153 replies to this topic

[Soul]

I laugh at and hate those who don't like the Hadron particle collider because of some stupid theory the world will end.

I personally not only want it activated, I also believe this to be one of the greatest things ever .

[NergiZed]

Soul, on 10 Sep 2008, 3:21, said:

I laugh at and hate those who don't like the Hadron particle collider because of some stupid theory the world will end.

I personally not only want it activated, I also believe this to be one of the greatest things ever .

Of course the world won't end; We've already sent him a crobar.

Humanity's gonna be fine~

Edited by NergiZed, 10 September 2008 - 05:18.

[Waris]

OMG how I LOL'd.

[The Wandering Jew]

Remember the time that the Soviets had dropped the Tsar Bomba to make it history's largest nuclear detonation? Or more recently, remember the time when France conducted its nuke test in a little coral atoll called Muroroa way back in 1995 (And that, was frightnening. It was a open-air detonation)?

No, I do not think the Large Hadron Collider shall be the start of The End.

P.S. We live in a State of Fear...

Edited by The Wandering Jew, 10 September 2008 - 05:40.

[Whitey]

Whew, the live webcast page is one hell of a load.

-Rorschach

[Rayburn]

When is it going to start today? I hear they'll fire the first beam within the next hour, is that true?

[sits down in a rocker while listening to melancholic mp3s]
Weee'll meet agaaain. Don't know wheeere, don't know wheeen, but I know we'll meet again some sunny daaay...

Edited by Rayburn, 10 September 2008 - 06:28.

[Whitey]

Yep. Probably won't catch it given the traffic though. Bloody idiots, broadcasting on a whole one fucking page.

-Rorschach

Edited by Rorschach, 10 September 2008 - 06:43.

[RaiDK]

Where is this page?

[Whitey]

http://webcast.cern.ch/

Good luck

-Rorschach

[RaiDK]

Zero!

Wait, I'm still here...

[Waris]

[RaiDK]

A friend of mine is telling me that she's watching it on Fox and it didn't work.

She's also saying it's exploded... not sure that's right though.

[Rayburn]

If it exploded, you wouldn't be reading this now.

It'll be live on t.v. here in about 6 minutes and there's been no news yet.

@ Waris: That pic is awesome.

Edited by Rayburn, 10 September 2008 - 07:25.

[Whitey]

Yeahno

-Rorschach

[RaiDK]

Yeah I dunno, there's nothing recent on the web about it all.

Would be funny if it didn't work though

[Rayburn]

Maybe the universe will explode...and it would be awesome
Whatever happens, it's definately something new.

[RaiDK]

that'd only happen if you were eating Bradston Pickles while playing No More Heroes while in the LHC.

Edit:

BREAKING: reports of "electrical issues" with LHC overnight. Details to come

From http://twitter.com/HadronWatch

Edited by RaiDK, 10 September 2008 - 07:33.

[RaiDK]

Update 2: First protos fired.

http://www.news.com....0-23109,00.html

[Wizard]

Does this mean we are all about to die?

Wonder if they find out the answer is 42

*looks sheepishly at Dauth*

[RaiDK]

No updates?

Well, that was an anticlimax.

[Wizard]

RaiDK, on 10 Sep 2008, 9:27, said:

No updates?

Well, that was an anticlimax.

That's cause their all dead :(

[RaiDK]

Pics or it didn't happen.

[Wizard]

How do you take a photo in a black hole?

@ Seriousness, they are probably too busy making sure $5bn is not about to break down to post an update, either than or they have a blue screen of death.

[Dauth]

Wizard, on 10 Sep 2008, 9:58, said:

How do you take a photo in a black hole?

@ Seriousness, they are probably too busy making sure $5bn is not about to break down to post an update, either than or they have a blue screen of death.

CERN runs on Linux primarily, like any big particle physics experiment. Even I haven't crashed the linux boxes at uni.

[Rai]

Sorry for those who don't like the LHC, but

News:

GENEVA - The world's largest particle collider successfully completed its first major test by firing a beam of protons around a 17-mile underground ring Wednesday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe.

After a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen at 10:36 a.m. indicating that the protons had traveled the full length of the $3.8 billion Large Hadron Collider.

"There it is," project leader Lyn Evans said when the beam completed its lap.

Champagne corks popped in labs as far away as Chicago, where contributing scientists watched the proceedings by satellite. Physicists around the world now have much greater power than ever before to smash the components of atoms together in attempts to see how they are made.

"Well done everybody," said Robert Aymar, director-general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, to cheers from the assembled scientists in the collider's control room at the Swiss-French border.

The organization, known by its French acronym CERN, began firing the protons — a type of subatomic particle — around the tunnel in stages less than an hour earlier.

Now that the beam has been successfully tested in clockwise direction, CERN plans to send it counterclockwise. Eventually two beams will be fired in opposite directions with the aim of recreating conditions a split second after the big bang, which scientists theorize was the massive explosion that created the universe.

The start of the collider — described as the biggest physics experiment in history — comes over the objections of some skeptics who fear the collision of protons could eventually imperil the earth.

The skeptics theorized that a byproduct of the collisions could be micro black holes, subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they can suck in planets and other stars.

"It's nonsense," said James Gillies, chief spokesman for CERN, before Wednesday's start.

CERN is backed by leading scientists like Britain's Stephen Hawking in dismissing the fears and declaring the experiments to be absolutely safe.

Gillies told the AP that the most dangerous thing that could happen would be if a beam at full power were to go out of control, and that would only damage the accelerator itself and burrow into the rock around the tunnel.

Nothing of the sort occurred Wednesday, though accelerator is still probably a year away from full power.

"On Wednesday we start small," said Gillies. "A really good result would be to have the other beam going around, too, because once you've got a beam around once in both directions you know that there is no show-stopper."

The project organized by the 20 European member nations of CERN has attracted researchers from 80 nations. Some 1,200 are from the United States, an observer country which contributed US$531 million. Japan, another observer, also is a major contributor.

The collider is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel.

Smaller colliders have been used for decades to study the makeup of the atom. Less than 100 years ago scientists thought protons and neutrons were the smallest components of an atom's nucleus, but in stages since then experiments have shown they were made of still smaller quarks and gluons and that there were other forces and particles.

The CERN experiments could reveal more about "dark matter," antimatter and possibly hidden dimensions of space and time. It could also find evidence of the hypothetical particle — the Higgs boson — believed to give mass to all other particles, and thus to matter that makes up the universe.

Some scientists have been waiting for 20 years to use the LHC.