End of World Nigh ?

[lonewolf]

I am adding this to the growing list of things I refuse to worry about.

[eldrick]

But what does this type of research (large colloiders) provide to people? How does this help the common tax-paying schlub out there? How do you go to the gov't and justify that kind of money?

i see your point, but mankind has to be more about mere survival ( majority of western world doesn't live on edge of existence ) - we have to progress & look to further our knowledge

i don't know what may come of it, but being fantastical

- we may understand mass better ( search for higgs particle ) & ?gravity

if we do that, maybe 1 day it will lead to anti-gravity machines ?!

- we will find out more about "energy" ( as mass & energy are either side of same coin from e = m*c^2 )

maybe 1 day that can lead to tapping new sources of energy ( something quantum, like the dilithium crystals of scotty :P ) - few gramms of dilthium & we have solved world's energy needs for a decade ?

the potential developments are for JRM to explain

[SQUACKEE]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080909/sc ... ainhawking

[dj]

you's start noticing the earth's surface gravity to start slowly increasing from 9.81m/s^2 to 9.82, 9.83...

Thus slowing all future sprint times!

[JRM]

Re: End of World Nigh ?

Any chance of talkin' them into slowing one of the particle streams down to 99.99963% the speed of light? That way (if I didn't screw up the math) any perfect head-on collisions should still have the 11.2 km/s needed to become someone else's problem, rather than ours. 8-)

We want the particles to have as minimal a velocity as possible after the collisions, as well as symmetric as possible a distribution. If they pass through the detectors too fast, we have a harder time figuring out what they are. Also, if you're not colliding at the maximum possible energy (both particles going as fast as they can), it's an inefficient use of the machine.

So, while making the black holes an SEP (courtesy Douglas Adams -- someone else's problem!), it would be bad as a whole for science.

[26mi235]

How much did this all cost?? :twisted:

Billions of swiss francs - something like 10 billion.

I've always wondered how projects like this get funded. Maybe JRM or others can answer this. See, I am involved in the biomedical sciences. Much of our funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, the NSF and the CDC - with lesser amounts coming from American Heart, American Cancer, American Lung associations, MDA, etc. Anyway, NIH has a budget that is determined by congress and in the past 5 years, the budget increases have slowed to below inflation rate. And many institutes within NIH have actually had their budgets cut. Nevertheless, NIH does NOT have a 10 billion dollar budget. Holy shit that's a big number. So, since it is the goal of biomedical and clinical scientists to help the people who pay the tax dollars to fund all our research, it makes sense that we get some money. (I didn't say we all always succeed in directly helping the populace, but that's the over-arching goal of it all). We're trying to help all the fatties out there overcome diabetes and live healthier, more productive lives (or so we tell ourselves and the NIH). But what does this type of research (large colloiders) provide to people? How does this help the common tax-paying schlub out there? How do you go to the gov't and justify that kind of money? I'm not at all saying it is not justified. But how is it done? What's the sales pitch? I'm intrigued.

You are confusing budget, typically and annual amount, this the aggregate cost over a decade or so. So, the amount per year is more like $1 Billion or less. The US has contributed $500M, I think, with various European nations chipping in the lion's share. Note that to keep operating (electricity costs) down, they shut down during the heating season when power becomes more expensive.

[JRM]

Effectively, it would
not be a change in gravity, but a change in supporting structures, that
ended things.

In a sense. What eldrick mentioned is reasonable, too. A black hole is characterized by its strong gravitational tidal forces: as you approach the BH surface, the force pulling on your head and on your feet will actually start to become different. Of course, this is true on the Earth, too, but it's so minute a difference that we don't notice. Inside a black hole, those tidal forces will actually pull you apart (and squish you flat at the same time).

So, as the Earth gets eaten (or "acreted," more formally) by the BH, it will start to collapse and tidal forces will begin to increase. Note also that matter falling into a black hole will frequently give off large amounts of X-ray and gamma ray radiation (another bad thing).

[ponytayne]

How much did this all cost?? :twisted:

Billions of swiss francs - something like 10 billion.

