergalactic spaces...
And the name stuck.
@badchess,
Your question is the equivalent to the Koan, “what did your face look like before your mother was born”
If time (and therefore Entropy) was created with space (spacetime), then asking what came before is a philosophy question, not a scientific one.
Perhaps a big crunch, resulting from the end of the previous universe, but we'll never know, that is of course, until ours stops expanding and begins the long contraction. (Dark energy be damned!)
I thought it was believed that we'd keep expanding (kind of like my stomach).
badchess,
Yes. In fact, the universe's rate of expansion seems to be accelerating - very confusing at this this time. The force causing this acceleration is currently called 'dark energy', but we have no real idea what that force actually is.
Sorry about your stomach. I can relate...
Bechtel - Big Bang theory doesn't state that the universe came from "Something that was smaller than the Collider." It states that all of the matter in the universe was concentrated into a single point. These experiments are essentialy similar to what goes on in a nuclear reactor where a large atom of uranium is hit but neutrons and broken apart. Instead they are smashing two atoms of lead into each other (which is smaller that uranium) My best argument against the detractors is that these reactions take place all of the time in our upper atmosphere and on the moon at much higher energies than the LHC is capable of, and we're still here today.
And obviously since it took many years and billions of dollars to create, and employs thousands of people, then we should just shut it down now because a few people are more interested in grandstanding than trying to understand the science.
Kind of like the nuclear repository in Nevada.
I think Bechtel-1397456 has it right.
Playing with The Creator's plan is what I see, and it's looking for a beating.
We ate your god.
*burp*
I'm supposed to be going back to sleep at 2:45am, not laughing my ass off over your comment MCC. Nice one.
What plan? Whose creator?
This just causes indigestion and a very bad case of hellish heartburn... I won't have god fod dinner again!
That's why I prefer the Flying Spaghetti Monster, all of the salvation, none of the heartburn ^_^
Jesus is my copilot.
But we crashed in the Andies and had to eat him.
I suppose (and I certainly hope) that they're right. But their assurances don't sound very reassuring to me.
Take this for example: "If such strangelets could arise, they would have been observed beyond Earth, where there are cosmic-ray collisions far more powerful than anything the LHC can dish out." Fine, they might have happened out there, but how would we observe them? Because there's not much matter out there to be swallowed up in such a collision, so I wouldn't imagine there'd be much more than a pico-second flash, and that perhaps light years away. And the flash might be rather dim if it's just two cosmic rays colliding, with no other matter to get involved.
So how do we know whether they happen out there? And if they do happen, how do we know what their effect would be if it occurs in the middle of a bunch of matter (like on the Earth), as opposed to light years from any large mass?
Also this: "The report's authors say it's theoretically harder to create the dangerous kind of strangelets at higher energies... The LHC's critics point to earlier reports from researchers, speculating on the prospects for producing stable, negatively charged strangelets -- the supposedly scary kind... But some of those reports date back 15 years or so and don't reflect the latest thinking about the production of exotic matter." So in 15 years we've gone from thinking this might be dangerous to thinking the opposite. Any chance in another 15 years we might find a reason to revert to our original belief? On what basis did physicists change their minds? "Some of those reports date back 15 years" doesn't help any, either. What would be (slightly) more convincing would be if none of the reports dated back less than ten years.
"On what basis did physicists change their minds?" The discovery that these high energy collisions occur millions of times a second in our own atmosphere, and we have yet to be sucked into a black hole or encounter any harmful strangelets.
Will the doomsday crowd ever give it up.
Nope, in fact, I believe they have a lunch date scheduled with the 9/11 conspiracy nuts over in Waco next week.
just wished they would have used lead solder in their connectors. Would be running at full power now!
I think it is an imperative that these physicists study all their theories thoroughly because the world's population is growing and outstripping Earth's capacity to hold us all and to deal with our plundering. We have always changed our environment. We have grown past one niche after another. It's time to explore getting substantial numbers off the planet. But to do that we will need to know much more than we know now. Doomsday fear mongers ignore the greatest danger: that we will do nothing to expand our niche beyond planet earth. They say don't do it. I say, let's do it.
This is really funny. Even though I must admit, I totally agree with you. I say funny because at the core of your logic is the assumption; We have raped, defiled and overpopulated the earth. Exhausted its capacity to sustain us. So let's not fix the problem (us). Let's export it into the cosmos and exhaust all of its capacity.
I agree with you because, in many ways that is all we are capable of doing. God help the alien species we encounter though if we are superior to them. We'll either eat them, kill them, make them pets, make them slaves or make them fixtures on our walls or zoos!
