You're not fooling me. That there's a Stargate.

When they turn that thing on, the aliens from the other side will take over! Don't do it Jacques!

The really big dig

Are these the same people who built the Big Dig?

Shug-you beat me to it!

Run for your lives we're all going to be sucked into a Black Hole.

Oh, sorry. I was thinking about an Obama Presidency.

This is important research. Hopefully the scientists will get some impressive data, and with the minds and computer technology all working together like never before we may finally unlock the mysteries of the mind of Manny Ramirez

re: #4 little boomer

Are these the same people who built the Big Dig?

No, it's done on time and under budget

Stargate deep six.

It's going to create a black hole and suck in the earth
OMYGODWEALLAREGOINGTODIE!

*runs screaming from the planet*

Cool.

re: #7 Shug

This is important research. Hopefully the scientists will get some impressive data, and with the minds and computer technology all working together like never before we may finally unlock the mysteries of the mind of Manny Ramirez

so it's alternate universe work.

Hey! I've got one of them in my basement! I wondered what that thing was...

Oooooooooh!

I want one!

[checking out the GSA auction site. . . .]

Caption this

re: #10 jcm

It's going to create a black hole and suck in the earth
OMYGODWEALLAREGOINGTODIE!

*runs screaming from the planet*

turning Earth into a small ball of strangelets

There's a dirty joke in there somewhere.

re: #4 little boomer

Are these the same people who built the Big Dig?

Is it leaking?

re: #15 Shug

Caption this

I told 'em it needed a turbocharger.

re: #15 Shug

Caption this

I believe those are technicians transporting Obama's next speech. If there is a leak in that teleprompter, the BS level is lethal!

If you want to know what it does somebody reminded us of this video last night.....
Brian Cox: An inside tour of the world's biggest supercollider
Well worth watching if you haven't seen it before.

re: #15 Shug

Bean day in the cafeteria.

Of course, since it's a French/Swiss Stargate, they'll promptly surrender to the Goa'uld (or declare their neutrality).

Amazing pics!

re: #6 opinionated

Run for your lives we're all going to be sucked into a Black Hole.

Oh, sorry. I was thinking about an Obama Presidency.

Racist!

If anything can go wrong, it will.

/

The top of the page has a gray bar and a large open spot. That thing would fit up there unless the space is being save for some other purpose?

Excellent contribution from Islam to the world of science.

s/

Do they have enough yellow cake to provide the large hadrons?

re: #27 Osama Bin Asshat

Excellent contribution from Islam to the world of science.

s/

If it can't be fitted to a vest, Islam would want nothing to do with it.

The Compact Muon Solenoid is the coolest thing I've seen in a while.

Quit talking about black holes you racist xenophobic conservatives.
/obamanation rant.

But that was really true, these leftwing nutjobs actually tried to convince a judge to stop the project because they claimed it would end life on this planet and the universe. Fortunately the project and the judge deciding the case were more intelligently designed than the libnuts who were protesting and litigating it

re: #27 Osama Bin Asshat

Excellent contribution from Islam to the world of science.

...A joint venture with the Disco Institute.

re: #1 Occasional Reader

You're not fooling me. That there's a Stargate.

Agreed. I'm going to ask all my air force buddies about this.

*ot I saw and hated the Stephen King film "The Mist" last night...ugh. What trash!

re: #6 opinionated

Run for your lives we're all going to be sucked into a Black Hole.

Oh, sorry. I was thinking about an Obama Presidency.

Racist!

/

I want one!

That thing looks like it will take more power than Clark Griswald's Christmas lights........What does Al Gore think about using all that energy?

re: #35 DoubleU

I want one!

Does anyone have a dollar or euro figure for how much this marvel of science cost?

re: #10 jcm You know, y'all should give some credit to Country Joe and The Fish on that line! LOL!

They're going to fire this thing up, and Elvis will come walking out of the tube. Just you wait and see.

The fireman picture cracked me up.

a REALLY super collider

re: #36 Desert Dog

That thing looks like it will take more power than Clark Griswald's Christmas lights........What does Al Gore think about using all that energy?

It probably consumes about the same amount of energy as his Gulfstream 5. I'd be willing to bet the carbon footprint of this facility is less than the sum total of Al Gore's gas guzzling global warming gallivanting.

What kind of benefits to humanity will any discoveries make? Does the technology that goes into building these have any alternate uses?

Is it worth it?

If it's all only for just bragging rights vs. Europe, let them build them.

However, if there are observable benefits from the effort, then I'm all for it.

re: #37 Jetpilot1101

Does anyone have a dollar or euro figure for how much this marvel of science cost?

[Link: en.wikipedia.org...]
Maybe $8b US, but if you have to ask, ...

re: #15 Shug

"As Zombie bravely heads off to another San Fran expose"

re: #38 realwest

You know, y'all should give some credit to Country Joe and The Fish on that line! LOL!

