British Scientist to End World on Wednesday

It's like you read a history book that didn't include Tesla's equally numerous failures. It's part of science, a failure is often times just as worthy as a success.

This is a pretty big chunk of it right here... Simply being able to know whether something is true or false can be a godsend. If we discover that there really is dark matter in the universe, then we now have a place to start building new theories. If we can't find dark matter in the way that we expect to, then that means we were barking up the wrong tree and now understand that it we need different direction -- and we can test again when we're ready.

Not a single one of Tesla's inventions worked right on the very first try, and if you somehow believe that this belittles what he accomplished, then you're just being absurd.
 
Well here's the thing I don't understand..lots of people are making a big deal out of this and some even say it will be the find of the century. In my opinion find of the century means something revolutionary not evolutionary. I just don't see anything revolutionary coming out of this unless we do find something like a miniature black hole, zero-point energy source, anti-matter, gravitons etc. Have we learned anything useful from previous colliders? If so what have we learned?
 
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Well here's the thing I don't understand..lots of people are making a big deal out of this and some even say it will be the find of the century. In my opinion find of the century means something revolutionary not evolutionary. I just don't see anything revolutionary coming out of this unless we do find something like a miniature black hole, zero-point energy source, anti-matter, gravitons etc. Have we learned anything useful from previous colliders? If so what have we learned?

Let's step back for a second, and let's ask ourselves how to define "revolutionary". If I understand what you're trying to say, then the following items are also true:

Sailing west until finding the Americas was not a revolutionary step -- the technology for sailing long distances already existed. It was an evolutionary step, as in someone took the time and the risk to take it that much further.

Horseless carriages were not a revolutionary step -- the technology for steam propulsion already existed (boiling water, pressure cylinders, etc) however it just wasn't big enough. Someone just needed to put the two together and make it reliable.

Electric lighting was not a revolutionary step -- electricity was around in two distinct flavors, and the obvious heat = light emission hypothesis had existed for millenia. We needed someone to figure out which metal to use that would stand getting hot enough to glow without breaking.

Nuclear fission was not a revolutionary step -- people had already hypothesized that atoms were made of smaller pieces. The science behind figuring out the basics of radiation and unstable atomic masses had already taken place... Someone just needed to smash two very unstable atoms together using some explosives to make them go bonkers.

No single person invented these things in their entirety; in each and every case, a person (or group of people) stood on top of previous invention(s) and science and carried it to the next step. That's how these things work. You don't go from a blank slate to a flying car -- you figure out how to make a car, you then figure out how to make things fly, and then you figure out how to mix the two into something usable. Each one of those "big" items breaks down into smaller items -- making a car could consist of making tires, making wheels, making bearings, making gauges and dials, ensuring structural rigidity while keeping low weight. Making things fly could consist of finding a source of rotational power, propeller blade selection, angle of attack of the individual blades, quantity of blades, structural rigidity of these blades, determing a way to steer, etc.

People love to hear "ZOMG revolutionary!!!" but the reality is quite far from that. Steam power revolutionized transportation, but mass-capacity steam-driven power was an evolutionary step from something smaller, which was again an evolutionary step from something smaller, which again and again and again was yet another step from something even smaller.

Perhaps you need to consider your frame of reference before decrying "revolutionary versus evolutionary"
 
The LHC could be revolutionary (in fact many of us hope for just that) in the sense that it might give us glimpses of new physics that we haven't thought off yet.

Particle accelerators throughout the ages have done this before. For instance the discovery of the muon came as a complete surprise (and hence generations of matter)

If say we see Supersymmetry, that also will be very exciting b/c its part of a logical chain that leads to some very interesting places (it would be strong motivation for string theory for instance).

It is true that we are getting pretty good at guessing, at least the broad outlines of potential new physics models, b/c theoretically there aren't many possibilities that are internally consistent. Still nature has a tendency to throw curve balls, so we shall see.
 
I didn't say it did. I'm just trying to find out what they're trying to find and what it would mean, but nobody knows, not even the scientists.

You argument is backwards. If they knew what they would find they wouldn't need to build this thing.

Do you think Bohr, De Broglie, Schrödinger, Heisenbergh and all the rest knew their adventure into quantum mechanics would lead to the transistor which in turn would lead to you having a small box next to you with *billions* of small devices in it that only works because of our understanding of quantum mechanics ?

They didn't.

If you think Tesla's revolutionary discoveries were easy to find you're deluding yourself. A scientist today would be lucky to even discover a single one of Tesla's revolutionary discoveries back then let alone dozens.

You are mixing science and technology. And you seem to have a crush on Tesla.

Science is knowledge about the fabric of reality. Technology is the application of this knowledge to build gizmos. Tesla's contributions to science are modest. His talent was in applying knowledge developed by others to solve problems for people, most notably electricity distribution using alternating current. His other talent was in theatrics, - going all out as the archetypical extravagant mad man scientist.

Huh? I don't think anyone has proven that dark matter actually exist? AFAIK DM is just a concept, theory.

How the fuck will we know what it is if we don't work to expand our knowledge ?