So really! They get these particles to go around in a circle at almost the speed of light. Why not a straight line from two points? The fact that they can even do this is totally amazing. So the smaller the colider and the more particles will be the space ships of the future right? Or maybe the space blimps and rayguns of the future. It always turns out to be something more of a land grab than research for science. Columbus the explorer, I dont think so, more like Columbus the land scout....And that is just because the nature of things and the competitive world that we live in. I think any new particle that they find and use before the other guy is more closer to the truth than trying to figure out the universe.
"Why not a straight line from two points?" Because of the simple fact that a circular track doesn't end. If it were a straight track you would have to get a particle up to light speed in a relatively short amount of space. The circular track design allows it to have and infinite runway.
"It always turns out to be something more of a land grab than research for science." To get it to even go near the speed of light it needs a lot of power and which needs to be cooled to near absolute zero (about -460 degrees F) and that requires a lot of equipment, and hence space. Plus this is all going on at more than 500 ft underground , which real estate that no one is actually using.
This is Obama's fault...oh wait, wrong article.
awesome
Again, when it comes to the danger of mini black holes, they are essentially basing their theories entirely upon something which has never even been observed in nature, specifically Hawking radiation, and they are potentially betting the future of the entire world on these unsubstantiated theories. That seems very reckless and irresponsible to me. I know I would never be able to reconcile this kind of wanton and callous disregard for public safety with my own personal conscience, purely for the desire to satisfy my own curiousity. Sorry, everyone, but that is just the way that I feel. I personally believe there are some experiments which should never be carried out anywhere near to our precious Earth (and solar system), and if experiments designed to recreate the conditions of the "Big Bang" don't qualify in that regard, then I really don't know what would. For whatever it is worth, I personally don't believe we should be letting experiments like these get ahead of our qualified theories. - Rick Carter
Sorry but I find is amazing that scientitst would think or doom sayers would think a black hole could be produced that could swallow the earth.
People need to read up on what a black hole is, its a collapsed star, do you all know how much mass is in a star? Now take a few atoms or ions that you can hold in your hand and compress those using the HDC do you really think that any black hole if it would be created would have the mass needed to suck anything into it?
How stupid can people be? Its impossible, the only way for that to happen would be if they collided sufficient mass (say 50-100 time the mass of our sun) together.
Wake up people and look up what a black hole is all about, freak out about stranglets at least that has some basis on reality.
A black hole has to have mass to be able to suck up our planet and all the chicken littles on it. Two atoms, ions ect is only going to suck in the doomsayers cries of fear.
Rick - I see a problem in that if we don't carry out these experiments here in the short term, we will likely never develop the technology to reach beyond out solar system. If we can isolate the Higgs Boson it has the potential to lead to anti gravity propulsion. Personally, when it comes to rocket science, I like to leave it to the professionals.
PS - I personally believe they are ramping up these experiments much too fast, to allow for proper data collection and analysis, which could potentially either qualify or disqualify their unsubstantiated theories. It is not just the speeds which I believe they are ramping up to fast, they are jumping straight from protons to lead nuclei as the test particles. I find this kind of reckless abandon of most reasonable safeguards most troubling, to say the least. If nothing else, the fact that we have yet to clearly witness overwhelmng evidence of other advanced intelligent species in our Universe makes me wonder openly if perhaps this is the very pitfall of curiosity which has befallen so many other emerging intelligent species in our greater galaxy and Universe. - Rick Carter
PSX2 - I basically know of no justifiable reason to be taking these kinds of unacceptable risks. I believe caution should be the 'watch word', when it comes to exploring the very foundations of our Universe, lest we do something to endanger those foundations, if only locally. - Rick Carter
So in the one billonth to the x power that the world ends, at least we won't have to listen to the dim witted whinings sarah palin anymore. :)
The technical term for that, I believe, is "Bonus".
No, the world won't end. But it'll be interesting to see if the results from all this work is a way of altering the mass of particles. That would make space travel so much easier, energy cost wise.
Its good to have critics, even if they can range from wacko's to intelligent critics. Scientists need to be checked just like anyone else. I love particle physics and enjoy reading about the topic as well as the people who work in the field. We are all still human so making sure you think before you turn on a device that uses high energy is smart. I always like the line about igniting the atmosphere when they were about to test the bomb.
This stuff is very cool, can't wait to hear more about it.
Ok here it is in a NUT :) shell and I think this will happen dudes for sure it is two much of a coincidence.
Ok lead atoms are very dense like a black hole, the only places in the universe where these atoms fuse at such large temperate is in Super Nova Nebula (Star Nursery’s), black holes, quasars, pulsars, magnetars.
