So what the heck is a hadron?
By Steve Connor
Wednesday, 10 September 2008

Who is behind today's experiment?

This is probably the biggest international collaboration outside of the United Nations. It has involved something like 10,000 scientists and engineers from 500 research institutes in 80 countries. The building of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been co-ordinated by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Geneva, which carries out studies into particle physics on behalf of the 20 nations that fund it. Cern has already built several particle colliders, or "atom smashers", which have produced fundamental discoveries in physics leading to several Nobel prizes.


How safe is it?

The risks of anything going disastrously wrong are so small as to be insignificant. Reports referring to the "infinitesimally small" risk of the LHC creating a giant black hole have been universally ridiculed by the experts involved in the project – and many more who are not involved.

LONDON (AFP) - Renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has bet 100 dollars (70 euros) that a mega-experiment this week will not find an elusive particle seen as a holy grail of cosmic science, he said Tuesday.

did ya see Hawking's response though?

hawking

......what I was afraid of: they won't discover the Pigs... er Higgs Particle because the earth will no longer exist after tomorrow when the clapper goes on! ...

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

-- E. E. Cummings

Largest particle collider conducts successful test

By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 23 minutes ago

GENEVA - The world's largest particle collider successfully completed its first major test by firing a beam of protons all the way around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel Wednesday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe.


After a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen at 10:36 a.m. (0836 GMT) indicating that the protons had traveled the full length of the US$3.8 billion Large Hadron Collider.

"There it is," project leader Lyn Evans said when the beam completed its lap.

Champagne corks popped in labs as far away as Chicago, where contributing scientists watched the proceedings by satellite. Physicists around the world now have much greater power than ever before to smash the components of atoms together in attempts to see how they are made.

"Well done everybody," said Robert Aymar, director-general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, to cheers from the assembled scientists in the collider's control room at the Swiss-French border.

The organization, known by its French acronym CERN, began firing the protons — a type of subatomic particle — around the tunnel in stages less than an hour earlier.

Now that the beam has been successfully tested in clockwise direction, CERN plans to send it counterclockwise. Eventually two beams will be fired in opposite directions with the aim of recreating conditions a split second after the big bang, which scientists theorize was the massive explosion that created the universe.

did ya see Hawking's response though?

hawking

Two things about this...


First, Hawking's has a history of better against himself. This is the man responsible for a large chunk of the theoretical work done to prove the existence of Black Holes, yet he had a standing bet with Roger Penrose in which he took the position that Black Holes did NOT exist. It was a friendly bet, but something he has sort of become well known for doing.

Second, there are many physicists why are hoping we do not discover the Higgs Boson. In fact, it would actually be rather boring if we did. Proving the existence of this particle does little to move science forward. It simply supports (rather than proves) current theory. In other words, finding it proves nothing...it simply fails to *disprove* something...boring.

Science often makes greater strides forward from our failures and mistakes than it does from our successes.

..

Second, there are many physicists why are hoping we do not discover the Higgs Boson. In fact, it would actually be rather boring if we did. Proving the existence of this particle does little to move science forward. It simply supports (rather than proves) current theory. In other words, finding it proves nothing...it simply fails to *disprove* something...boring.

Science often makes greater strides forward from our failures and mistakes than it does from our successes.

Yes, but the truth is that science NEVER proves any theory. All it does is find evidence in support of a theory. More evidence means more confidence. If it can be used to predict, that is yet more evidence of the truth of a theory. Ability to predict from a theory has great utility.

As a theory matures, getting closer and closer to the truth, there will be less and less wrong with it, and less and less opportunity to disprove it with contravening evidence. Still, often it's the last 10%, or 1%, or .1% which is the most interesting. If we actually found the Higgs boson, perhaps we'd also find that we could do something useful to us with it, or even with the certainty that it existed.

First, Hawking's has a history of better against himself. This is the man responsible for a large chunk of the theoretical work done to prove the existence of Black Holes, yet he had a standing bet with Roger Penrose in which he took the position that Black Holes did NOT exist. It was a friendly bet, but something he has sort of become well known for doing.

Second, there are many physicists why are hoping we do not discover the Higgs Boson. In fact, it would actually be rather boring if we did. Proving the existence of this particle does little to move science forward. It simply supports (rather than proves) current theory. In other words, finding it proves nothing...it simply fails to *disprove* something...boring.

Science often makes greater strides forward from our failures and mistakes than it does from our successes.

...

Science often makes greater strides forward from our failures and mistakes than it does from our successes.

As far as I know, that thing can't create a black hole big enough to actually do anything. Those black holes would be so small they'd dissapate rather quickly.

Now, if you want a scarier thought, it's theorized that in around 60 billion years our nearest neighbor galaxy, Andromeda, will collide with our galaxy. The two galaxies will generate enough energy to burn each other to death while both supermassive black holes at the center of each galaxy will end up merging with one another to create an even bigger supermassive black hole.

Our little end of the galaxy could either be flung out into space, or right at the beginning of the event. But, I'd say if we don't destroy each other with ray guns, we'll be okay since we'll have developed space travel by that point. Hopefully.

May I have all of your money, please?

No truer statement. You've been reading Charles Liu.