Tinfoil Condition Red! LHC 7 TeV mega-blasts today Tuesday will be a big day at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), far and away the most powerful particle-punisher ever assembled by the human race. For the first time ever, boffins operating the colossal machine will cross the streams produced in its twin mighty hadron cannons, colliding particles at never-before-seen 7 Tera- …
Ummm, does anyone know what time this is happening tomorrow. I only ask because I have exams and don't really want to spend all night revising only to find the world being destroyed around me before I even get a chance to sit them.
My time could be much better spent drinking beer and something like that is just going to annoy me.
What's wrong with humanity nowadays? Between the anti-LHC fearmongers, the 2012 apocalyptards, and all the splinter/fringe political movements (witness: the Tea-Baggers harassing U.S. senators) it seems like humanity has smelt its end approaching and is tearing itself apart at the seams.
Or maybe it's like in that Twilight Zone episode, where aliens are manipulating our environment in order to drive us mad and attack each other. Not that we need something like that to happen...we do it fine without help.
Same as it ever was. Of course, the loopiest fruitcakes of several centuries ago were *in power* and called "Sir" rather than "bonkers". Nowadays the nutters are largely powerless and we can give them the derisive laughter and mockery that they (and their ancestors) so richly deserve.
And then there's modern communications which has enabled the trolls to reach a wider audience. (I bet Mr Hubbard is *still* pissing himself. Hell's fires have probably been all but extinguished by now.)
Still, it's not kind to mock the afflicted, so just in case Dr Death is an authentic nutter rather than a troll, I'll stop there.
I was always told when doing risk assessments that you are supposed to multiply the risk of an undesirable event by the potential damage it could cause. So, even if the risk to the Earth of the LHC is very, very small indeed, you still need to multiply it by 6,800,000,000 (the Earth's approximate current population) to calculate the potential worst-case impact. If Higgs is correct then Hawking is wrong, and therefore maybe minute black holes of the sort that the LHC could create might not actually evaporate.
(Escape because I wish I could)
There is a 49% probability that I'm misinformed, but isn't a "collaptic explosion" what people free from the mental disease the dear "Dr." suffers from just an implosion? Does not sound impressive enough, though.
It would be interesting to see and talk to such a guy in person though. Would he look and behave normally -- up to the moment when the "physics" delusions start of course? Or would one be able to spot the nutjob in a crowd even without hearing his ideas?
Is this really all about finding the Higgs boson and/or new particles? I mean, what's the ultimate goal here? Know everything there is to know about how the universe was created, is that it? Nothing more? And why do the media all around the world try so hard to make sure that everyone knows all about this LHC devilry, but when it comes to other huge - and equally "dangerous" - projects (like HAARP, for instance) there always seems to be a complete media blackout? Why is this? You'd almost think they were trying to shift the attention away from what they're really up to.
No, I don't trust them at all. That's why I bought myself a nice and shiny tinfoil coat today. A simple hat just won't do anymore.
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
Not the actual Doctor, of course, but...
"The Doctor contends that the LHC may trigger a "magnetic trap of devil" event"
Isn't this clown some kind of Russian tractor mechanic, or is that someone else? Certainly, he needs a sidekick to insert articles before nouns unless the intended effect is to come across all über-Russian, which can be endearing, of course, but probably doesn't help to deliver his sinister message of doom.
Maybe his massed brigade of Zetor tractors is already on its way across Europe...
Oh, hello Mr High Horse!
First of all, no, I don't speak Russian, but I do know Russian-speaking people who speak English and other languages very well. I don't mock these people, and if they ask me for advice, I help them sensitively with whichever area they feel needs improving. However, any fool who threatens people with violence (and you should recall that some scientists actually received death threats in the first round of LHC paranoia) can tolerate a bit of humour at their expense - mild humour at that.
Secondly, while I derive a certain level of pleasure from the idiosyncrasies of others' English, it isn't through derision: if anything, we learn something about their native language in the process of observing how they use another. I know that my own foreign language abilities are far from perfect, but beyond the daily use of those abilities where they mostly suffice, I would almost certainly have someone look over any "really important" public announcements that I may wish to disseminate widely, especially if I wanted to be taken seriously.
And finally, the harshest critics of people's foreign language usage, where that foreign language is often English, are frequently people of the same nationality and culture. If the clown in question were an actual scientist, I'm sure many of his Russian colleagues would have harsher things to say about his prose (not to mention his message) than I do.
Time to dismount, I think.
My predictions, which I make after a long bout of drinking alone with a notepad, a pan and a book on Lie Algebras:
1. Explosion of the whole Earth – 0%.
2. Extermination of Geneva – 0%.
3. Extermination of Europe – 0%.
4. Other harmful unpredictable consequences – 0%.
5. Discovery of new subnuclear energy sources – 0%.
6. Outcomes with no harm and no use – the rest.
GO GO GO! I want to see those papers before I die!!
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
"*Though of course he faces stiff opposition in the fruitcake rankings from retired chemistry prof Otto Rössler, who feels that LHC boffins might avoid imploding the Earth only to carelessly compact the Moon down to the size of a pea, or perhaps put out the Sun."
Think of the advantages. Putting out the Sun will definitely prevent global warming. Besides, a nearby singularity might be pretty exciting. We can drop things into it, like asteroids perhaps, and bathe in the radiation produced.