A good panic in the morning get the blood going you know! The the rest of the day is nice and calm.

What is this thing supposed to do?

we cant allow this provocation of Iran, B Hussein will shut it down after he's coronated (uh, ah, inaugurated)

/

re: #44 itellu3times

[Link: en.wikipedia.org...]
Maybe $8b US, but if you have to ask, ...

...you can't afford one.

And yet the Super Monkey Collider still can't get the crucial funding it needs. Where are our priorities?

re: #43 Shay4l

See the video at #20. We know very little about how our universe works. Shortly after it is turned on we will get the next version of E=mc2. It's pretty big stuff.

re: #47 MandyManners

See #20.

re: #50 Throbert McGee

Ha!

re: #47 MandyManners

What is this thing supposed to do?

Large Hadron Collider

It's all over my head, my degree is in History and Poly Sci

re: #47 MandyManners

Very simply (it's my brother that is the PhD) it takes particles of matter and speeds them up to insane speeds to slam into each other and we get to understand/observe what results. The focus is ususally on the nature of sub-atomic particles and the behavior of the pieces inside the various atoms.

I think.

If someone else knows the precise nature of the tests, please correct me.

re: #10 jcm

al is way ahead of you...Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket

re: #47 MandyManners

What is this thing supposed to do?

Simplest explanation, it takes small particles and makes them go very fast. That small particle then is smashed into another small target particle. The particle disintegrate. The look at the debris of the collisions to see what the particles are made of.

Great News: Obama and McCain are TIED in the latest Gallup daily poll.

The tide has turned, at least temporarily.

You guys are cruel. Poor little protons...

goodbye cruel world!

So is smashing protons anything like smashing pumpkins?

re: #45 Mars Needs Neocons

Good God, why would anyone even be caught dead in that muck and filth...

...I don't care how good the sushi is.

re: #61 Syrah

So is smashing protons anything like smashing pumpkins?

More like launching pumpkins.

This should have been built in America, by the way. And let's not be too hard on the liberals for that. A lot of conservatives thought it was a useless expensive boondoggle.

re: #15 Shug

Caption this

Helmet? check

Cargo Pod attached/? check

Proper Tire Inflation? Say again control?

re: #63 jcm

More like launching pumpkins.

Great googly moogly!

I have got to get one of those!

re: #61 Syrah

So is smashing protons anything like smashing pumpkins?

This goes one better -- lots of photos from past competitions down in side. The big air cannons are awesome.

re: #49 brainwizard73

I know I can't afford one but if I could, I'd want one. I don't suppose there are plans to build something similar or larger in the US? I figure that project alone would put a dent in unemployment numbers. Maybe the Messiah should adopt the building of a Super Large Hadron Collider in Kansas as one of his campaign promises.

re: #64 Tigger2005

This should have been built in America, by the way. And let's not be too hard on the liberals for that. A lot of conservatives thought it was a useless expensive boondoggle.

Super Conducting Super Collider.

re: #64 Tigger2005

Yup, our version of this was scrapped in the early 90's as a cost cutting measure. It's a shame that these amazing discoveries are going to happen in Europe instead of the US.

the big bang in reverse? or in real time?

re: #20 Killgore Trout

If you want to know what it does somebody reminded us of this video last night.....
Brian Cox: An inside tour of the world's biggest supercollider
Well worth watching if you haven't seen it before.

I still don't understand a thing.

re: #67 pre-Boomer Marine brat

This goes one better -- lots of photos from past competitions down in side. The big air cannons are awesome.

GMTA!

See my re: #63 jcm

More like launching pumpkins.

re: #63 jcm

More like launching pumpkins.

Second Amendment! Awesome!
Dammit! You BEAT me!

re: #67 pre-Boomer Marine brat

re: #36 Desert Dog

That thing looks like it will take more power than Clark Griswald's Christmas lights........What does Al Gore think about using all that energy?

They are sleeping with the lights off as an offset.

re: #73 jcm

LOL
We're tripping over each other!

re: #72 MandyManners
mandy i didn't understand much of it either, but i will watch it again to be sure i am just dumb : } still the instructor was so darn cute!

The European Organization for Nuclear Research

American socialist progressives will not stand for Nuclear proliferation!
Nancy Pelosi just turned off the lights in disgust.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave."

/HAL

Where's the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!

/ channeling Luddites and disappointed Martians.

Gotta wonder, what is a "Time Projection chamber", and how soone can i buy one at WalMart?

re: #47 MandyManners

What is this thing supposed to do?

You walk inside, and when you come out the other end - all your protons are smashed.

The Globe of Innovation looks cool, but Buckminster Fuller did it better.

re: #72 MandyManners

I still don't understand a thing.

