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Turn On. Tune In. Play God. CERN's LHC

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I will admit that I don't know what this machine is capable of, nobody does. But what get's to me is that it just seems like a total waste of £4bn! What exactly will it do for us humans and for earth apart from knowing what happened just after the Big Bang (it is possible that nothing will be found out), maybe that's enough for some people but it's not enough for me, I wish that £4bn could of been spent on something really useful like the research for anti cancer drugs and HIV drugs, at least it will help us. I think these people who are running this project are proper mad scientists, this may sound ignorant but I think CERN are a bunch imbeciles.

One of the scientists involved said "Science is when you don't know what your doing until you've done it" He also says that it's "Almost impossible for these black holes to devour the earth". And another said "It's the biggest jump in to the unknown"

"Zeus gave to Pandora a box with instructions that she not open it; she gave in to her curiosity and opened it; all the miseries and evils flew out to afflict mankind"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2650665/Legal-bid-to-stop-CERN-atom-smasher-from-destroying-the-world.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/LHC-en.html
http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It's all rather complex and flies over my head, but as I understand it there is much that could be discovered by the experiments.

    Money spent on science and progress is well spent. I myself don't have any problem withsoever with it. Far, far more is spent on stupid fighter planes and stupider nuclear weapons.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    Money spent on science and progress is well spent. I myself don't have any problem withsoever with it. Far, far more is spent on stupid fighter planes and stupider nuclear weapons.

    ... until they start using this new found techology to develop more horrible weapons. :(
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think one of the problems with CERN is so much of what they do is completely beyond the comprehension of most mere mortals.

    LHC has the potential to do all sorts of exciting things, and while I have no references at all there are a lot of important technological developments that have come from blue sky research in places like CERN.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    £4bn isn't a lot for a massive international project. Less than half the London Olympics split between a load of different countries. Like Aladdin said, money spent on science is always money well spent. And this is apparently one of the most important experiments ever done in physics, if not the most important, since experiments don't get done very often in physics. And you do realise that a number of breakthroughs in the fight against cancer have come directly as a result of the NASA space program?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The work they're doing now could pave the way for lots of future technologies.
    Fusion power, propulsion and eventually faster than light travel could all come from experiments that are being conducted now.

    In order to have a chance at developing these new technologies, the scientists have to know how matter and energy react and an undescribably small scale, and to do so they need colliders.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    £4bn isn't a lot for a massive international project.

    I am surpised it actually cost so little. Considering that they bored a huge 27km underground circular tunnel under Genena, let alone the nuts and bolts of the technology inside, it doesn't sound as expensive as it might have. It would have cost more in this country, I'm sure ...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Teagan wrote: »
    I am surpised it actually cost so little. Considering that they bored a huge 27km underground circular tunnel under Genena, let alone the nuts and bolts of the technology inside, it doesn't sound as expensive as it might have. It would have cost more in this country, I'm sure ...
    To the tune of adding a zero to the sum, without doubt.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think this is amazing, no scientific experiment is worth doing if it doesnt come with the slight risk of sucking the entire galaxy into a black hole.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    budda wrote: »
    I think this is amazing, no scientific experiment is worth doing if it doesnt come with the slight risk of sucking the entire galaxy into a black hole.


    Great place to send all our waste.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Before this thing was even switched on it changed the world.
    It is responsible for the birth of the internet.
    One third of all internet traffic is going through it every day.

    It is the most complex thing ever built by man.

    Temperatures colder than deep space.
    A million times hotter than the core of the sun.
    It is the worlds first time machine.

    Two proton beams travel in opposite directions and collide at four points along the way - replicating the Big Bang conditions of "cosmic plasma", a mysterious almost liquid state, which occurred before quarks had cooled off enough to allow atoms to form together. The Large Hadron Collider will force quarks to break free of their bonds, the matter substance to unravel - to recreate the original "cosmic plasma", and to reconstruct Big Bang conditions. (hopefully on a much smaller scale)


    The idea is to focus all this incredible energy into the smallest space possible. As they say, "the more energy goes in, the more massive the particles that come out". How massive? How about a miniature black hole?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I like how Discover Magazine puts it: "The collisions at LHC could spray out strange new kinds of matter, unfurl hidden dimensions of space, even generate tiny glowing reenactments of the birth of the universe." And now, as we have seen - it may even facilitate time travel.

    "We don’t even know what to expect," says French physicist Yves Schutz. "We’re now in a domain of energy that nobody has ever explored."

    We may get new materials.
    We may get new fuels.
    We may get anti gravity machines.
    We may well warp time and space.
    Satan might appear.



    http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/03/time-machine-worlds-biggest-particle.html
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Hers an animation of whats going on ...fascinating stuff.

    http://uk.youtube.com/theATLASExperiment
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Like Aladdin said, money spent on science is always money well spent.