When the atoms hit each other mass is being focused in a very small area just like the shrinking mass of a large red star thus a black hole is born, what worse is that when the atoms hit, the at an angle in the LHC well what may you say is the relevance there, just picture putting spin on a tennis ball, you then have a spinning black hole with the dual collision speed of the atoms in each direction travelling at 99.9 the speed of light like a car crash almost double the speed of light. Multiple microscopic black join to form larger black holes. And by the by the stars in the centre of galaxies are the oldest and largest thus more supernovas, thus more black holes therefore mergers and we all spin around a super massive black hole which in turn ejects gas nebular more stars born no the universe will not die out one giant never ending process created by the most powerful programmer of all time.
The black hole settles at the centre of the earth and thus the mass of earth is pushed into it. Volcanoes going off one above the UK Indonesia, earth quakes at a record high giant sink holes appearing around the world in the news.
OK the Colliders have brought us good technology well thanks allot WWW Hebrew for 666 Lucifer Latin for the light bearer all the power it takes to power all the computers around the world destroying the environment, the all the people buying books electrical goods and many other things stripping the earth of it's natural resources, child porn. Did you know that DARPA Net developed network DNS for war use EVIL mw thinks.
Well I give you the CERN black hole and it was said the devil well and truly has run the past couple of decades. 7 simple sins evolved monkey computers units running sole software ver 1.0 and you could not obey them you had to sin, computers murder war greed gluttony causing cancer obesity and the green house effect well the Mayans were indeed correct the calendar stops for revelation will come true my children. and her it is my interpritation of the CERN LHC Black hole the LHC being the key, god bless all of your soles.
The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star (Lucifer) that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key (LHC) to the shaft of the Abyss. (Black hole) where god put the 1 trillion angels and the arch angel Lucifer the light bearer who was supposed to re-fuel the stars to stop the universe dying.
Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen to earth from the sky, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.
Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them.
When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. This the earth is destroyed the evil souls are pulled into the black hole one day Christmas eve, the day before Jesus came to worn and guide is and when the anti Christ came it is said you would receive the mark upon your right hand and he would control the media and would not be able to sell with the mark of the beat well you have all been using computer mouse on your right hand light Lucifer infrared light connects the internet and reads the bar codes that you use to buy and sell. The towers IRAC the meek rebelling against us opps we are @!$%#ed 2012 24 the bottomless pit and the real Judgement day?
Sorry for the spelling in advance but got to go and had to type this real fast or the real Lucifer my misses will swallow me in a black hole. and of cource the bomb did not ignight the atmostphere but it caused cancer as it traveled thoughout the sea and into the food chain and in us cell mutation. but guess what that the first collider ever tested made the ABOM and it was alot smaller then the LHC, anti matter and matter created one hell of a planned cataclisum thank you lord and creted the infantesantly massive universe.
Best post ever.
So does that mean that left handed people aren't going to hell?
Finally, Kristian has the unified theory of everything.
@ Alan, Alan could you please please provide me with some insight as to why people would actually think that colliding two protons, or two ions of matter together could create a black hole that would suck the earth into it "huge" gaping powerful maw?
I am dumbfounded with the "seriously" when people say this because they obviously dont have a any understanding what soever of what it takes to make a black hole that could swallow the earth.
Its all about mass, you cannot collide two protons, ions or even two bars of gold together to create a black hole that would then suck up the mass of the earth, the gravity of these just isnt enough. There isnt enough mass to create the type of gravitational field needed to suck up the planet.
So why are people freaking out about this black hole thing, at least with the fear of unusual strangelets has some basis for a fear.
Am I missing something?
What if the Earth and all planets already have a microscopic black hole within its core which is feeding off of and stabilizing the mass of the Earth and helping create its gravitational field against the counterbalance of the Sun and Black Hole at the center of the galaxy. We don't actually know! We don't even know what is at the bottom of the ocean, let alone the core of the Earth. All I think many skeptics are saying here is this. Until we can 100% rule out total planetary annihilation as a 100% certainty. We should tread very carefully about creating and unleashing forces on the surface of the Earth that belong in the vacuum of space or the belly of planets, stars and galaxies.
Please, fear will never stop progress, what you are suggesting is impossible, Go read up on how black holes are formed then you might have a better consept of how they are created.
Dont sail to far out into the ocean because you might fall of the edge, that pretty much sums up your statements.
If humanity took your path of fear we would all still be living in caves.
Why don't you offer any rebuttals except cheap, dumass insults! The last refuge of a cheap, weak, poorly disciplined brain! Get lost!