Break things apart and see what's inside.

re: #73 jcm

Did you see the "Days of Destruction" at the bottom of the page? Really cool!

re: #82 FrogMarch

You walk inside, and when you come out the other end - all your protons are smashed.

Oh, so its a bar then?

re: #82 FrogMarch
uh uh, would that be a standard pink mist or a general disintegration without the muss?

Has anybody else noticed that reporters writing newspaper stories like to misspell "hadron"?

This horrible machine is trying to disprove the existence of God, and therefore it should be shunned.

/

re: #83 Pshawalaw

The Globe of Innovation looks cool, but Buckminster Fuller did it better.

I would like to see a large scale Tensegrity project.

re: #72 MandyManners

It's like a smash up derby for particles. They a a big track and get protons spinning clockwise near the speed of light. They get another buch going counter clockwise then they run them into each other head on. When they hit each other the protons break apart and we get to see what they are made of.

re: #85 pre-Boomer Marine brat

Did you see the "Days of Destruction" at the bottom of the page? Really cool!

Holy Moly!

re: #89 Occasional Reader
i just want to know if it can also wash , dry, and fold clothes neatly?

re: #88 astroturf

Yeah, don't make that typo while googling.

re: #93 willowone

i just want to know if it can also wash , dry, and fold clothes neatly?

Protons are dryclean-only, unfortunately.

The pictures are fantastic.

re: #90 jcm

I would like to see a large scale Tensegrity project.

That's interesting, I'll have to take some time to read it through.

What good is it? Does it feed anyone? House anyone? Cure the sick?

Man, I'm grumpy today.

re: #92 jcm

Holy Moly!

And just in case you haven't, wander through the PunkinChunkin site I linked to in my #67. Look at the smaller engines, like the torsion-powered and the trebuchets, and the fun stuff. There's some serious engineering there. It's neat.

it is gorgeous , even if i don't understand the future applications relevance

re: #98 MandyManners

What good is it? Does it feed anyone? House anyone? Cure the sick?

Man, I'm grumpy today.

Naw, but Slick Willie thinks it's a helluva improvement over Monica.

re: #99 pre-Boomer Marine brat

And just in case you haven't, wander through the PunkinChunkin site I linked to in my #67. Look at the smaller engines, like the torsion-powered and the trebuchets, and the fun stuff. There's some serious engineering there. It's neat.

High schools should compete with such engineering projects. If they did, they would have to hire more physics and science instructors to meet the demand.

mandy i don't really know but i'm wondering if these same types of studies are what brought us , lazer for military, atom bombs and so on.

Don't miss the last photo. yowza

re: #86 Pshawalaw

Oh, so its a bar then?

a very cold bar. I'm not going in without a sweater.

re: #102 Syrah

High schools should compete with such engineering projects. If they did, they would have to hire more physics and science instructors to meet the demand.

Agree!

The PunkinChunkin November Championships has a kids competition.

re: #99 pre-Boomer Marine brat

And just in case you haven't, wander through the PunkinChunkin site I linked to in my #67. Look at the smaller engines, like the torsion-powered and the trebuchets, and the fun stuff. There's some serious engineering there. It's neat.

I actually like the trebuchets the best. A guy in my office has one made out of folded paper about a foot high. It will throw a marble 50 feet.

re: #107 jcm

I actually like the trebuchets the best. A guy in my office has one made out of folded paper about a foot high. It will throw a marble 50 feet.

I made one of balsa wood (authentic Middle Ages design, about a foot high at the pivot) as a project during my sophomore year in high school. It looked better than it worked. RATS!

The Large Hadron Rap - it's da' bomb. More physics than you can shake a stick at...

re: #98 MandyManners

It's very likely that it will improve computers, methods of communication, virtually unlimited sources of cheap renewable energy. Trust me, it will probably be the most important experiment in 100 years (at least in the top three).

re: #109 Stone Bunkum

Heh.

I love photographs of super-complex technology -- there's real beauty in orderly stuff.
If this hadron thing works as the designers hoped - good on 'em.
Otherwise it might blow up real good [channeling SCTV].

Charles, just a suggestion, but more posts with pictures like this and fewer posts with pictures of naked men would be OK with me. Just sayin'.

re: #98 MandyManners

What good is it? Does it feed anyone? House anyone? Cure the sick?

Man, I'm grumpy today.

Who knows, it may lead to improved breakfast drinks and better clothing fasteners, or fusion power and antigravity, or better theories of what makes stars blow up.

It's basic research. Consider it also an educational expense, it keeps scientists motivated and busy, in case we need them for almost any kind of applied projects. The money spent does not go into a black hole, it pays all kinds of engineers and machinists, if the speculative knowledge isn't a sure enough payoff, it's at least a public works project for PhDs.