Cheers
 
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You know I could understand some of the hoopla surrounding the LHC eg biggest collider in the world, biggest teams, most money spent, decades of waiting blah blah balh, but what I want to know is WTF is the PURPOSE of this? What do we hope to get out of it? I don't get it.:rolleyes:

That's why you're not a nuclear physicist. In simple terms look at this as getting into a boat in south-west Spain and setting sail westwards looking for India.

Sure it's a noble effort but as far as I could tell we're at stageof diminishing returns scientific stagnation making itty bitty steps ...evolutionary science not revolutionary. The golden years are long gone and that's sad.
The easy stuff has been done. Maybe that's what you're getting at here, we've done the easy stuff and now that the going has got a bit tough we should give up? It's only when you try to do the hard stuff that you really find the interesting things.

Lord Kelvin is quoted as having said the following:

"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement."

which sounds eerily similar to what you're trying to say doesn't it? Basically we know everythng there is to know, from now on it's just evolutionary. Kelvin made that statement in 1900. The efforts of a few household names(*) in the few decades after that proved him really rather spectacularly wrong.

(*) Einstein. Schrodinger. Fermi. Dirac. Pauli. Heisenberg.
 
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Why didn't they just ask Chuck Norris to simply clap his hands together?

The Norris Boson is the fundamental particle that applies force in a roundhouse kick. That's all you need to know about life, the universe and everything.
 
I saw the documentary yesterday and they interviewed prof. Rossler, his theory is plausible except for one thing: (AFAICR) microscopic black holes are not stable and will disappear instantly.

The Schwarzschild radius is ~10^-50 metres if all 14 TeV is converted to black hole. If a black hole 10^15 times smaller than planck length, 10^35 times smaller than an atomic nucleus can even exist and is stable; would that be a ravenous beast?
 
You missed my point.

As far as I can tell your point was that time travel would be a worthwhile discovery while whatever we get out of the LHC won't be. My response is that if timetravel exists, then the results from LHC are a necessary step in getting us to it. Not a direct step obviously but without knowing more about the basic workings of the universe (which we can't do without something like LHC), we are never going to get any closer to those crazy technologies which you deem worthwhile.


If you think Tesla's revolutionary discoveries were easy to find you're deluding yourself. A scientist today would be lucky to even discover a single one of Tesla's revolutionary discoveries back then let alone dozens.

Not easy, but relatively easy. Tesla could test his theories with everyday apparatus. Testing what kind of particles exist at these kind of energy levels would have been impossible back then.

You mean like antigravity, teleportaton and time travel? I don't know about you but the majority of scientist don't believe in those things. Only a few believe those things to be even possible because the math says that it COULD be possible not that it WILL be possible.

Yes, and if the maths say it could be possible don't you think it might be a good idea to test the maths to see if it actually is? Let me introduce you to the LHC :smile:

Seriously though, obviously they aren't directly testing time travel or teleportation theories but they are doing research which one day might lead to those type of things. I guess its kind of like researching electricity. You could argue that "what will knowing more about electrons do for us?"

But then you look at what we eventually were able to do with electricity and its clear that having such a narrow focus could lead to massive loss of opportunities.

Huh? I don't think anyone has proven that dark matter actually exist? AFAIK DM is just a concept, theory.

Yes, one that the LHC might be able to confirm or refute for us. Don't you think thats important? The eventual fate of our universe is directly tied to this concept so I see it as pretty important. And thats to say nothing of the potential there might be in an invisible form of matter that outweighs everything we can see 5 to 1.
 
If nothings going to happen why is Gordon Freeman there ?
This part of Half Life plot always intrigued me. You're 27, you have spent last 8 years getting education in prestiguous school, you have earned your PhD in Particle Physics... then you land with job, where you push a basket.
 
Well here's the thing I don't understand..lots of people are making a big deal out of this and some even say it will be the find of the century. In my opinion find of the century means something revolutionary not evolutionary. I just don't see anything revolutionary coming out of this unless we do find something like a miniature black hole, zero-point energy source, anti-matter, gravitons etc. Have we learned anything useful from previous colliders? If so what have we learned?
Er, first of all, anti-matter is old hat. That was discovered a long time ago.

As for what previous particle accelerators have discovered, that would be the standard model, a theory which describes everything that we currently know that makes up the universe around us, as well as three of the four forces that describe how this stuff interacts. The standard model of particle physics, however, has stood for essentially 30 years, with precious little in the way of new discoveries in that time.

But with the LHC, we're finally probing energies where the standard model fails to make predictions that make any sense, so we expect to start seeing something new. We expect to see a glimpse of some new physics beyond the standard model. If this happens, then the LHC may allow us to discovery an entirely new theory of physics. That would be revolutionary.
 
Yeah but you still woudn't want to stub your toe on it getting out of bed in the morning.

Your foot would be late for work due to general relativity.
Actually, your foot would be torn apart by the tidal forces near the event horizon. Small black holes have some really nasty tidal forces (they actually get smaller for more massive ones).

Also bear in mind the strength of gravity near an Earth-mass black hole: the Earth itself is around 6,000km in radius. So, let's say we get within 10cm of the Earth-mass black hole. That puts the force at around (60,000)^2 times as strong as it is at the surface of the Earth, or around 3.6 billion g's. And that's before taking General Relativity into effect.
 
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