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 Arden
Explorer
Registered: 09/01/08
Posts: 363
Loc: Among the Lemurs
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 Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt
#8907098 - 09/10/08 01:33 PM (2 months, 23 days ago) |
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Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt
CERN, Switzerland (CNN) -- Scientists Wednesday applauded as one of t
he most ambitious experiments ever conceived got successfully underway, with protons being fired around a 27-kilometer (17-mile) tunnel deep beneath the border of France and Switzerland in an attempt to unlock the secrets of the universe.
Scientists applaud during the switch on operation of the Large Hadron Collider.
The Large Hadron Collider -- a $9 billion particle accelerator designed to simulate conditions of the Big Bang that created the physical Universe -- was switched on at 0732 GMT to cheers and applause from experts gathered to witness the event.
While observers were left nonplussed by the anticlimactic flashing dots on a TV screen that signalled the machine's successful test run, among teams of scientists involved around the world there were jubilant celebrations and popping champagne corks.
In the coming months, the collider is expected to begin smashing particles into each other by sending two beams of protons around the tunnel in opposite directions.
Skeptics, who claim that the experiment could lead to the creation of a black hole capable of swallowing the planet, failed in a legal bid to halt the project at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
Others have branded it a colossal waste of cash, draining resources from its multinational collaborators that could have been spent on scientific research with more tangible benefits to mankind.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the project as a major achievement for Europe.
"The repercussions of this scientific investment without precedent in the history of humanity will be essential not only for the intimate knowledge of our universe, but also for the direct applications in fields as varied as intensive calculation or even medicine," he said. Video Watch as Big Bang experiment gets underway »
The collider will operate at higher energies and intensities in the next year, potentially generating enough data to make a discovery by 2009, experts say.
They say the experiment has the potential to confirm theories that physicists have been working on for decades including the possible existence of extra dimensions. They also hope to find a theoretical particle called the Higgs boson -- sometimes referred to as the "God particle," which has never been detected, but would help explain why matter has mass.
The collider will recreate the conditions of less than a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, when there was a hot "soup" of tiny particles called quarks and gluons, to look at how the universe evolved, said John Harris, U.S. coordinator for ALICE, a huge detector specialized to analyze that question.
Since this is exploratory science, the collider may uncover surprises that contradict prevailing theories, but which are just as interesting, said Joseph Lykken, theoretical physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
"When Columbus sails west, he thought he was going to find something. He didn't find what he thought he was going to find, but he did find something interesting," said Lykken, who works on the Compact Muon Solenoid, one of six experiments inside the collider complex.
Why should the layperson care about this particular exploration? Years ago, when electrons were first identified, no one knew what they were good for, but they have since transformed our entire economy, said Howard Gordon, deputy research program manager for the collider's ATLAS experiment.
"The transformative effect of this research will be to understand the world we live in much better," said Gordon, at Brookhaven National Laboratory. "It's important for just who we are, what we are."
Fears have emerged that the collider could produce black holes that could suck up anything around them -- including the whole Earth. Such fears prompted legal actions in the U.S. and Europe to halt the operation of the Large Hadron Collider, alleging safety concerns regarding black holes and other phenomena that could theoretically emerge.
Although physicists acknowledge that the collider could, in theory, create small black holes, they say they do not pose any risk. A study released Friday by CERN scientists explains that any black hole created would be tiny, and would not have enough energy to stick around very long before dissolving. Five collider collaborators who did not pen the report independently told CNN there would be no danger from potential black holes.
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John Huth, who works on the collider's ATLAS experiment, called such fears "baloney" in a recent interview, and noted that in normal physics, even if the black hole were stable, it could just pass through the Earth without being detected or without interacting at all.
"The gravitational force is so weak that you'd have to wait many, many, many, many, many lifetimes of the universe before one of these things could [get] big enough to even get close to being a problem," said Huth, professor of physics at Harvard University.