Me, my taste runs towards stuff like the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is a proposed large aperture, ground-based, wide field survey telescope designed to provide digital images of faint astronomical objects across the entire sky, night after night. It will have an 8.4-meter primary mirror with effective collecting area equivalent to a 6.7-m diameter unobstructed primary and a field of view of 10 square-degrees. In a relentless campaign of 15 second exposures with its 3.2 Giga pixel camera, the LSST will cover the full available sky every three nights, opening a movie-like window on objects that change or move on rapid timescales: exploding supernovae, potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids, and distant Kuiper Belt Objects. The superb images from the LSST will also be used to trace billions of remote galaxies and measure the distortions in their shapes produced by concentrations of Dark Matter, providing multiple tests of the mysterious Dark Energy.

Nice article in this month's Sky and Telescope, but not online, sorry.

Picture

re: #15 Shug

Obama's first "under the bus" response team for dealing with delicate situations is revealed.

Emergency response teams cope with the new rules under an Obama Presidency.

Now, we know how the Iranians deal with Ahmadinejad's laundry.

re: #30 Killgore Trout

The Compact Muon Solenoid is the coolest thing I've seen in a while.

I think the photos of these structures, and even more the structures themselves, are more beautiful than any artwork for any sci-fi book or film.
Astounding.

This is so cool!
We have been trying to figure out where to go on our next trip to Europe. We have decided to go to Geneva and take the half-day tour of CERN.
Hey! It's a cheap excuse to go to Switzerland. And Geneva's French speaking so I can actually get around.

re: #109 Stone Bunkum thank you for that

re: #110 Killgore Trout

It's very likely that it will improve computers, methods of communication, virtually unlimited sources of cheap renewable energy. Trust me, it will probably be the most important experiment in 100 years (at least in the top three).

Thanks! My mind is feeling cramped today.

Atom Smasher moonbat reading (Dedicated to Charles)

now for finding the 5th dimension

re: #107 jcm

I actually like the trebuchets the best. A guy in my office has one made out of folded paper about a foot high. It will throw a marble 50 feet.

Yankee Seige

Enjoy

Will this show us dinosaur and quark footprints side by side?

re: #98 MandyManners

What good is it? Does it feed anyone? House anyone? Cure the sick?

Man, I'm grumpy today.

hope you get feeling better..
Science is good.. in the end, we all benefit..

re: #119 MandyManners

They are also looking at antimatter. Less that a gram of antimater has enough energy to launch the space shuttle. If we could find an efficient way to make and store it the implications are huge.

re: #20 Killgore Trout

If you want to know what it does somebody reminded us of this video last night.....
Brian Cox: An inside tour of the world's biggest supercollider
Well worth watching if you haven't seen it before.

Thank you for that.

re: #55 brainwizard73

Very simply (it's my brother that is the PhD) it takes particles of matter and speeds them up to insane speeds to slam into each other and we get to understand/observe what results. The focus is ususally on the nature of sub-atomic particles and the behavior of the pieces inside the various atoms.

I think.

If someone else knows the precise nature of the tests, please correct me.

Oh c'mon, make up some more stuff!

re: #123 JamesTKirk

Will this show us dinosaur and quark footprints side by side?

Nothing to see here. Muon, muon.

/sorry

Is it ironic that it takes such big machines to move such small objects?

re: #122 pre-Boomer Marine brat

Yankee Seige

Enjoy

Dave Barry had an article on those guys in TX that built a trebuchet to throw cars. Barry's point was the difference between men and women.
Men say, COOL!
Women say, why?

re: #128 pre-Boomer Marine brat

Nice one!

re: #98 MandyManners

What good is it? Does it feed anyone? House anyone? Cure the sick?

Um, the World Wide Web was a byproduct of the particle-smooshing experiments conducted by CERN (the Frawnch acronym meaning "European Council for Nuclear Research"), so there's that.

re: #130 jcm

Dave Barry had an article on those guys in TX that built a trebuchet to throw cars. Barry's point was the difference between men and women.
Men say, COOL!
Women say, why?

Yeah, I know.
Mandy will just never get it.

*scrambling under the computer desk*

re: #98 MandyManners

What good is it? Does it feed anyone? House anyone? Cure the sick?

Man, I'm grumpy today.

Today no. But what's discovered will in the future make all those things easier, cheaper and better.

re: #103 willowone

Indeed. Cyclotrons helped make it possible to conduct experiments on transuranium elements - Lawrence worked on the Manhattan project.

re: #125 Killgore Trout

They are also looking at antimatter. Less that a gram of antimater has enough energy to launch the space shuttle. If we could find an efficient way to make and store it the implications are huge.

Will the environmentalists let us use antimatter without a million lawsuits? If so, then I think it is worth the effort.

re: #98 MandyManners

What good is it? Does it feed anyone? House anyone? Cure the sick?

Man, I'm grumpy today.

