Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'

Subject: Folklore: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 01:16 PM

Why folklore? Well, not being of a scientific bent the big bang is up there with all the other creation myths, but no doubt some erudite folky can point out the error of my ways & explain what it's all about...

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 04:35 PM

Sung last night (before the switch-on) at the BBC club in Cardiff:


With apologies to Tom Lehrer

We will all burn together when we burn
When somebody hits the 'Enter' key at C.E.R.N.
I'll raise my last glass of cider
To that Large Hadron Collider
As our little planet makes its final turn!

Nigel

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: folk1e
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 05:12 PM

Well they have got stuff squirting around the loops in both directions now! And they have "tracked" some cosmic rays from last night.

As the whole thing is cryogenically cooled wouldn't it be a pain if they have to change a fuse in there!

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: Paul Burke
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 05:23 AM

The big bang is an utterly simple concept- it's observable that the Universe appears to be expanding, and the rate of that expansion can be measured. So, extrapolating backwards in time, we come to a "time" when the Universe had zero volume- a singularity. It's not a creation myth, it's a description of the time before which physics doesn't work.

With a bit of luck, studying particle physics at energies comparable to those prevalent a few milliseconds after the extrapolated singularity, we may find that the equations don't work- that the whole current basis of physics is wrong. Because that's what scientists REALLY wanrt to happen. Not just because, once everything is found out, they are out of a job and there will be no more Nobel prizes, but because getting another layer off the onion is exciting, and opens up whole new fields of science.

And practical spinoffs are not only possible but probable- and they could be crucial, like allowing us to control nuclear fusion, which is probably the only hope for saving humanity from malthusian catastrophe.

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 05:27 AM

'So this is it, we're going to die!'

Such a long way from 'banging the rocks together guys!'


Could this explain why we have no computers at work today?

Can we do it again tomorrow please?

LTS

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 07:21 AM

Big Bang experiment makes girl suicide

A teenage girl in India has killed herself after fearing the Big Bang experiment in Switzerland may cause the world to end.

Local Indian authorities said the 16-year-old girl from Madhya Pradesh drank pesticide and was rushed to the hospital but died later.

...

The girl, named Chayya, killed herself after watching doomsday predictions made on Indian news programmes, her father said.

"In the past two days, Chayya had asked me and other relatives about the world coming to an end on September 10," he told local television in India.

"We tried to divert her attention and told her she should not worry about such things, but to no avail."

...

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: SINSULL
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 08:39 AM

The experiment made her do it? You don't think maybe she a bit unstable to begim with?

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: Michael
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 09:03 AM

I don't want to be insensitive BUT if the world is going to end tomorrow, why kill youself today?

Mike

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 09:07 AM

I killed myself a long time ago.

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 09:36 AM

Switching on the LHC may not have caused the world to end but it certainly generated copious quantities of hot air!

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 09:46 AM

No one can or has stopped certain experiments. No one could stop Trinity, no one could stop Hadron. Not the courts, all the injunctions failed, not goverments and not the people.

With this kind of track record, the way is clear for a certain experiment to eventually proceed unabated with results few will ever mourn.



Paul I could hear Tom singing!

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: GUEST,Zen
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 01:46 PM

The Hadron Collider has been powered up and protons accelerated in both directions but the particle collision experiments feared by some haven't yet begun!

Zen

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: folk1e
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 05:55 PM

If the universe is expanding and we can "rewind" until we get to the big bang ........... just where did this occur?

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: GUEST,Don Firth (computer still in the shop)
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 06:19 PM

In Schenectady.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: folk1e
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 04:49 PM

Told you so!

It would appear that a fuse has indeed blown and will need to be replaced. Warming up the cryogenically cooled section fixing the fault and cooling down again will take 2 months! And they didn't get to smash anything together .... yet!

Subject: RE: Large Hadron Collider 'Actually Worked'
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 07:20 PM

I dunno about this. Black holes really suck!

Hmm! Something just occurred to me. If there is a massive black hole at the center of every spiral galaxy, then it appears to me that whole galaxies are circling the drain. . . .

Now I am nervous!

Don Firth