Thread: May 2008 (LHC) Particle Accelerator - Miracle or Catastrophe?

Originally Posted by Xei

What on Earth are you talking about? One of the crucial ideas behind quantum physics is the uncertainty principle which states the exact reverse of what you're claiming.

This theory has thing to do with the uncertainty principle.

http://www.ted.com "Rock star physicist" Brian Cox talks about his work on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Discussing the biggest of big science in an engaging, accessible way, Cox brings us along on a tour of the massive complex and describes his part in it -- and the vital role it's going to play in understanding our universe.

Originally Posted by Bonsay

I think he's talking about chances in reality. No matter how small or big the chances for lets say lightning hitting you, there will only be one outcome. Either you get hit (100%) or not(0%). I guess that's more of a practicality issue with chances and is totaly different from the one talked about in quantum mechanics. We obviously aren't aware of the quantum world. So I wouldn't know if it applies to "lightning" as well.

You shouldn't include percentages when talking about possible outcomes. An outcome is either a yes or a no, an event or a non-event. Percentages are for probability of those outcomes occurring. By mixing the two, you're shooting your own analogy in the foot.

99.999% the speed of light?? That must take some doing...

Doesn't that mean that the short lived particles'll last much longer due to relativity?

Originally Posted by Xei

99.999% the speed of light?? That must take some doing...

Doesn't that mean that the short lived particles'll last much longer due to relativity?

Only from the perspective of the particle. We'll still see them the same.

Doesn't make much sense to me...

Say the particle is 'watching' a clock. It normally lives for one minute, say from 12.00 to 12.01. However at near light speeds, the time of its surroundings goes faster; it still experiences itself as living for one minute, however it sees the clock go from 12.00 to say 13.00 in this minute. Therefore external observers see the particle for a whole hour.

The particle will appear to live longer only to the outside, "from the point of view of the particle" the lifetime isn't altered.


By the way, Dreamworld:

some Russian mathematicians are warning that we might get more than we bargained for. Specifically, time-travellers: futurenauts using our ultra-duper atomsmasher to punch a hole in causality and hop back from the future.

This is a reason to use the LHC, not the contrary.

Originally Posted by Xei

Doesn't make much sense to me...

Say the particle is 'watching' a clock. It normally lives for one minute, say from 12.00 to 12.01. However at near light speeds, the time of its surroundings goes faster; it still experiences itself as living for one minute, however it sees the clock go from 12.00 to say 13.00 in this minute. Therefore external observers see the particle for a whole hour.

No, it's still a minute to us. Speed and time are all relative to the observer.

The particle will appear to live longer only to the outside, "from the point of view of the particle" the lifetime isn't altered.

That's what I was talking about.

No, it's still a minute to us. Speed and time are all relative to the observer.

That really not what relativity says.

If that was so then the experiment where they flew an atomic clock around the Earth at high speed wouldn't have worked, would it? We would still have observed the atomic material decaying at the same rate (from the ground, not on the plane). But it didn't, it lasted slightly longer.

Hey, have they lit this thing up yet? How close are we to the end of the world?

Five years... news guy wept and told us.

Originally Posted by Xei

Five years... news guy wept and told us.

Eh?

FIVE YEARS?

What shit is this? Flip the switch already!

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

FIVE YEARS?

What shit is this? Flip the switch already!

Yay 5 years!

Naw, it's either going to reveal the secrets of the universe, be a colossal waste of someone else's money or destroy the world. Any way I'm satisfied. If I'm going out, you're all coming with me.

Originally Posted by 27

Naw, it's either going to reveal the secrets of the universe, be a colossal waste of someone else's money or destroy the world. Any way I'm satisfied. If I'm going out, you're all coming with me.

Well if you want to be logical.

2/3 negative
1/3 positive

Turn the thing off already!

I doubt there's a one in three chance of it destroying the world. But if it does, who's gonna be around to complain?

Originally Posted by Elis D.

No, it's still a minute to us. Speed and time are all relative to the observer.

If it's relative for the observer, doesn't that mean just that:
For the particle 1 minute has passed.
For the people 1 hour has passed.

So it isn't 1 min for us. It's one hour for the observer.

That's after 2012. We'll all be dead by then.

Rofl.

What date this month does it go online?

I'm excited. Its a bit scary but what can you do? :]

Originally Posted by Xei

Doesn't make much sense to me...

Say the particle is 'watching' a clock. It normally lives for one minute, say from 12.00 to 12.01. However at near light speeds, the time of its surroundings goes faster; it still experiences itself as living for one minute, however it sees the clock go from 12.00 to say 13.00 in this minute. Therefore external observers see the particle for a whole hour.

The particle will only see one hour pass on that clock, if said clock is moving with the particle, ie. moving just as fast.

The atomic watch that we sent into space, to prove the theory of relativity, counted "slower" because time was going slower for it, and for the vessel it was carried within.
If the proton we're gonna shoot through the LHC is sentient, or atleast able to perceive time (think of this as a hypothetical situation, seing as it is impossible), the proton would measure time to be slower and, from its perspective, it would take longer to go around the LHC, than from our perspective.
Lets say we put a human into LHC. He flies around, and takes a look on his watch and he's been in there for an hour. Once he gets out, he talks to the scientists, and they say he was in there for 30 minutes.
So in very simple words, from his perspective and according to his measuring gear, he was going around in there at half the speed of light, but to the scientists and according to their measuring gear, he was moving at the speed of light. Or atleast 99,9999999999%. Once again, this is a hypothetical situation by the way


I hope this helped you out a bit at understanding relativity.

Originally Posted by Lunica

What date this month does it go online?

I'm excited. Its a bit scary but what can you do? :]

The first beams are due for injection mid June 2008 with the first collisions planned to take place 2 months later

http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/articl...number=2&ln=en

I hope this helped you out a bit at understanding relativity.

I'm pretty sure you got it the wrong way round.

Remember the twin hypothesis; the twin that moves faster ages slower. So he percieves the world around him moving faster.

Imagine your example running for much longer, so that the twin in the accelerator thinks that 40 years has passed, but the twin outside only ages by 20 years. Well... that's the reverse of what the twin hypothesis says.

So they are doing this thing in 3 months.. or 5 years?

Also, isnt there people who think black holes send you to a different time zone anyway? Im not saying this, but it would be a good reason to build one if you want to go to a different time..

But also im one of the people who think that black holes will pull you into a pencil thin human and you will die.. but it would be a fun way to die no doubt.