JMV tends to have that effect.

re: #113 MrBlonde21

Charles, just a suggestion, but more posts with pictures like this and fewer posts with pictures of naked men would be OK with me. Just sayin'.

When's the San Francisco under-40 lesbian festival?

i am sooo glad to be turned onto this site, everyday is something new to discover, and many to help explain intent of discoveries and usefullness of, where-else could you find such a wise group.

Did someone say "Supercollider"?

re: #135 lawhawk
as i was just pondering , and others suggestions for possible use, indeed this is actually mindblowing in information

re: #20 Killgore Trout

It's striking to watch Brian Cox, (and other scientists on TED) make their presentations without scripts, without teleprompters. What a contrast to the political speeches we've seen lately. No umms to speak of, no searching for the right weasel words. What a pleasure to hear someone speak fluently about their work.

re: #55 brainwizard73

Very simply (it's my brother that is the PhD) it takes particles of matter and speeds them up to insane speeds to slam into each other and we get to understand/observe what results. The focus is ususally on the nature of sub-atomic particles and the behavior of the pieces inside the various atoms.

I think.

If someone else knows the precise nature of the tests, please correct me.

It throws a rock through a window, and then tells you what the window is made of by measuring the speed and spin of the pieces.

re: #137 debutaunt

JMV tends to have that effect.

I sometimes have a fantasy that LGF has an ignore feature so that people whose raison d'etre is annoying people can just talk to themselves, like IRL, instead of highjacking threads.

(My other fantasies are a lot more interesting.)

re: #142 jaunte

It's very rare to find a scientists who can dumb things down and tell us "normal" people what they are doing in an entertaining way. Stephen Hawking is really good at it too. The lesson that the folks at CERN learned is that if they made their case to politicians and the public about the importance of their experiments then they could get the funding for them. Let's hope that American scientists have learned the same lesson.

re: #144 Shay4l

I sometimes have a fantasy that LGF has an ignore feature so that people whose raison d'etre is annoying people can just talk to themselves, like IRL, instead of highjacking threads.

(My other fantasies are a lot more interesting.)

Too True. He's still downthread shitting away. I wonder if when he receives his marching orders from Obambi, does he have to give him the San Fran Handshake?

bbl

re: #144 Shay4l

I sometimes have a fantasy that LGF has an ignore feature so that people whose raison d'etre is annoying people can just talk to themselves, like IRL, instead of highjacking threads.

(My other fantasies are a lot more interesting.)

Yes! A virtual paint gun fight with those who get the highest number of annoy-votes!

re: #145 Killgore Trout

The "Margaret Thatcher enters a cocktail party" illustration of what the Higgs particles are all about was a great story.

Fantastic photographs.

At Boston dot com, they have an interesting comment thread with some links worth checking out.

Including, about safety, a link to an article titled "The end of the world as we know it?." There is a little blurb in this article that says the USA was building their own "much bigger particle accelerator." But, alas, the physicist could not answer the question if it was going to discover God.

[Link: www.guardian.co.uk...]

It is easy to forget that the US had begun building a much bigger particle accelerator in the 1990s, called the Superconducting Supercollider, which was cancelled by Congress in 1993. In the last days of hearings, one congressman asked an important question: "Will we find God with this machine? If so, I will vote for it." The poor physicist at the hearing was thrown by the question and failed to give a convincing answer, and the SSC was soon cancelled - the whole business of digging a hole for the SSC and filling it in cost $2bn of US taxpayers' money.

Since then, we physicists have replayed that scene over and over again in our minds. How should we have answered that question?

I don't know, but I would have said the following: "God. By whatever signs or symbols you ascribe to the deity. This machine, the supercollider, will take us as close as humanly possible to his or her greatest creation, genesis. This is a genesis machine, designed to study the greatest event in all history: the birth of the universe."

Large scale example of the collider.

By looking at all the pieces, they can tell what the cars are made out of.

re: #150 Webler

"This is a genesis machine, designed to study the greatest event in all history: the birth of the universe."

It's gonna take a shitload of candles for the celebration.

re: #144 Shay4l

I sometimes have a fantasy that LGF has an ignore feature so that people whose raison d'etre is annoying people can just talk to themselves, like IRL, instead of highjacking threads.

(My other fantasies are a lot more interesting.)

Posters like that are useful in that they help indicate just how deep and in what direction the left's delusions run.

re: #153 Syrah

Posters like that are useful in that they help indicate just how deep and in what direction the left's delusions run.

Yeah, but it seems to me that nodroG JMV used to try harder.

re: #154 Mars Needs Neocons

Yeah, but it seems to me that nodroG JMV used to try harder.

The task may be getting more difficult.

the comments below the pics are great

Why does it have to be 17 miles long?

re: #47 MandyManners

What is this thing supposed to do?

