Amaranthian

Oh noes, the world will implode!

This is fucking awesome.

Boo. I take modern physics with the same amount of salt as anime, mystery meat, religion, higher education, and voodoo. There are no more facts to be found. The earth is round. Rocks sink in water. And for some reason airplanes seem to stay in the sky. Period. (if you couldn't see the punctuation)

More would be learned if Sweeds in yellow hardhats ran headlong into concrete walls... in a giant underground circuit.

I only got halfway through the read but the higgs began to look interesting

Yer, can't wait for all the data to be compiled, analyzed, and shazamed

I would never bash on technological progress, but I'm pretty sure physics has reached a scientific dead end in that no more knowledge can be obtained therein. Some so-called "unified theory" that might come out of ramming particles together in the LHC isn't going to save the human race any more than religion has. (That's not to say that some soul-searching couldn't do us all well though).

I'm pretty sure we could colonize the solar system on what we've already got. I don't see why nobody has the cojones to buckle down and do it. But who am I to say? The only engineering I have the gumption for takes place on an MMORPG...

This thread has fleshed out pretty nicely since this afternoon.

A+

Very interesting article, couldn't help but notice this part though.

According to Dr. Ellis, there is a magic value between 160 billion and 180 billion electron volts that would ensure a stable universe and require no new physics at all.

Dr. Ellis said, “ I can’t believe God would push the button on a theory like that.”

I'm not sure which part of this struck me more, the physicist trying to explain the origins of the universe sans God then referring to God, or the fact that as a species we are so arrogant that we believe we can and should be able to explain everything there is to about the origin of the universe and the nature of matter itself.

Anyone else somewhat disconcerted by the idea that a collection of thousands of the greatest physics minds on the planet have collectively come to the conclusion that they have no idea what the result of this experiement will be and what will be created. To me creating particles and energies that haven't existed since the beginning of the universe and having no idea how they will interact with our current universe should throw up a red flag.

Just because you played russian roulette with a pistol and didn't blow your head off the first time you pulled the trigger doesn't mean you should continue to pull the trigger.

Isn't it the nature of the scientific method itself that theory begets experimentation and not the inverse? In this situation they are basically saying they have no idea where the theory really should go so we are going to mash these particles and hope it gives us an idea.

I have no desire to try to squash out human curiousity or to stop trying to gain knowledge. But there is a difference between trying to understand everything and expecting to understand everything. I think they are putting the cart before the horse in this instance. This isn't mixing a finite amount of chemicals together in some room, this is messing with forces and power that none of these people can even begin to understand at this point. I view that as dangerous.

I'm personally really excited that there's something in the world right now that gives me an awesome feeling of mystery and unknown danger. Mad scientists and shit? Awesome.

I loved that game!

I was looking at the headline from the "New Posts" view, and thinking "Surely this thread isn't about the Large Hadron Collider."

I kind of hope they blow up the world. It would eliminate further needs for suicide attempts.

I think not technically, because suicide is intentionally killing yourself. For it to be suicide they would have to have a way of avoiding it and simply choose not to.

Egad! I hope not! That's where I keep all my stuff!

Your analogy is inherently negative, as it assumes there's a "bullet in the chamber." I think the CERN situation is more closely related to early nuclear experiments, which were certainly very theory driven (in some cases, theory that was quite imperfect), but dealt with very powerful forces. The only (unintentional) death/injury to come from nuclear reactions involved human carelessness from a mass production standing (3 Mile, Chernobyl), not a scientific exploration standing.

I'm sure there's a great deal of knowledge and prediction involved; hell, a CERN physicist went on The Colbert Report and did a few minutes about it. It's so abstract and theoretical though that a general audience, or even a decently educated audience, isn't going to understand or follow. So it's probably just plain easier to say "we're not sure" than "We are confident that Higgs-Boson interactions will occur at a negative psi interval."

Whatever the fuck that might mean :)

Also: I differentiate between being suicidal and having a death wish.

Trust me. I'm an expert on these things.

It is much more colorful than I expected such a thing to be.

Oh, everything will be fine until some bespectacled scientist with an inexplicable goatee pushes something unknown into the test chamber at the behest of a fellow in a suit who can walk through walls.

The webserver hosting that page had to be used to run the collider.

>.>

No, not really.

Dead link zzz

:headasplode:

lol

It's not colliding anything until October 21st though D:

Bro, isn't that like, your mom too?

BROSEPH.

hopefully neither of you hit your heads or tumbled down the stairs :(

>.>
Cyborgian Chairman Steve!

hahahahaha.

OH SHIT

http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

If you look at the source code:
1) There is actually a condition for which it will say "YEP."
2) "<!-- if the lhc actually destroys the earth & this page isn't yet updated
please email to receive a full refund -->"

The marines will protect us!

Or a wrench! And some plasmids!

Well congratulations...we all survived...for those of you who splurged and blew your life savings on the fact the world was going to be destroyed.........oops...

Doc

http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

Citizens Against The Large Hadron Collider

Their video is pretty cool!

At least until the end. No practical application, eh? Didn't they say that about gunpowder? Oil? diodes? many many things throughout history? The more we know about the universe we live in, the better we can live in it, I think.

Oh, and it's important to develop the gluon gun before anyone else does.

Satan's Stargate!

<3 Landover Baptist

Here's a link to some good fine-art photos by large format photographer Simon Norfolk that he did for the New York Times Magazine. These were hung in the gallery the floor below mine where I work. Some quite nice shots of the LHC.

http://www.simonnorfolk.com/

(You have to navigate to it, while there though check out some of his other work, he's a great documentarian).

b/c he died laughing...and will come back as a zombie to bite off the fleshy part of your left arm!

It's fine, I got a giggle out of it myself and that's what matters. John was the most curmudgeon about it. He was like "no I saw the typo, I just don't get it"...as if his 3 years in Amaranthian hadn't conditioned him to laugh at penis jokes. SHA!

Now we're REALLY doomed.

I just went through these, very nice!

F-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7626256.stm
I'm not sure if this means the universe is more or less likely to implode. Your thoughts?

Or that! but don't poison the chicken with the gas barrels first! (unless you have a potion to cast on the meat)