I've always wondered how projects like this get funded. Maybe JRM or others can answer this. See, I am involved in the biomedical sciences. Much of our funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, the NSF and the CDC - with lesser amounts coming from American Heart, American Cancer, American Lung associations, MDA, etc. Anyway, NIH has a budget that is determined by congress and in the past 5 years, the budget increases have slowed to below inflation rate. And many institutes within NIH have actually had their budgets cut. Nevertheless, NIH does NOT have a 10 billion dollar budget. Holy shit that's a big number. So, since it is the goal of biomedical and clinical scientists to help the people who pay the tax dollars to fund all our research, it makes sense that we get some money. (I didn't say we all always succeed in directly helping the populace, but that's the over-arching goal of it all). We're trying to help all the fatties out there overcome diabetes and live healthier, more productive lives (or so we tell ourselves and the NIH). But what does this type of research (large colloiders) provide to people? How does this help the common tax-paying schlub out there? How do you go to the gov't and justify that kind of money? I'm not at all saying it is not justified. But how is it done? What's the sales pitch? I'm intrigued.

[scottmitchell74]

How much did this all cost?? :twisted:

[tandfman]

Well, apparently they did something. I'm not sure what it all means.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/scien ... lider.html

The collider is designed to accelerate protons to energies of 7 trillion electron volts and then smash them together, recreating conditions in the primordial fireball only a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.

The only thing physicists agree on is that they don’t know what will happen — what laws prevail — under those conditions.

"That there are many theories means we don’t have a clue," said Dr. Oddone. "That’s what makes it so exciting."

Exciting? It sounds pretty scary to me.

[26mi235]

Re: End of World Nigh ?

This is highly confusing to me. I thought that large particles (protons) cannot approach the speed of light.

Approach or reach the speed of light. The more your accelerate them, the faster they go, but the relativistic effects make it even harder to push them faster. That is why they have that big ring with all those magnets - to push it closer to 'c' and hence to have greater energy for the collision.

[Marlow]

Re: End of World Nigh ?

This is highly confusing to me. I thought that large particles (protons) cannot approach the speed of light.

Me too. Here's a book for us:

[Pego]

Re: End of World Nigh ?

The experiment is not without its detractors.

Websites on the Internet, itself created at CERN in the early 1990s as a means of passing particle research results to scientists around the globe, have been inundated with claims that the LHC will create black holes sucking in the planet.

The "detractors" are out to lunch. This kind of disaster scenario is predicated on the synchrony of multiple, improbable events, including:

1. The mini-black holes are actually created (requires certainly theories to be correct, and there's no guarantee that they are)

2. If created, the mini-black holes must be stable to be a concern. Stephen Hawking has proven (on paper) that black holes will evaporate. We haven't been able to confirm this fact, because (a) we haven't observed black holes directly, and (b) the big black holes that exist in the universe will evaporate very slowly and undetectably. If black holes are created at the LHC (subject to condition 1), they will be very tiny and will evaporate very quickly, like in 0.000000000000000000000000001 s (i.e. much faster than Bolt's reaction time!).

3. If they are created and are stable, the black holes must remain on the Earth. The protons involved in the collisions are traveling at 99.99999% the speed of light. Any particles that fly out of the collision -- including black holes -- will have a speed much, much greater than the Earth's escape velocity. So, most likely if (1, 2) are correct, the black holes will fly out into space before we know they're there.

4. There is a MINISCULE probability that the black holes will be created with precisely 0 velocity (two protons colliding exactly head on with exactly the same speed can do this, but that's very difficult to do). If that happens (and they are stable), the black hole will sink into the earth toward the core and start gobbling stuff up. In this case, depending on who you ask, we'll have between 5-30 years to figure out how to get off the planet.

Anyway, the short answer to the above quote is: "Ain't gonna happen!"

This is highly confusing to me. I thought that large particles (protons) cannot approach the speed of light.

[Aiden]

you's start noticing the earth's surface gravity to start slowly increasing from 9.81m/s^2 to 9.82, 9.83...

So . . . we all gain a lot of weight?

Just great!

[Master Po]

What's the worst that could happen?. They inadvertently destroy all matter in our universe? Just think of it as a reboot of the system.

At which time we could perhaps wipe the slate clean of any problematic WRs and other questionable performances high on the all-time lists...(but only if all matter in the universe is destroyed first -- otherwise, I'm a traditionalist...)