It separates the large hadrons from the small and middle-size ones, and then it knocks them together. I expect that it makes a loud noise when that happens. I don't know... BAM! or CLANG! or something. If it just goes foosh, it would be a disappointment.

re: #155 Syrah

The task may be getting more difficult.

Defending the undefendable? That means he will resort to ad hominem attacks soon.

re: #150 Webler

"Will we find God with this machine? If so, I will vote for it."

Our dumb politicians and our undereducated public really share the blame for handing our scientific superiority over to the European but I still wish the scientists had made a better case. The American love a fair with science may be over but I hope not.

re: #159 Mars Needs Neocons

Defending the undefendable? That means he will resort to ad hominem attacks soon.

IF so, we win.

He and those like him make a good whetstone for our argumentation skills.

re: #157 SR_guy

Why does it have to be 17 miles long?

The long the tunnel, the longer the time under acceleration, the higher the collision speed, the greater the energy. They get smaller pieces to look at.

My geeky brother works at a particle accelerator. I work in a bicycle shop. We say he's the quantum mechanic, and I'm the bicycle mechanic. I think it's funny, but I think he thinks it's kinda pathetic.

re: #160 Killgore Trout

Our dumb politicians and our undereducated public really share the blame for handing our scientific superiority over to the European but I still wish the scientists had made a better case. The American love a fair with science may be over but I hope not.

I think its more to do with the now nearly 20-year-long love affair in American Physics departments with string theory, and the accompanying disregard of other fields of theoretical physics. Lee Smolin's 'The Trouble with Physics' gives a brilliant account, as does Peter Woit in his 'Not even wrong' ...

Remember The Time Tunnel? Classic cheesy TV.

re: #163 wrenchwench

My geeky brother works at a particle accelerator. I work in a bicycle shop. We say he's the quantum mechanic, and I'm the bicycle mechanic. I think it's funny, but I think he thinks it's kinda pathetic.

IF you wake up in the morning and you want to go to work, you have the right job.

re: #160 Killgore Trout

Our dumb politicians and our undereducated public really share the blame for handing our scientific superiority over to the European but I still wish the scientists had made a better case. The American love a fair with science may be over but I hope not.

Teaching kids since my show some of them are not as smart as others, we can't have that now. Everyone must have equally high vacuous self esteem.

Barry the Prophet, is the patron saint.

I can't wait for smashing to begin.

Even if it creates a black hole that destroys the earth, it will have been glorious!

re: #163 wrenchwench

My geeky brother works at a particle accelerator. I work in a bicycle shop. We say he's the quantum mechanic, and I'm the bicycle mechanic. I think it's funny, but I think he thinks it's kinda pathetic.

A couple of bicycle mechanics taught us to fly.

re: #163 wrenchwench

He won't think its pathetic any more when Alfore and BO have their ghastly way, get everybody on their bikes and close down all those costly science labs ...

I'm impressed. And I feel rather "tiny" in comparison. (I've been into the SLAC accelerator and even part way into one of the tunnels thanks to a friend who worked there. And this puppy dwarfs SLAC.)

(Thank you Willy, for that visit!)
{^_^}

re: #170 yma o hyd

PIMF - its Aglore, natch, not a variety of an Italian oven ...

re: #153 Syrah

Posters like that are useful in that they help indicate just how deep and in what direction the left's delusions run.

Well, I've seen a lot of good threads highjacked by people trying to get them to admit 2+2+4, which they never will, of course. People can't resist trying, which is why the threads get highjacked.

Should read 2+2=4 forgot to preview

Wonderful photos! Some worth framing as abstracts.

re: #112 least

I love photographs of super-complex technology -- there's real beauty in orderly stuff.

Me too.

re: #55 brainwizard73

Very simply (it's my brother that is the PhD) it takes particles of matter and speeds them up to insane speeds to slam into each other and we get to understand/observe what results. The focus is ususally on the nature of sub-atomic particles and the behavior of the pieces inside the various atoms.

I think.

If someone else knows the precise nature of the tests, please correct me.

My son does stuff on a synchrotron. He is researching the structure of crystals of certain RNA. Is that similar?

re: #1 Occasional Reader

You're not fooling me. That there's a Stargate.

INDEED. Didn't you know the episode "Wormhole EXXtreme" was just a parody of a parody?

Assuming this thing does have the potential to rip the fabric of subspace and destroy the galaxy, if not the universe:

If there ever were a time for space aliens to come and save the planet, this would be it.

re: #179 erisldysnomia

Assuming this thing does have the potential to rip the fabric of subspace and destroy the galaxy, if not the universe:

If there ever were a time for space aliens to come and save the planet, this would be it.

Anyone else here think it would be hilarious if aliens showed up to save the earth, and by the reason of being real, caused that ridiculous farce of a film "The Day the Earth Stood Still" to bomb royally? (I really don't think we need the aliens to make that bomb. Totally boring and uninspiring previews so far.)

re: #27 Osama Bin Asshat

Excellent contribution from Islam to the world of science.

s/

Actually that is the main part of the divine virgin regeneration facility. Once operational Allah will be able to produce a googolplex recycled brides a second! Galactic jihad is at hand.

