Last Blog Post Ever? Large Hadron Collider fires up
Professor Stephen Hawking is not worried about the world ending, so this is unlikely to be the last blog post. “The world will not come to an end when the LHC turns on. The LHC is absolutely safe.”Hawking has placed a $100 bet that the physicists will NOT find the Higg Bosun particle they are looking for.
Dr Lyn Evans of the project will be looking forward to his final accelerator going live, he’s due to retire in a year and a half. I’m sure all the scientists will be glad when the suspence is over, so they can stop receiving death threats from idiots. Professor Brian Cox said frankly “Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat.”
I’ll leave Professor Stephen Hawking with the last word: “Both the LHC and the Space program are vital if the human race is not to stultify and eventually die out. Together they cost less than one tenth of a per cent of world GDP. If the human race can not afford this, then it doesn’t deserve the epithet ‘human’.”
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Silly humans!
Everyone knows that after they turn the LHC on, scientists will discover the missing links and answer all the questions humans have on fusion and all that other science mumbo-jumbo.
And then the Vulcans will appear and invite us to explore space with them…
Particle physics gives me a hadron.
If Collingwood loses this week - bring it on.
Of course Stephen Hawking isn’t worried about the world coming to an end - he’s nearly dead anyway.
Nice one Cait. Among the facts and figures is this quote:
Maybe that’s nearly big enough to hold Dave’s podcast quota of beer…
Is it just me or does the WP Ajax comment editor not work? When I click save it just sits and stares at me…. (can someone clean up my previous post please?)
Done
I don’t think the scientists have done a great job spinning this in the media. Everything in the mainstream press has been about how the world might end (tabloids) or how the stupid people think the world might end (serious papers) but precious little about what might actually be achieved from this ginormous investment apart from random quotes from important scientists saying bland things like it’s vital for the human race. No one seems to be reporting why or how. Perhaps they think it’s too hard for us non-physicists to understand, which is a shame.
good points Tom - I heartily agree. Dinner didn’t get cooked tonight (until after 5:37) in case it wasn’t needed
Are we dead yet?
I dare Knightwise to stand in front of it…
Just editing this comment using the editor… Nope Cabletie it is just you, it seems to be working fine
Requoting my earlier Tweet: “73% of the Earth’s livable surface is covered by stupid.”
In other words, “I dunno how it works, so it’s going to DESTROY THE PLANET!”
Me, I was kinda hopin it would… I figure Humanity only has another 50 yrs left anyway…
Bugger. It’s happened (Ajax post editor hangs after Save) on two different machines (one Vista, one XP). Hmmm.
@Cait: Thanks mate.
@Herne So was I (hoping the world would end) , save going to work tomorrow…
I know what will happen, this image explains it all:
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/2817/gordonfreemanspottedatcyd1.jpg
See! Nothing to worry about! We’ve covered it already.
Ok Dave ! I took you up on that dare. My pink power-suit protected me against the deadly radiation. I however will not turn green in the face or anything like that , because green and pink don’t go well together. And the only black hole I have discovered so far was the one inside herne’s head.
@Raf Oh Phew! The Freeman was there and saved us all!
@Knightwise I was kinda thinking about the “white hole” that’s on the front of your head spewing matter into our universe… That’s a bit more scary…
@Cabletie Yeah, the Ajax editor doesn’t seem to close itself when you’re done, but it seems to save the edits just fine.
Interesting how I can embed links but I can’t force them to open a new page… Clever Wordpress…
@Tom the project is to seek the Higg Bosun particle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson to further understand the building blocks of physics
@cabletie are you using IE?
I just heard that they have a webcam at the LHC site. Now we can watch what’s going on there…
@Cabletie the other suggestion I have is to update Java
Check that out here: Java You might need to ensure you are running the latest update. There was one not long ago.
The other thing is use Firefox. Our website is optimized for it anyway. It looks like crap in IE.
AND one other thing, empty your cache and browsing history in full. This can also cause some issues with Java on occasion - don’t ask me why, it just works for no apparent reason.
Let us know if any of those things help.
Very funny Herne…
The thing that I did not realize is that they did not actually do the big bang replicating experiment yesterday. They just threw a few particles on a laser beam around it - not colliding them. They were saying; that experiment will be in the coming months.
However made the dinner comment had me in stitches as well.
Thanks for the suggestions re the editor. I’m posting this from my iphone so it won’t work now of course. I’ll try clearing the cache and check the java revision suggestion tomorrow. Just a little insulted at the suggestion I might be using IE though
@Cait, thanks for the wikipedia link. I take it all back about the scientists not making an effort to spin it in the media… the widipedia entry linked to this:
CERN Rap Video.
A contender for video of the week? (If we make it into next week or whenever they actually do the experiment now the machine has been turned on!)
That’s a sweet video, I’ve watched it a few times in the last couple weeks… Always has me singing along…
“LHCb sees where the antimatters gone.
ALICE looks at collisions of lead ions.
CMS and ATLAS are 2 of a kind…”
[It also proves that white people can't dance... :)]
This is nice video explaining how the Hadron works
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQNpucos9wc
@cabletie I didn’t think it was likely, but sometimes people do in difficult locations.
@cait - no probs! I just wanted to feign indignation!
And BTW, the update seems to work, the window just doesn’t close after clicking the save button. Same behaviour after clearing cache too…