I never married Alyson Hannigan. Firefly was cancelled just when it was getting interesting. I haven't won the lottery. Work sucks (actually having to do it). The list goes on an on and on. You think I give a damn about a souped-up tazer in the arse-end of reality? This reality is broken. Move along, nothing to see here... not anymore.
Graveyard symbol because we may be dead this time tomorrow. Blinked out as an ephemerol insect lives and dies in the transient evanescence of the cruelty upon which we bestow the name "nature". I guess I should care, but I just can't find it in me to do so. I am numb. Too far gone. I cannot save myself either.
Is it just me or is the colossal earth destruction possibility event just a day before April Fool's day?
Are we going to have disaster headlines on Wednesday?
"Earth being turned into a giant omlette courtesy of the LHC"
"Strange beings seen leaving CERN"
"Bread now toxic to birdlife after strange glow emitted from the French/Swiss border"
I note that the extermination of Geneva is only as probable as the extermination of Europe, so why did he single out Geneva? Is there a probability that Europe will be exterminated **except for Geneva**?
Geneva is still in Europe, right?
There again, there is a 48% probability that the whole Earth will explode, but Europe will NOT be exterminated.
Mine's the one with the plane tickets to Geneva in the pocket.
The Higgs boson theory is wrong. Hawking is right.
You'll get a shower of small particles which vanish as they go out of scope.
Oh...if you play your cards right, you could end up with a conjoined proton which is bad*
bad* = dimensional iffyness, periodic table gong titsup, whacking great isotopes hoving into view, that sort of thing.
And trust me...in the space between space, something wakens ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
You get the gist.
The armchair prophets are in a turmoil ! The end is nigh !
Excuse me while I consider the vast implications of the proclamations made by wise entities who haven't got a clue.
Hmm, seems to me there are no implications. Sounds rather like Paco Rabanne prophetizing the dreadful land-impact of Mir, and in the end such pie-in-the-sky foretellers will be proven to be just as wrong as he was.
I mean really, if it was so easy to divine the end of the world, given the number of times I've had Jehovah's Witnesses falling over themselves to warn me I think we'd already be done with the whole thing and playing our harps in the rosy clouds.
No, the world is not going to end. Not before the Sun goes nova anyway. Suck it up, doomsayers, and go rant about porcine fever or something.
'Borrowed'? Is he going to give it back when he's finished with it?
(Adopting dodgy middle eastern accent)
"What the hell is this? I let you borrow my perfectly fine wmd and now look at the state of it! Completely vaporised! No, I don't care what you've done to Geneva, I want my bomb back. You better go round to Kim's and get me another. Ptah, you can't trust anyone with your stuff these days."
at 10:00 BST earth date 30-2-2010 I felt a disturbance in the force ... but I could be taking too much fibre in my diet.
Written at 10:39 BST and the event horizon of the LHC Blackhole hasn't reached Lancashire yet.
As noted TV Boffin/ex-Popster, Brian Cox, commented on the various Large Hardon Collider conspiracy theories "Bollocks"
"The scientific validity of things posted in this forum may stray from reality quite wildly and the reader is advised to keep that in mind"
Can we have something similar for the El Reg comments?
In my view does it really matter what happens. If it causes a super massive black hole, or even a tiny one, then everything would be over so quickly that none of us would have time to notice
I'm not one to get overly twitchy but this does scare the crap out of me.
Given how bad it could be I'm less than convinced by the scientists who seem to be offering no better than, 'it probably won't go bad'. We are toying with the fabric of the universe and no one is really sure of the outcome. If it does go tits-up I don't see any sign of a Plan B.
If 'this is it', I'd just like to say thanks to El Reg, the Moderatrix and fellow Commentards. Nice knowing you. Maybe see you tomorrow.
"We are toying with the fabric of the universe and no one is really sure of the outcome"
If we were sure of the outcome, there wouldn't be any point doing the experiment. This is the very nature of science. Without experimenting with the unknown, there will be no progress.
...is probably in the pay of CERN anyway. After all they wouldn't be getting nearly as much publicity were it not for the tin foil hat brigade. Strike that. They'd be getting no publicity were it not for the loonies.
As for Brian Cox and his "bollocks", I'm with him. Any man for whom pie, curry sauce and half rice half chips is a feast is OK by me.
Hmm.. according to the latest theory the fundamental unit of reality is the bit. As in computer language.
So if just the right sequence of events occurs such as a coincidental cosmic ray impacting a collision region (there are thousands spread across several detectors) it could actually disrupt this fundamental structure of space-time in an unpredictable way.
Effects could vary from new and exotic particles such as monopoles showing up, to mini black holes, Q-balls, strangelets, etc. Oh and there's the possibility of collapsing the wavefunction of say, 5/6ths of the solar system... (BOOM!)
Well if it happens don't say ol' AC didn't warn you. And see you in the Hades Universe...
Dr. Dark Energy sounds like a Russian version of Gene Ray. While it is certainly comforting to know that the USA isn't the only country to suffer from rampant crackpots, this development worries me. The potential for mutual escalation in the field should be a concern for all of us, why, we could well see the development of a new MAD (Mutual Amused Distraction, in this case).
Perhaps we should start early working on detente, maybe even by introducing Dr. D.E. to the idea of the Timecube.
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