Protonosaurus will walk the Earth

re: #169 jcm

A couple of bicycle mechanics taught us to fly.

A lot of our advances have been based on emulating the nature of other beasts. Trying to emulate birds has led to space shuttles. Trying to emulate fish has led to nuclear submarines.

Now, if the recent discovery that some particles seem to disappear and then reappear at a distance simultaneously is true, then we will have made another huge advance if we can emulate that!

The best thing about the LCH is that it can not fail. If they detect the Higgs particle (which is what causes matter to have mass) then another piece of the puzzle locks into place and they can look for the next piece. If they don't find it then new theories will have to replace current ones (which might be even more exciting). The results of this collider experiment will determine the design of the next, already planned collider.

re: #157 SR_guy

Why does it have to be 17 miles long?

Actually, being in a circle, it's infinitely long (in a sense). But, it's nice to have a big diameter (>5 miles) so that the turns aren't so sharp. At nearly the speed of light, the centrifugal force is huge.

But enough of being serious. When I saw the pics, all I could think was:

Bwa-ha-ha! And now to create my very own credit card!

What under your border?

Don't say Black Hole, that's racist and politically incorrect.
It's a "light deprived hole" or "illumination challenged hole".

And to think we could have had this in Texas. Dang Euros are going to beat us to developing hyperspace jump drives.

re: #44 itellu3times

[Link: en.wikipedia.org...]
Maybe $8b US, but if you have to ask, ...

That's the figure I've seen elsewhere.

And for once... we didn't finance it.

re: #180 Mars Needs Neocons

Anyone else here think it would be hilarious if aliens showed up to save the earth, and by the reason of being real, caused that ridiculous farce of a film "The Day the Earth Stood Still" to bomb royally? (I really don't think we need the aliens to make that bomb. Totally boring and uninspiring previews so far.)

"I Want To Believe" :)

The SCSC was a project well under way in the US. Supposed to go in around the Waco, Tx area when between the lawsuits, the spineless weenies in government, some cost over runs, and the other usual suspects had that project canceled, the engineers and techs fired. That was a very good project had it gone forward. Texas would have been known for the home of high energy physics, fire ants, and researchers who hated the +40 C temperatures.

A handy little site for the real LHC junkies . And why not it's the most exciting basic science project for decades.

I found this blog article about it a few months back, here's an excerpt:

“This boson is so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive, that I have given it a nickname: the God Particle. Why God Particle? Two reasons. One, the publisher wouldn’t let us call it the Goddam Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing. And two, there is a connection, of sorts, to another book, a much older one…

Is “God Particle” the right term for massive mystery in physics?

The only consolation, should it create a black hole which consumes the planet, is that France and Switzerland are at the head of the line.

I sorta hope when they run it full tilt it creates a black hole that makes Calcutta look like a blackhead. Then I won't have to look forward to all the maladies all these drug commercials seem to think I'm liable to get.

It adds a whole new dimension to that old saying, you can tell the men from the boys, by the size and cost of their...

re: #164 yma o hyd

I think its more to do with the now nearly 20-year-long love affair in American Physics departments with string theory, and the accompanying disregard of other fields of theoretical physics. Lee Smolin's 'The Trouble with Physics' gives a brilliant account, as does Peter Woit in his 'Not even wrong' ...

Speaking of String Theory (which some have likened to a religion), I thought I had heard that the work of a certain String Theory "heretic" named A. Garrett Lisi was going to be one of the things tested out with this magnificent contraption.

This guy does his physics work independently because no university (in the US, at least) will sponsor someone who isn't on board with String Theory. How open-minded of them! (Not!)

Anyway, his theory is called "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything", and is described as "Lisi describes how gravity, the standard model bosons, and three generations of fermions can be unified as parts of an E8 superconnection. This unified field theory attempts to describe all fundamental interactions that physicists have observed in nature, and stands as a possible theory of everything, unifying Albert Einstein's general relativity with the standard model of particle physics."

[Link: en.wikipedia.org...]

In other words, the Unified Field Theory and all of particle physics explained all in one shot. If this guy turns out to be right he'll be hailed as our modern day Einstein, but he's the first one to admit (I paraphrase), "but, hey, I could be completely wrong".

re: #145 Killgore Trout

Steven Weinberg's 'Dreams of a Final Theory' is an excellent example of good particle physics 'hasbara' - it's also one of the most lucid and entertaining introductions to basic physics I've read.

So, potential for a unified field theory, endless supplies of energy through the production of anti-matter (assuming we can find a means of containment), possible spectacular global annihilation.

Is there a downside?