    Always ?

    Do you welcome Monsanto in your kitchen ?
    And you do realise that a number of breakthroughs in the fight against cancer have come directly as a result of the NASA space program?

    There are far cheaper ways to deal with cancer than with a NASA budget but I guess that is the point. No money in those.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You can't put a price on finding out more about the beginning of the universe which ultimately leads to a better understanding of how we poor bastards ended up on this rock. Better than building a nuke anyhoo.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Always ?

    Do you welcome Monsanto in your kitchen ?



    There are far cheaper ways to deal with cancer than with a NASA budget but I guess that is the point. No money in those.



    Does NASA turn a profit....?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There are far cheaper ways to deal with cancer than with a NASA budget but I guess that is the point. No money in those.

    Yeah, but they didnt spend the nasa budget with the sole intention of curing cancer though.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    MrG wrote: »
    Yeah, but they didnt spend the nasa budget with the sole intention of curing cancer though.

    ...and cancer hasn't been cured.
    While were on the subject of cancer ....don't you find it annoying that we give money to cancer research, they make advances and then ...the drugs are to expensive so we can't have them.
    Whats the friggin point?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    We are the way for the cosmos to understand itself, and never more so than CERN
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jim V wrote: »
    We are the way for the cosmos to understand itself, and never more so than CERN

    You're a Carl Sagan fan admit it! :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Always ?

    Do you welcome Monsanto in your kitchen ?

    I don't object to it out of hand because they "mad scientists" trying to alter the so-called natural world. I might have objections to the company itself, but I don't know enough about them to make a judgement.

    I suppose you prefer your completely natural intensively-farmed, domesticated meat products, fed on a strictly controlled diet and having undergone centuries of inbreeding to create the perfect product at any cost to the animals themselves, do you? No, that's much more natural. :rolleyes: GM is just a quicker way of doing what we've been doing through selective breeding for centuries. It's why when we go into the supermarket, we have so many different apples to choose from. Do you reckon that all of those varieties just occured naturally on the earth? Suddenly you get a few men in white coats involved, and it becomes "unnatural" despite the fact that they've got much better risk assessment than the people who created the bulldog, for example.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yerascrote wrote: »
    You're a Carl Sagan fan admit it! :p

    I am indeed - can't beat a bit of Cosmos :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I suppose you prefer your completely natural intensively-farmed, domesticated meat products, fed on a strictly controlled diet and having undergone centuries of inbreeding to create the perfect product at any cost to the animals themselves, do you? No, that's much more natural. :rolleyes: GM is just a quicker way of doing what we've been doing through selective breeding for centuries. It's why when we go into the supermarket, we have so many different apples to choose from. Do you reckon that all of those varieties just occured naturally on the earth? Suddenly you get a few men in white coats involved, and it becomes "unnatural" despite the fact that they've got much better risk assessment than the people who created the bulldog, for example.

    You've swalloWed the lie.
    Selective breeding is perfectly natural but limited.
    Limited as in you cannot cross pollinate or graft a cabbage with a banana ...an apple with a potatoe.
    Monsanto and the white coats have gone well beyond natural by putting animal genes into your vegatables ...and no one ...thats no one ...knows the long term effects.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You've swalloWed the lie.
    Selective breeding is perfectly natural but limited.
    Limited as in you cannot cross pollinate or graft a cabbage with a banana ...an apple with a potatoe.
    Monsanto and the white coats have gone well beyond natural by putting animal genes into your vegatables ...and no one ...thats no one ...knows the long term effects.

    Selective breeding isn't natural at all. Only natural selection is natural, hence the name. Selection based on the fact that you think that a fluffy dog looks cuter or a smaller dog can fit down rabbit holes is not natural at all. Only to the extent that it is naturally possible, and therefore natural. But in that case, anything that is physically possible is natural. There is absolutely no reason to make the assumption that genetic modification would lead to any greater detremental effects than everything that we are all happy to put into our supermarket basket every week. I'm sorry, but just because you're used to it doesn't make it natural.

    But I find this huge distrust of anything scientists do to be pretty annoying tbh. I have huge problems with the business model surrounding GM crops, but the fundamental aim behind the original research is to improve the lives of people by being able to create crops with properties that make them less likely to fail, for whatever reason. You will often find that it is not the scientific research that is the problem, but its use almost always by businesses and politicians, not scientists. And so I think that justifies my original point that money spent of scientific research is always money well spent. You can't unknow something, but presumably therefore, you would agree with me that any money going into further research on this issue would be money well spent?

