'Big Bang' experiment under way

Infinite Chaos · 09-10-08, 05:04 AM

Quote:

Three decades after it was conceived, the world's most powerful physics experiment has sent the first beam around its 27km-long tunnel.

Engineers cheered as the proton particles completed their first circuit of the underground ring which houses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The £5bn machine on the Swiss-French border is designed to smash particles together with cataclysmic force.

This will re-create conditions in the Universe moments after the Big Bang.

But it has not been plain sailing; the project has been hit by cost overruns, equipment trouble and construction problems. The switch-on itself is two years late.

More at the BBC

Even the non scientific like me found this hugely exciting, the article continues at the BBC - a lengthy read but fascinating. Can't wait to see the science that comes from this.

americanwoman · 09-10-08, 08:46 AM

This is kinda scary to me. I think it's cool it can be done, but should it actually be done? What kind of control can a person have over something they know nothing about anyway? Especially when you have people with access to the thing that are apparently drunks:

Quote:

Mr Myers has experience of the latter problem. While working on the LHC's predecessor, a machine called the Large-Electron Positron Collider, engineers found two beer bottles wedged into the beam pipe - a deliberate, one-off act of sabotage.

The culprits - who were drinking a particular brand that advertising once claimed would "refresh the parts other beers cannot reach" - were never found

^^^

Engineers celebrated the success with champagne, but a certain brand of beer was not on the menu.

Cardinal · 09-10-08, 02:50 PM

Well, we're all still here.

Or are we...?

rivrrat · 09-10-08, 03:03 PM

Indeed. I don't believe you're here. Prove it.

gunner · 09-10-08, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by americanwoman

This is kinda scary to me. I think it's cool it can be done, but should it actually be done? What kind of control can a person have over something they know nothing about anyway?:

Hawkins and Co know a great deal about the subject matter [physics], hence the vast sums of money being quoted 4.8billion or there abouts. Do you really think that sort of money would be wasted, by an already under funded science community?
I feel its just another piece of the evolutionary jigsaw and your intrepidation will be for nothing. I await the results with excitement.

Paul.

Kernel Sanders · 09-10-08, 03:45 PM

The LHC has been in construction for a while (over a decade I think) and I'm very excited that it finally started the beam up. I believe the first collision will take place in October, and it should take a while to generate results and interpret the data. It will still take a bit before we know if CERN solved gravity

Quote:

Originally Posted by rivrrat

Indeed. I don't believe you're here. Prove it.

Big words coming from somebody who is just a figment of my imagination

mogur · 09-11-08, 01:10 AM

In the year 2000, computers will all crash because their dates will roll back to 1980. OMFG, wear tinfoil or stockpile cans of applesauce. Never mind.... wait... is that the sound of the universe rending asunder? Oh crap, the Langoliers are almost here.... gnash gnash gnash

justone · 09-11-08, 03:14 PM

I've found the most optimistic view that still is also realistic;

''But what happens if the Higgs turns out to be just right? Well, then the standard model predicts that you'd need a machine roughly a quadrillion times more powerful than the LHC to find anything new. With current technology, this would mean an accelerator the circumference of the Milky Way. Though some theorists—proponents, for instance, of string theory—speculate about what such an accelerator might find, few other physicists take them seriously.

In fact, finding the "just right" Higgs would be bad news all around. Surely the European Union wants more for its $8 billion than a single particle. But more importantly, it would provide the final proof of the standard model, which happens to be clunky, boring, and infuriatingly silent on the Big Questions that the final theory of physics was supposed to answer. Questions like: Why is there something, rather than nothing? And where does gravity fit in? If the standard model turns out to be a complete description of particle behavior, as the discovery of the Higgs would suggest, these questions may never be answered.

That's why particle physicists, and the EU member states that have spent Nepal's annual GDP to build this accelerator, are hoping that no one, in Chicago or Switzerland, finds the Higgs. The future of high-energy physics lies with the small chance that the standard model is wrong, and something exotic happens at LHC energies. Something, I hope, that will help us understand the why questions that the standard model leaves wide open. ''

I remain very sceptical - they will announce that they cought Higgs and everyone would believe them. the software cannot be pre-written to show someting exotical, unless it has bugs.

Frank Talk · 09-11-08, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by justone

In fact, finding the "just right" Higgs would be bad news all around. Surely the European Union wants more for its $8 billion than a single particle. But more importantly, it would provide the final proof of the standard model, which happens to be clunky, boring, and infuriatingly silent on the Big Questions that the final theory of physics was supposed to answer. Questions like: Why is there something, rather than nothing? And where does gravity fit in? If the standard model turns out to be a complete description of particle behavior, as the discovery of the Higgs would suggest, these questions may never be answered.

The standard model isn't supposed to address those questions.

Mach · 09-11-08, 05:54 PM

Scary and exciting. But I kind of agree, the standard model seems a bit limited even if some of the loose ends are tied up.

Apparently there are hypothetical concerns

Creation of a stable black hole
Creation of strange matter that is more stable than ordinary matter
Creation of magnetic monopoles that could catalyze proton decay
Triggering a transition into a different quantum mechanical vacuum (see False vacuum)
The Cool Blue Blog: Haldron collider: Revealer of mysteries or cosmic reset button?

But then again, I think there is danger to be had by doing nothing as well. What if they discovered something that later gave us the insight to avoid catastrophe with?

If we did engineer the end of our solar system, that would be one heck of a way to go. I mean, forget nukes, we just took out a GALAXY. Darth Vadar was a chump.

It's kind of like the guy who had such control over his body through meditation that he was able to stop his heart. Maybe some of those blackholes we see in our massive telescopes are actually the last legacy of some ancient, sophisticated races....having wiped all evidence of their existence from the universal record.

-Mach