LINK: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/09/10/lhc.collider/index.html
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 DieCommie
Ally
Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 7,652
Loc: The Union
Last seen: 1 hour, 10 minutes
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: Arden]
#8907905 - 09/10/08 04:09 PM (2 months, 23 days ago) |
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ok
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Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn his lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.
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 PhanTomCat
Wildcat that Never Was....
Registered: 09/07/04
Posts: 5,801
Loc: My Youniverse....
Last seen: 44 seconds
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 Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: DieCommie]
#8908352 - 09/10/08 05:59 PM (2 months, 23 days ago) |
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I read yesterday that they had originally called it the "Goddamn Particle" because -
they had not found it yet, but changed it to "God Particle" for more acceptance..... 
>^;;^<
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"The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...."
>^;;^<
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iateshaggy
i am a figmentof my ownimagination
Registered: 05/20/05
Posts: 3,070
Loc: 612 Warf Avenue, next to....
Last seen: 6 minutes, 12 seconds
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: PhanTomCat]
#8908668 - 09/10/08 06:54 PM (2 months, 23 days ago) |
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You are a filipina sex goddess who wants to fuck me until I fall asleep, so then you can tickle my balls and see if the legend of my diamond filled nutsuck is true. I am a white man from costa rica, who smells like lime jello.
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PhanTomCat
Wildcat that Never Was....
Registered: 09/07/04
Posts: 5,801
Loc: My Youniverse....
Last seen: 44 seconds
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 Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: iateshaggy]
#8908804 - 09/10/08 07:22 PM (2 months, 23 days ago) |
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Instant classic.....!
>^;;^<
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"The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...."
>^;;^<
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watchoutnow
mind'sonrecord/itsbeingviewed
Registered: 04/13/07
Posts: 598
Last seen: 1 month, 15 days
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: iateshaggy]
#8910294 - 09/11/08 12:05 AM (2 months, 22 days ago) |
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hilarious!!!
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I quit. Touch it.
"My views ain't changed to live humane wait" -Eminem
"Ya'll make me too rounded and I'm addicted, WTF I'm drunk. Wtf I'm high. Wtf I'm... Not sober... Sober block." -me crazily self.
"From that what, knowledge of self - determination!" -Blackstar
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Ever since I got braces shit gets stuck in my teeth.
Make me *** bitch!
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arbalest
wut kent?
Registered: 09/04/04
Posts: 292
Loc: Melbourne, Australia
Last seen: 21 days, 5 hours
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: iateshaggy]
#8910919 - 09/11/08 04:46 AM (2 months, 22 days ago) |
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skin_
brain itchin'
Registered: 03/08/08
Posts: 1,054
Loc: xibalba
Last seen: 4 hours, 6 minutes
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: iateshaggy]
#8911059 - 09/11/08 06:20 AM (2 months, 22 days ago) |
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Quote:
iateshaggy said:
http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html
Ahahaha, that's great.
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that deep, dark shit. pickin' at your brain.
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Ferris
PsychedelicJourneyman
Registered: 03/12/06
Posts: 6,954
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: skin_]
#8914647 - 09/11/08 07:32 PM (2 months, 22 days ago) |
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--------------------
 
The life of American Vagabonds
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
-Oscar Wilde
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shroomzey
Dreamer
Registered: 05/17/08
Posts: 131
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: Ferris]
#8954303 - 09/19/08 11:12 AM (2 months, 14 days ago) |
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"Skeptics, who claim that the experiment could lead to the creation of a black hole capable of swallowing the planet, failed in a legal bid to halt the project at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research."
Hmmm... maybe those black-holes out there were other worlds doing exactly what were doing now? LOL?
