CERN - Fires up today!

[killivolt]

Mucho Congrats picbits.

Indeed - got proposed to on the pier at San Clemente in California in March and the wedding is on Friday.

About time really as I've been with my partner for the past 8 years .....

Well I'll be picbits Good job. Glad to hear it. ( Much Jubilation-Clapping ! )


kv

 

[Mercur]

Indeed - got proposed to on the pier at San Clemente in California in March and the wedding is on Friday.

Congratulations picbits enjoy yourself.

 

[picbits]

Cheers guys - got to bed at past midnight today, slept on an airbed as the inlaws are over and they have our bed and woke up this morning at 6am.

Not a good start to the day and I have a day of spending money, cooking food for the reception and organising to go.

On the plus side ... ummm still trying to find it but I'm sure once I've woken up and got going things will start looking better lmao.

 

[Speakerguy]

**broken link removed**

from xkcd

 

[Nameless1]

https://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com

 

[Willbe]

https://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com

How do you know that we're not already in some alternate, Hellish universe, and it only took us 10^(-20) second to get here?

 

[rezer]

How do you know that we're not already in some alternate, Hellish universe, and it only took us 10^(-20) second to get here?

If this is hell, maybe a catostrophic event from CERN wouldn't be so bad. If you feel otherwise, maybe you should rethink what hell means.

 

[Glyph]

A Machine that destroys the world.... standing back for a moment, that sounds like an absurd sci-fi storyline of some low-budget action flick.

Whatever this machine proves, whether dark matter is real or not, whether dark energy is real, if string theory is on the right track, or if loop quantum gravity is a better bet.... the important thing is it'll prove SOMETHING.

10 Billion dollars for a giant hoola hoop.... 7000 scientists from around the world working together and countless more contractors, engineers, designers and coffee makers for a single goal. I think this highlights the second most important thing about the machine other than the science:

It's a monument to human cooperation and understanding, that it took multiple countries working together in peace and motivated by curiousity... not fear or hate... to build it.

I think this a very important thing in this day and age of rising animousity between peoples that a project like this can still go through.

It gives me hope that the world may eventually become a better place...

....Assuming it doesn't destroy it in blackhole first

 

[Torben]

A Machine that destroys the world.... standing back for a moment, that sounds like an absurd sci-fi storyline of some low-budget action flick.

Whatever this machine proves, whether dark matter is real or not, whether dark energy is real, if string theory is on the right track, or if loop quantum gravity is a better bet.... the important thing is it'll prove SOMETHING.

10 Billion dollars for a giant hoola hoop.... 7000 scientists from around the world working together and countless more contractors, engineers, designers and coffee makers for a single goal. I think this highlights the second most important thing about the machine other than the science:

It's a monument to human cooperation and understanding, that it took multiple countries working together in peace and motivated by curiousity... not fear or hate... to build it.

I think this a very important thing in this day and age of rising animousity between peoples that a project like this can still go through.

It gives me hope that the world may eventually become a better place...

I agree. A lot of other stuff in the news just makes me think that the human race might just be too belligerent to succeed. . .

....Assuming it doesn't destroy it in blackhole first

. . .or too clever for our own good. No, I don't believe that the thing will destroy the universe or even just the planet. But sadly I do think that far more people will take scientific knowledge from it than the philosophical ideas you've presented. Not that I don't think the science is important, but the other stuff you mentioned is also important. Too bad so many folks are willing to act like idiots for greed or superstition.


Torben

 

[ericgibbs]

hi glyph,
Like the positive attitude.

Knowing mankind, as I think I do, if any useful technology is revealed by this research it will be either patented
by the sponsors or used for weapon production.

Its ironic were asking the big 'WHY' of the universe by building a multi-billion pound atom smashing machine
that will be obsolete in 10 years time,
yet in the UK, hospitals cannot get deliveries of radio active isotopes for cancer treatment.

The atomic bomb development in WWII, was as you say:

It's a monument to human cooperation and understanding, that it took multiple countries working together in peace and motivated by curiousity... not fear or hate... to build it.

Dont take this personally Glyph,,, I hope the hell I'm wrong.

 

[Torben]

Its ironic were asking the big 'WHY' of the universe by building a multi-billion pound machine that will be obsolete
in 10 years time, yet in the UK, hospitals cannot get deliveries of radio active isotopes for cancer treatment.

Oops. That was our fault (Canada). Our government dropped the ball on monitoring the reactor where about half of the world's medical isotopes are created and it was shut down for a while. There are still ripples from this event.

That said, I totally agree that more attention (and money) needs to paid to other areas such as health care.


Torben

 

[Glyph]

hi glyph,
Like the positive attitude.

