World To End Wednesday

[CoryKS]

Okay, truth time. How many of you used this excuse to get a little somethin'-somethin' last night? Hm?

Dang. I so don't know how to properly exploit a major catastrophe.

 

[arnisador]

Okay, truth time. How many of you used this excuse to get a little somethin'-somethin' last night? Hm?

This is even better than the "I'm leaving to join the army tomorrow line"..."C'mon baby, tomorrow I might be swallowed by a black hole!"

I know they say that after a major power outage there's an excess of births 9 months later...maybe we'll have the "Black Hole Generation"!

 

[elder999]

Good God! To think that I didn't sleep at all last night, awaiting annihilation...:lol:

Seems the initial tests were very succesful. Colliding the two actual beams won`t be done for another two weeks or so, but collisions in form of introducing elements into the beam have been done already.

Not really "collisions." The elements introduced into the beam were foils and instrumentation used for tuning and detecting the beam. More like "scraping" (this is the term actually used) the edges of the beam, and getting sizing, emittances and imagery.......

.....cool stuff, though...

 

[Flying Crane]

Is it time to duck and cover yet?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Damn. Now I'll have to do some work. Been slacking since the 1st. LOL!

 

[crushing]

Okay, truth time. How many of you used this excuse to get a little somethin'-somethin' last night? Hm?

:rofl:

Just having a pulse was plenty.


I understand from news reports that it was just a test run and they haven't fully ramped it up yet.

Hope we aren't the Donner party cheering we made it past the Mighty Mississippi river and that it should be smoothing sailing from here.

 

[Ninjamom]

Okay, truth time. How many of you used this excuse to get a little somethin'-somethin' last night? Hm?

At least the hubby and I would go happy!

Hey, it was either that or stay up and finish the dishes. Which would you have chosen??

 

[Sukerkin]

At least the hubby and I would go happy!

Hey, it was either that or stay up and finish the dishes. Which would you have chosen??

I wouldn't be able to leave the dishes un-washed - it'd torment my particles for all of quantum eternity to be vapourised knowing I'd left one of my duties unfulfilled (tho' I could be persuaded, purely on the basis of selfless prioritising of course, that the other 'duty' was more important) :lol:.

 

[theletch1]

So, what, exactly are the practical applications of the information we hope to gain from CERN. Certainly it isn't just to satisfy our curiosity alone.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Technically we still have time it is currently Wednesday at 10:54 PM in Geneva.


Actually it looks like we have to wait another month until the test in question
http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/07/world-to-end-wednesday/

 

[Ninjamom]

So, what, exactly are the practical applications of the information we hope to gain from CERN. Certainly it isn't just to satisfy our curiosity alone.

Part of it is: When Galileo invented the telescope, he made new discoveries everywhere he pointed it, simply because he had access to things never before observed. I think the LHC will similarly find scads of new information. The applications will be left to others.

Where could all this lead? Just my humble speculation, but it could have applications in fusion energy research, or even in the development of anti-matter engines, a la 'Star Trek'. If extra dimensions are coiled and folded around us, it could provide methods for travel that appear faster-than-light in our own dimension (the first true 'warp drives'). I wouldn't be surprised if theories developed from the results resulted in methods for even higher speed computing and denser memory storage. Production of the laboratory itself has already resulted in advances in practical applications of power distribution technology.

 

[CoryKS]

BTW, if you haven't seen it, Google has a nifty logo commemorating this.

 

[elder999]

So, what, exactly are the practical applications of the information we hope to gain from CERN. Certainly it isn't just to satisfy our curiosity alone.

Saint Stephen Hawking:
"Throughout history, people have studied pure science from a desire to understand the universe, rather than practical applications for commercial gain. But their discoveries later turned out to have great practical benefits....... Together they [the LHC and the space program] cost less than one tenth of a per cent of world GDP. If the human race can not afford that, then it doesn't deserve the epithet 'human'."

Practical benefits from past collider and accelerator research have been new cancer treatments, new medical imaging, and communications-it's possible things of that order might be realized, in addition to better and larger ways of manipulating anti-matter, and, yes, development of space-drives.....

Physicists, of course, are not driven to do research like this in search of practical applications-those almost invariably come later, as a spin-off or byproduct. Physicists are simply on a search for knowledge-most of them, anyway......

 

[Sukerkin]

If it helps to have an analogy of a more human scale to draw on, think of pure science as being the factory that produces the bricks that are used later by others to build all manner of practical and wonderful things out of.

As I said in a previous post, if you don't have pure science pursued then all the demanding for 'practical applications' will garner precisely nothing. If research had not been pursued for it's own sake in the past, the various technological revolutions we have seen would never have happened.

Also, the 'price tag' supposedy attached to the LHC programme is one for over twenty years of work to date and (as said before) it's a lot of money if someone were to put it in my wallet but hardly noticeable in the grand scheme of things. The value that can come from confirming a few things in existing theories alone cannot be overestimated, let alone what can come from opening new understanding in the way particles intereact.

At base level, here're some random things grabbed off the Net in the same 'value' range for comparison (and one way off for scale):

http://www.indieglobal.com/miniBB/index.php?action=vthread&forum=1&topic=25
http://www.helpandcare.org.uk/cms/s...-save-the-nhs-87-billion-pounds-per-year.aspx
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6630/is_200110/ai_n26594035
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/108970.php
http://www.ncpa.org/iss/wel/pd112701g.html

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Still here in Alma!

 

[Ninjamom]

Physicists, of course, are not driven to do research like this in search of practical applications-those almost invariably come later, as a spin-off or byproduct. Physicists are simply on a search for knowledge-most of them, anyway......

Like the old sage wisdom goes, the Physicist asks, "What are the laws that govern the functioning of the Cosmos?" The Engineer asks, "How may I apply those laws for the betterment of Mankind?" (The Humanities major asks, "You want fries with that?" )

 

[elder999]

Like the old sage wisdom goes, the Physicist asks, "What are the laws that govern the functioning of the Cosmos?" The Engineer asks, "How may I apply those laws for the betterment of Mankind?" (The Humanities major asks, "You want fries with that?" )

....and then there's me....:lol:

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Hey! We're still here!

DAMMIT!!!!

 

[arnisador]

Worse yet, I have to work today! There's never a black hole around when you need it. :angry:

 

[elder999]

Part of it is: When Galileo invented the telescope, .

This bugged me a little, and I had to look to make sure, but Galileo didn't "invent" the telescope; he made improvements on the designs of three Dutchmen who had invented the telescope a year earlier, in 1608. Of course, he built his from "rumors," using trial and error,not having ever seen a telescope, so he practically invented it.