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 "I think of going to the grave without having a psychedelic experience like going to the grave without ever having sex. It means, that you never figured out what it was all about. The mystery, is in the body, and the way the body works itself into nature." -Terence McKenna
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Annom
※※※※※※
Registered: 12/22/02
Posts: 5,292
Loc: sdnalrehteN ehT
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: Arden]
#8958564 - 09/20/08 11:42 AM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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Incident in LHC sector 34
Geneva, 20 September 2008. During commissioning (without beam) of the final LHC sector (sector 34) at high current for operation at 5 TeV, an incident occurred at mid-day on Friday 19 September resulting in a large helium leak into the tunnel. Preliminary investigations indicate that the most likely cause of the problem was a faulty electrical connection between two magnets, which probably melted at high current leading to mechanical failure. CERN ’s strict safety regulations ensured that at no time was there any risk to people.
A full investigation is underway, but it is already clear that the sector will have to be warmed up for repairs to take place. This implies a minimum of two months down time for LHC operation. For the same fault, not uncommon in a normally conducting machine, the repair time would be a matter of days.
Further details will be made available as soon as they are known.
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2008/PR09.08E.html
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Ferris
PsychedelicJourneyman
Registered: 03/12/06
Posts: 6,954
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: Annom]
#8958586 - 09/20/08 11:49 AM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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Damn, that sounds worse than the original impression that I got.
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The life of American Vagabonds
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
-Oscar Wilde
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CokedUpHobit64
Spiral Out
Registered: 10/01/07
Posts: 722
Last seen: 2 hours, 14 minutes
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: Ferris]
#8962277 - 09/21/08 08:58 AM (2 months, 12 days ago) |
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Just when the waiting is over, more waiting. Sucks.
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So good to see you, I've missed you so much.
Masturbating while driving on acid on a wet road with the music full ball and the petrol runs out...
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers
Registered: 03/06/03
Posts: 13,981
Last seen: 2 hours, 56 minutes
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: CokedUpHobit64]
#8962448 - 09/21/08 09:34 AM (2 months, 12 days ago) |
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I bet some silly Swiss maintenence worker spilled hot chocolate on the magnet.
Or tea, or whatever they drink in SwissLand.
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Plasmid
Wehrmacht Bully
Registered: 06/01/08
Posts: 1,188
Last seen: 5 days, 16 hours
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: shroomzey]
#8963435 - 09/21/08 12:53 PM (2 months, 12 days ago) |
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Quote:
shroomzey said:
Hmmm... maybe those black-holes out there were other worlds doing exactly what were doing now? LOL?
My sister helps edit and write for a monthly news magazine and one of her jobs is to check facts. Being the scientist in the immediate family, she asks me her science questions. One of them was along the lines of, "Could the LHC actually blow the world up? Is it possible?"
I found it pretty funny when I told her that nobody would really know until the LHC was tested, but that if we really thought the universe would blow up, that probably nobody would run the LHC.
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deimya
tofu with monocle
Registered: 08/26/04
Posts: 531
Loc: ausländer.ch
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: Madtowntripper]
#8964452 - 09/21/08 04:45 PM (2 months, 12 days ago) |
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In Zürich they drink coffee, cigarette and tea. I don't know about Geneva 
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durian_2008
Cornucopian
Registered: 04/02/08
Posts: 324
Last seen: 1 day, 1 hour
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Re: Large Hadron Collider fired up in 'God particle' hunt [Re: deimya]
#8965037 - 09/21/08 07:12 PM (2 months, 12 days ago) |
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Have you ever noticed how religious fundamentalists are portrayed by that Jodie Foster movie, "Contact?"
On the net, real-life people are getting painted with the same brush, for pointing out the danger inherent to monkeying with the "glue of the universe."
Are any of you metaphysical types aware of themes, including either a rising or descending spiral, and a perpendicular ray, pointing either upward or downwards?
To me, this reminisces of monopoles, flywheels, and theosophy.
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A SHORT HISTORY OF MEDICINE:
"Doctor, I have an ear ache."
500 A.D. - "Here, eat this root."
1000 A.D. - "That root is heathen, say this prayer."
1850 A.D. - "That prayer is superstition, drink this potion."
1940 A.D. - "That potion is snake oil, swallow this pill."
1985 A.D. - "That pill is ineffective, take this antibiotic."
2000 A.D. - "That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root!"
~Ron Lawrence, MD
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