(no subject)
This is so freaking cool:
"New atom-smasher could fill gaps in scientific knowledge or open a black hole"
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-collider13apr13,0,7765588.story
You seriously need to read this article.
I've been following the CERN project for years I consider myself an armchair physicist and it looks like it's finally ready to get going.
I think the possibility of discovering vast new energy sources is totally worth the risk of annihilating the planet.
But I'm kinda irritated at the smugness of the physics community when it comes to things like black holes. Despite decades of acceptance that they exist, they are, in fact, still theoretical entities. Our presumption that they exist at all is based on observations of what we don't see otherwise unexplained patches of nothing in the Universe.
Observed from staggering distances of billions of trillions of miles.
Thus I'm not at all convinced that we "truly" understand what they're all about.
The article mentions that there is indeed the possibility that this collider could produce a tiny black whole, but that it "wouldn't have the teeth" to start consuming the Earth.
Kinda presumptuous, don't you think? How the hell do we know this? How do we know that even a one-particle-sized black hole doesn't propagate at nearly the speed of light, consuming an Earth-sized planet so fast that no human would complete their last breath before the whole place goes up in a puff?
I'm cool with the risk, I just wish we'd all acknowledge that at the end of the day, we don't really know much about this stuff.
And that's okay. That's why we call it an experiment.
I guess we'll find out if we're all still here after this summer. (Incidentally, I'd feel a lot better if the entire human race were extinguished by an experiment like this than through some idiotic war among our dumbass brethren. Actually, I wouldn't feel anything, but you get the point.)
"New atom-smasher could fill gaps in scientific knowledge or open a black hole"
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-collider13apr13,0,7765588.story
You seriously need to read this article.
I've been following the CERN project for years I consider myself an armchair physicist and it looks like it's finally ready to get going.
I think the possibility of discovering vast new energy sources is totally worth the risk of annihilating the planet.
But I'm kinda irritated at the smugness of the physics community when it comes to things like black holes. Despite decades of acceptance that they exist, they are, in fact, still theoretical entities. Our presumption that they exist at all is based on observations of what we don't see otherwise unexplained patches of nothing in the Universe.
Observed from staggering distances of billions of trillions of miles.
Thus I'm not at all convinced that we "truly" understand what they're all about.
The article mentions that there is indeed the possibility that this collider could produce a tiny black whole, but that it "wouldn't have the teeth" to start consuming the Earth.
Kinda presumptuous, don't you think? How the hell do we know this? How do we know that even a one-particle-sized black hole doesn't propagate at nearly the speed of light, consuming an Earth-sized planet so fast that no human would complete their last breath before the whole place goes up in a puff?
I'm cool with the risk, I just wish we'd all acknowledge that at the end of the day, we don't really know much about this stuff.
And that's okay. That's why we call it an experiment.
I guess we'll find out if we're all still here after this summer. (Incidentally, I'd feel a lot better if the entire human race were extinguished by an experiment like this than through some idiotic war among our dumbass brethren. Actually, I wouldn't feel anything, but you get the point.)