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

Originally Posted by Alextanium

There is a chance that a rogue comet/asteroid could smash into the Earth tomorrow and obliterate every living thing down here. Our sky-sweeping budget is no where near good enough to see everything coming our way (4 million dollars per year).

A black hole or 'dark star' could pass through our system in the next 10 years and we'd never see it coming. It's intense gravity would throw all our planets out of their orbits and we'd be royally screwed.

Stop acting like a 1 in a billion chance is definitely going to happen because two scientists went against the grain of thousands and started shouting some end of the world doomsday scenarios.

At any rate, in the infinitesimally small chance that it does destroy the entire planet none of us will be around to hear you say "I told you so", so we win by default.

According to the law of conservation of energy, it WILL be destructible. Quantum Physics is highly theorized, and there is no one in a million, there is no ratio, it is either a 100% chance or 0% chance. This is physics.

If it does work out, the law of conservation of energy will be debunked. But I don't think you know how much of this is theory. It is more rational to do more research on black holes around the galaxy, before making a tear in the universe, that physical law says will never close.

Please do click on the link I posted above and read it.

Everything is so tldr.

Anyway, I saw a lot of documentries about this, and did quite a bit of research (ftlz).

Black holes are a certainty, as black hole 'residues' were found in previous PA tests, just the BHs didn't have enough energy(?) to sustain themselves.

With the LHC they may. That would be so lulzy, right?

Science finally realises what the universe is constructed of and space is torn.

Would look great on a newspaper.

Originally Posted by malac

Scenario:
There is a city of crooks/bad guys that learn over the years how horrible their lives are and influenced based off their peers and experience thats been present to them. They steal, kill, rape, and fart. But out of the city there is a one guy that sees that, this is all wrong. Morally, whos right? The one guy or the millions of crooks?

Oh boy..now I must be really bored..

In that case the crooks are right because genral morality is based off the majority

Quantum Physics is highly theorized, and there is no one in a million, there is no ratio, it is either a 100% chance or 0% chance. This is physics.

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.

When is the exact date that they're flipping the switch anyway?

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.

That's not really how it works though. Before you get hit or don't get hit, it could have gone either way; although, this hardly ever applies to the macroscopic world, of course., where probabilities are indeed 0 or 1, but we guess at them due to our ignorance of all the facts.

And apparently they're smashing their first particles in about three months.

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

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.