$50 Says The End Comes Quickly (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Large Hadron Collider)
Take note, the end is nigh!
When I say nigh, I mean it in an archaic sense, as in the end is stingy. I was thinking that the Large Hadron Collider was going to create a massive black hole and suck every living and non-living thing into non-existence at the speed of light. That or Hank Scorpio would emerge from his underground labyrinth to simply terrorize us into giving up our freedoms. It turns out that the Albert Brooks-voiced Simpsons cameo is more likely than a collapse of such magnitude cause by this sophisticated machine.
What exactly is the Large Hadron Collider? Aside from being a huge ass circle of metallic death 300 feet below European soil, it’s a tool for hopefully finding answers as well as new questions to life, the universe, and, well, everything. (I hope Douglas Adams forgives me.) I’m not a theoretical physicist (or an actual physicist! *rim shot* Thank you! I’m here all week!) and I don’t even begin to comprehend the science those nerds in white lab coats are concocting, but I will damn well try to explain it, and how it is important to your life, in less than 1,000 words.
First of all, a hadron is just a nerdy way of talking about protons and neutrons (which make up atoms). Hadrons are made of quarks and gluons, which both sound like alien races from Star Trek. (Yes, I know Quark was a Ferengi, I also know that he was the Principal of Sunnydale High until he was eaten by a large demonic worm.) The Collider attempts to smash up the hadrons to see what’s in there. It’s kind of like a large-scale, multi-billion dollar Will it Blend? only with a possibility of the death of everything.
The truth is, the physicists don’t really know what will happen when the hadrons collide, but they speculate, and they are usually pretty good at the speculatin’. On August 8th, they tested the LHC, and conspiracy buffs were CERTAIN that it would create a black hole that would devour the world.
The scientists plan on going live with the LHC on September 10th. Let’s hope there isn’t some wayward nihilistic scientist brooding about his unrequited love for Vicky in quantum mechanics. He could press a few wrong buttons and poof. Well, if he does, you won’t be able to say I told you so. In fact, it will happen so fast, you will still be thinking about what you ate for breakfast that gave you so much gas when suddenly. . . nothing.
But the scientists at the LHC lab at CERN insist that the black holes they create will be very very small (it is wafer-thin) and last for fractions of a second. Not enough to do any damage except to some dust that might stray into the accelerator. They aren’t even concerned about the black holes, or making black holes, just with the shit the black holes leave behind. Black hole excrement (a rockin’ band out of the LA punk scene) will hopefully show scientists answers to questions about the Big Bang. One of the things they’re searching for is the Higgs particle, which is a clue into how the Universe began and expanded from nothing (absolute nothing) into, well, something. Most likely, they’ll do a thousand or a million of these experiments, which accelerate a hadron at near the speed of light by a series of magnets that bend the path over 17 miles working in tandem with electrical waves that boost the particle, and not find anything but more questions.
Why should we care? Science matters. Even big things that are meaningless to us today could have a tremendous impact in just a few years. Big, meaningless experiments that satisfied nothing but curiosity also begat all sorts of crazy shit like nuclear devices, computers, PDAs, cellphones, iPods, etc. What will this produce? Aside from a nervous populace awaiting their destruction and a mass of Black Hole excrement (I like the way it rolls off the tongue in my mind), a lot of what will result is still unknown. The great thing about the unknown is that it’s only in that state until discovered. It could create a new weapon of mass destruction that sucks the eyes out of enemies before a commander can issue an order, or it might unlock secrets that give the world an endless supply of renewable, clean energy. That is all speculation, (I’m much worse at speculatin’ than the CERNerds) but it’s still much more likely than LHC destroying the world at 299,792,458 m/s.
However, if they turn on the machine and the world does end, I’ll admit I was wrong.
* Saturday came and went and we’re all still alive. . . except those that are dead, but it’s doubtful the test had anything to do with that.
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Excellent article Waldorf, any relation to the former US President?
Beams may begin September 10th, but collissions will not begin before October 21 at slowly increasing energies.
If micro black holes are created, and odds range from 1 in 1000 to 1 in 2, Dr. Rossler’s calculations estimate 50 months to 50 years to grow large enough to destroy Earth.
Abstract below from Dr. Rossler’s plea to the world, copy available on LHCFacts.org.
“A nightmarish situation, that can still be hoped to be averted in time through communication within the scientific community, is drawn attention to. Only a few weeks remain to find out whether the danger is real or nothing but a mirage. After this time window is closed, it will take years until we know whether or not we are doomed. The story line has all the features of a best-selling novel. The reader is asked to contribute constructively.”
Quote from Dr. Otto E. Rossler, Professor Theoretical Biochemist, visiting Professor of Theoretical Physics, inventor of the Rossler Attractor, founder of Endophysics, winner of the 2003 Chaos Award of the University of Liege and the 2003 Rene Descartes Award.
Holy crap, it’s a CERN troll. Somebody forgot to fumigate the underside of the bridge.
Also, the end of the world won’t be coming any time soon.
JTankers: No relation. That blog you pointed me to wasn’t very funny.
Oskar: Pssh. What do “facts” have to do with anything?