Oh, wow!. I mean, just ~wow!~ Now, ~that~ is a product of human spirituality at its finest. The intensity of thought that must have gone into designing and engineering that thing makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

No matter what happens, I've got my crowbar ready.

re: #198 Fierce Guppy

"Wow?" I get, but that's "ingenuity", not "spirituality", I would think. This is a science experiment. "Move along, folks! Nothing spiritual to see here!..."

"Smashing Protons"

Positively sounds like a crappy band...

THIS is the very definition of science.

There is a thesis: That there exists a very large particle that is associated with a field known as the Higgs boson that creates a field that imparts mass to all particles that have a mass.

Smash enough protons together at a high enough energy for a long enough time and the detectors will find this particle.

If they don't after a time and all conditions for discovery have been met, bye, bye standard model.

If it is found eureka.

re: #141 willowone

I am not exactly sure if one can convert a Super Collider into a Cyclotron but here is some information on uranium separation using a Cyclotron:

...plasma separation process (PSP) has been studied as a potentially more efficient uranium-enrichment technique that makes use of the advancing technologies in superconducting magnets and plasma physics. In this process, the principle of ion cyclotron resonance is used to selectively energize the 235 U isotope in a plasma containing 235 U and 238 U ions. A feed plate of solid uranium serves as the source of neutral uranium atoms…plasma is subjected to a uniform magnetic field along the axis of a cylindrical vacuum chamber as the plasma flows from source to collector. The magnetic field is produced by a superconducting magnet located around the outside of the chamber. The high-strength magnetic field produces helical motions of the ions, with the lighter 235 U ions spiraling faster and having a higher ion cyclotron frequency than the heavier 238 U ions. As the ions move toward the collector, they pass through an electric field produced by an excitation coil oscillating at the same frequency as the ion cyclotron frequency of the 235 U ions. This causes the helical orbit of the 235 U ions to increase in radius while having minimal effect on the orbit of the heavier 238 U ions. The plasma flows through a collector of closely spaced, parallel slats, the physical appearance of which roughly resembles a venetian blind. The large-orbit 235 U ions are more likely to deposit on the slats, while the remaining plasma, depleted in 235 U, accumulates on an end plate of the collector. PSP is a batch process that would require several stages to produce HEU from natural feed.

The only countries known to have had serious PSP experimental programs are the United States and France.

Plasma Separation Uranium Enrichment

[And]

Edwin McMillan used the large neutron flux from Lawrence's 37-inch-diameter cyclotron to irradiate uranium. In 1940, with the help of Philip Abelson, Glenn Seaborg, and Emilio Segrè, he found that the irradiated uranium decayed to new elements of atomic number 93 and 94, called neptunium and plutonium. Elements with atomic numbers larger than 92, that of uranium, had never been seen in nature, and scientists had been trying for several years to produce them artificially.

Lawrence and the Bomb

It's a portal into our imagination!

Stop wasting time on this stuff till we drilled for oil in ANWR and off the coast, dangit!

I've seen other photos of that octogonal-ring thingie where, if you look at it from dead centre, it looks suspiciously like the Dharma Initiative logo from LOST.

Can they aim this thing at San Fran ?

PS - looks like a great background set for Terminator 4

Waiting for the End of the World.

Yeah, but what does it DO?

Smash-a-licious!

And muons too!

re: #43 Shay4l

What kind of benefits to humanity will any discoveries make? Does the technology that goes into building these have any alternate uses?

Is it worth it?

If it's all only for just bragging rights vs. Europe, let them build them.

However, if there are observable benefits from the effort, then I'm all for it.

One never knows what practical applications of new theoretical knowledge will ensue. But personally, I think that answering some of the most central questions askable about the fundamental structure of our Universe is its own reward.

re: #129 uncleFuzzy

Is it ironic that it takes such big machines to move such small objects?

No, because it takes so damn much energy to move them so FAST...not to mention the fact that you have to precisely electromagnetically curve them into striking each other at the same time...

I'm betting that Garrett Lisi is right. His theory is just too parsiminous and elegant, and explains and predicts too many things, for me to think that he is wrong.

But we shall soon see.

If anyone is totally in the the dark about the purpose of the LHC then they could do worse than read"the trouble with physics" by Lee Smolin it's one of those books that explain complex esoteric problems in physics without
resort to complex mathematics.
It's very well done.

re: #215 Salamantis

I repeat from the "evole" post, it was not I that thought "heat" was a partical but Brian Cox in the video. see minute 8-9.

re: #47 MandyManners

What is this thing supposed to do?

Discover the secrets of the universe and toast your bread, all at the same time.

When they turn it on, if it flushes outwards like a blue toilet they better be ready to shoot down the Egyptian-looking dudes that walk out....

(Gotta go back and play the original Stargate movie through my new HDMI-upconverting DVD player now....)