Knowing mankind, as I think I do, if any useful technology is revealed by this research it will be either patented
by the sponsors or used for weapon production.

Its ironic were asking the big 'WHY' of the universe by building a multi-billion pound atom smashing machine
that will be obsolete in 10 years time,
yet in the UK, hospitals cannot get deliveries of radio active isotopes for cancer treatment.

The atomic bomb development in WWII, was as you say:


Dont take this personally Glyph,,, I hope the hell I'm wrong.

In terms of patenting: Yeah, good ideas are sometimes buried due to patent laws. the glimmer of hope there is that patents expire. Electricty and the associated early technologies when it was first commercialized was patented, sure it made some people disgustingly rich and shut out other people but that's in the past now. Now everyone in every country can access basic technologies associated with electricity. Electricity changed the world. If the LHC produces something interesting then we might not access it (we as in the public) for decades, but eventually we will... I guess i'm just gushing with optimism.

as for budgetary considerations between health care (or any social program for that matter) and basic scientific research... I agree it's a very touchy issue. One which i am certainly not qualified to address. Personally i think if you're spending billions on health care then allocating a few million to spend on long-term research that might help create better/cheaper treatments is worth it. Like those radioisotopes you mentioned, they are produced in expensive nuclear reactors, but who knows, LHC might unlock the secrets behind metastable nuclear activation or something even more wonderful and exotic that might allow radioisotopes to be created at will in table-top devices.

The problem is like spending all your money on treating a disease, and spending nothing on finding a cure. Might be worth it, in the long run, to spend a few percent of the budget on a research for a cure. if it pans out, you don't have to treat the disease anymore, if not, you only wasted a few percent.

Ofcourse i'm not advocating allocating large chunks of money to half-baked projects that might never produce anything. but i think it would be just as bad to allocate nothing.

I don't think any of the participating countries in the LHC spent excessive sums. the total cost works out to 10 billion dolllars, but the individual costs are pretty small since it was all spread out and there were alot of countries participating.

Oh well, don't flame me for that, its just an opinion. i'm not a politician nor do i want to be.


Webpages were originally invented at CERN. who knows what other spin-off technologies might come outta this.

EDIT:

Its ironic were asking the big 'WHY' of the universe by building a multi-billion pound atom smashing machine that will be obsolete in 10 years time,

One last thing, the machine will become obsolete, but you have to understand that it obsoletes *itself*. If its never built then the research cannot be done and it will always be needed and never obsolete. now that its built, once it takes measurements it'll eventually reach a point where it cannot learn anything new, then its obsolete.

The more powerful colliders coming online after the LHC cannot be fully designed until the LHC itself points them in the right direction. Some proposed ideas for experiments at the higher energy colliders might be proven worthless at the LHC. If the LHC finds something new, we'll need to design the higher energy colliders to explore that new phenomenon better. So the cheaper LHC is needed first to figure out how to make the higher energy colliders. Gotta crawl before one can walk.

Yes the LHC is expensive, but its not like if we spent nothing, then in 10 years the knowledge would have come to us anyway. Its not a waste. At least i don't think it is.

 

[ericgibbs]

hi Glyph,

Webpages were originally invented at CERN. who knows what other spin-off technologies might come outta this.

IIRC the ' GRID' has been developed at CERN in order to handle the sharing of the vast amounts of data the project is going to generate.

One day we will all be connected to the GRID.

Never flamed a guy for talking sense.

EDIT: Incorrect name: Net to Grid
Thanks Torben.. another Senior Moment.!

 

[Torben]

hi Glyph,

IIRC the ' NET' has been developed at CERN in order to handle the sharing of the vast amounts of data the project is going to generate.

Hi Eric,

As I understand it, a new worldwide sub-internetwork called the "Grid" has been created to handle the data. I hope that CERN has installed good routers and switches.


Torben

 

[Glyph]

OH NO!! the end of the world won't be from a black hole!!... it'll be from .... THE MATRI... i mean... THE GRID!!!!

 

[ericgibbs]

Hi Eric,

As I understand it, a new worldwide sub-internetwork called the "Grid" has been created to handle the data. I hope that CERN has installed good routers and switches.


Torben

hi,
Corrected the Net/Grid.

A scientist has calculated if that a black hole is produced at CERN, it will take 50 months to gobble up the planet.

No pressure.!

 

[killivolt]

You guy's are freaking funny !!!

hi,
Corrected the Net/Grid.

A scientist has calculated if that a black hole is produced at CERN, it will take 50 months to gobble up the planet.

No pressure.!

Sometime things get really funny when thinking people think. It's Great.

I still can't forget about the time I posted boomerang in space.

Great fodder.


Thank you. I needed a laugh today.

kv