Man’s technology has exceeded his grasp. – ‘The World is not Enough’
Zealous Nobel Prize hungry Physicists are racing each other and stopping at nothing to try to find the supposed ‘Higgs Boson’(aka God) Particle, among others, and are risking nothing less than the annihilation of the Earth and all Life in endless experiments hoping to prove a theory when urgent tangible problems face the planet. The European Organization for Nuclear Research(CERN) new Large Hadron Collider(LHC) is the world’s most powerful atom smasher that will soon be firing subatomic particles at each other at nearly the speed of light to create Miniature Big Bangs producing Micro Black Holes, Strangelets and other potentially cataclysmic phenomena.
Particle physicists have run out of ideas and are at a dead end forcing them to take reckless chances with more and more powerful and costly machines to create new and never-seen-before, unstable and unknown matter while Astrophysicists, on the other hand, are advancing science and knowledge on a daily basis making new discoveries in these same areas by observing the universe, not experimenting with it and with your life.
The LHC is a dangerous gamble as CERN physicist Alvaro De Rújula in the BBC LHC documentary, ‘The Six Billion Dollar Experiment’, incredibly admits quote, “Will we find the Higgs particle at the LHC? That, of course, is the question. And the answer is, science is what we do when we don’t know what we’re doing.” And CERN spokesmodel Brian Cox follows with this stunning quote, “the LHC is certainly, by far, the biggest jump into the unknown.”
The CERN-LHC website Mainpage itself states: “There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions,…” Again, this is because they truly don’t know what’s going to happen. They are experimenting with forces they don’t understand to obtain results they can’t comprehend. If you think like most people do that ‘They must know what they’re doing’ you could not be more wrong. Some people think similarly about medical Dr.s but consider this by way of comparison and example from JAMA: “A recent Institute of Medicine report quoted rates estimating that medical errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 people a year in US hospitals.” The second part of the CERN quote reads “…but what’s for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator,…” A molecularly changed or Black Hole consumed Lifeless World? The end of the quote reads “…as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe.” These experiments to date have so far produced infinitely more questions than answers but there isn’t a particle physicist alive who wouldn’t gladly trade his life to glimpse the “God particle”, and sacrifice the rest of us with him. Reason and common sense will tell you that the risks far outweigh any potential(as CERN physicists themselves say) benefits.
This quote from National Geographic exactly sums this “science” up: “That’s the essence of experimental particle physics: You smash stuff together and see what other stuff comes out.”
Find out more about that “stuff” below;
http://www.SaneScience.org/
http://www.LHCFacts.org
http://www.risk-evaluation-forum.org/anon1.htm
http://www.lhcdefense.org/
http://www.lhcconcerns.com
Popular Mechanics – “World’s Biggest Science Project Aims to Unlock ‘God Particle’” – http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/extreme_machines/4216588.html“
The trolls are breeding down there. We’re going to have to call an exterminator.
SaneScience: If it weren’t for scientists leaping into the unknown, you wouldn’t be able to spam blogs you disagree with. In fact, you’d have no idea what the hell a blog was.
Waldorf Van Buren on LHCFacts.org: wasn’t “Honey, I shrunk the earth!” funny?
Waldorf Van Buren: nobody minds when you leap into the unknown, but grabbing other people when you leap is a dick move.
clean white lab coats. must be nice.
in the US, nobody has to look hard to find “black holes”. maybe one of the people in the part of Arkansas under 24 hour curfew will escape the “gravity” of poverty to gain the privilege to risk our lives – in a good way.
how about an update? what have they learned since Saturday? I think the 24 hour curfew was lifted in Arkansas but it’s doubtful the test had anything to do with that.
herbert: I’ll concede it was funnier than any of the “shrunk” movies.
about the dick move: should the Manhattan Project dick’s not have experimented?
I like clean white lab coats – the blood shows up way better.
From the article on Arkansas, it seems like the mayor liked the curfew and is trying to extend it. I don’t know what the LHC has to do with that. The LHC is a perceived threat, while the mayor of that town is a clear and present danger to civil liberties in that town.
“Now if somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I’m fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here,” Mayor James Valley said. “The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution.”
Bravo to Mr. Valley. He’s truly found a solution common with thugs, dictators, and theocrats.
from the site describing the safety of the LHC – According to the well-established properties of gravity, described by Einstein’s relativity, it is impossible for microscopic black holes to be produced at the LHC.
Also, Herbert, Saturday’s test was a success, according to CERN. It was for testing the equipment and not for destroying the world.
[...] box. I haven’t seen any of the new shows, but if there is one thing I know, it’s that the Large Hadron Collider won’t destroy the Universe™ anytime soon — that and what’s bad in [...]
Science matters.
Indeed Science does matter, Tina. Thanks for the comment.
Lovely :3 People also thought the end of the world was coming when Electricity started to be used. It will keep on happenin’ baby, this folks never learn.
Now if you’re all so concerned about the end of the world, why isn’t anybody daring to pick a bus to europe and setting fire on the circle? You’re doing nothing to save yourselves than spamming blogs (which I think that doesn’t help)