    But incidentally, why is it that science seems to be the only thing that has to justify itself based on its benefit to us? And if there isn't a direct benefit, it's somehow useless research. If we're going by the measure of other activities that compete for our money, such as sporting events, art, cultural events, religious events, or heritage, then scientific research would be on an equal footing even if the only justification was "a greater understanding of the universe." After all, none of these other fields offer any greater measurable benefit than that. And surely "to further our understanding of the universe" is just as valid a reason than "to maintain our tradition" or "it's part of our culture." Maybe more so. But it just so happens that more often than not, scientific research also results in things that will eventually benefit us in some way. But I don't see why it should have to constantly justify itself in these terms when no other field is asked to (with the possible exception of the Olympics).
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ...and cancer hasn't been cured.
    While were on the subject of cancer ....don't you find it annoying that we give money to cancer research, they make advances and then ...the drugs are to expensive so we can't have them.
    Whats the friggin point?

    DCA - a cure for cancer is here

    As for the the LHC, I think the whole concept gets to a stage where it is above us. We pay our tithe to get improvements paid together. So maybe building a church in the 'olden days' because everyone loves a nice church. Maybe buying weapons and armour to field a militia against whatever. As time goes on, the scales get bigger and the costs get bigger. Look how much money the Army, police, NHS etc. use. Multi national cooperatives are more of the same thing. The difference with the LHC I guess is it's science. If someone said to you 'give me £1 today and I can give you a cabbage' or 'give me £10 today, and tomorrow I can give you two cabbages for £1 (and from then on)', what would you choose? The simple answer in the long term - if it is affect billions of cabbages, there is no real question. Investing in science means the future is better. The benefits just keep increasing as more science is built on the science that went before. When we build the LHC, we are not just learning about quarks and protons an that, we are also building a stepping block to further avenues of research.

    It's true that sometimes it's wasted money, but then when you buy cabbages, there will be a certain amount that would have been wasted because maybe that individual cabbage was rotten. You need to look at the big picture imo.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    DCA - a cure for cancer is here

    As for the the LHC, I think the whole concept gets to a stage where it is above us. We pay our tithe to get improvements paid together. So maybe building a church in the 'olden days' because everyone loves a nice church. Maybe buying weapons and armour to field a militia against whatever. As time goes on, the scales get bigger and the costs get bigger. Look how much money the Army, police, NHS etc. use. Multi national cooperatives are more of the same thing. The difference with the LHC I guess is it's science. If someone said to you 'give me £1 today and I can give you a cabbage' or 'give me £10 today, and tomorrow I can give you two cabbages for £1 (and from then on)', what would you choose? The simple answer in the long term - if it is affect billions of cabbages, there is no real question. Investing in science means the future is better. The benefits just keep increasing as more science is built on the science that went before. When we build the LHC, we are not just learning about quarks and protons an that, we are also building a stepping block to further avenues of research.

    It's true that sometimes it's wasted money, but then when you buy cabbages, there will be a certain amount that would have been wasted because maybe that individual cabbage was rotten. You need to look at the big picture imo.

    What are you rattlin on about?
    I'm not against the Atlas experiment ...i think it's rather interesting and as i have said ...it may produce new matrials new fuels anti gravity ...which bigger picture am i missing?

    My faith in science isn't as great as yours admittedly.Especially when it comes to food.
    All the great things we have achieved are indeed wonderful but don't be blinded to the fact that a lot of our discoveries and inventions are now starting to seriously hurt us and threaten our well being.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    What are you rattlin on about?
    I'm not against the Atlas experiment ...i think it's rather interesting and as i have said ...it may produce new matrials new fuels anti gravity ...which bigger picture am i missing?

    My faith in science isn't as great as yours admittedly.Especially when it comes to food.
    All the great things we have achieved are indeed wonderful but don't be blinded to the fact that a lot of our discoveries and inventions are now starting to seriously hurt us and threaten our well being.

    The DCA link was directed towards you, the rest was directed towards the OP.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    As long as we have Gordon Freeman on hand, what does it matter?

    Afaik the scare originates from the results of an experiment in another particle accelerator a few years back in the US somewhere. Whatever they were doing created something which had alot of the characteristics in found in black holes, and obviously since this is going to be bigger there's a possibility of a bigger one being created.

    But yeah, 4bn is peanuts. Especially compared to the money we spend on other, useless shit.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kiezo wrote: »
    As long as we have Gordon Freeman on hand, what does it matter?

    This statement pleases me. :thumb: But it looks like we should be ok http://i34.tinypic.com/2qdnyhj.jpg

    But back to the original post, I don't think it's a waste of money. As it's already been pointed out, 4 billion between a number of countries is nothing in the big scheme of things. I'd class US military spending as a larger waste of money. If it's going to help our understanding of the universe around us I'm all for it.

    Science be praised!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Exactly. You couldn't even buy two mortgage lenders for that.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If it does destroy the Earth, then there will be nobody left to worry about it. But I don't think on the balance of probabilities that it will. We've managed to stay alive thus far... (despite the radiation in the atmosphere causing lots of cancer because of all that nuclear testing)
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