So anyone feel like they've been crushed to a singularity yet?

[Stockholm1984]

Will probably happen later once that Swiss experiment gets going properly I guess. Can't help thinking of Half Life whenever I read the news atm. :D

[jdbnsn]

I feel that way every day...

[Drum Thumper]

I feel that way every day...

same here.

[Crimson Sky]

Just be aware that this collider may in fact create something very dangerous. I know this because quite frankly, even the physicists don't really know what will happen ;)

And if you think that the 9 billion dollars it cost to make this thing was funded by people interested in the "good of humankind" you're dreaming. The only way these eggheaded and emotionally detatched scientists could get their funding was by promising the following:


A: New and Nifty Weapons of Mass Destruction
B: Cheap renewable Energy

To think different is just ignorance.

[Luke122]

$9 billion dollars.. I could do quite alot with that kind of money.

[jdbnsn]

I think new WMD's while possible, is unlikely. We are unable to manage or strategically propose a use for any of the currently available systems that isn't self-destructive. I think that future technology directed at warfare is moving away from the "squash'em" theory. Nukes while technically legal to use are extremely expensive and cause worldwide environmental damage as well as have a low kill:dollar ratio, chemical weapons which are cheaper, require carefully constructed and monitored storage and deployment systems and have a better kill:dollar but still cannot come even close to the low cost and incredibly high kill:dollar of biological. The latter two are illegal, but thinking that wars follow laws is also ignorant. My guess is that future warfare super-technology will focus more on disarmament, which indeed could have an application in devices like this. Imagine shutting off the lights on an entire continent or dropping all of their satellites with the push of a button. People looking for WMD's don't have the 9 billion to sink into "maybe's", they'd buy the sure things.

But I do think that this funding was given with hopes for an energy solution as well as any profitable unknowns that may result in exchange for letting the scientists figure out the pesky universe once and for all. One thing to remember when it comes to funding research is that there are never any promises, funding is often treated like future stock in any favorable outcome but the financier always gives knowing it could be for nothing and there are no refunds.

[Omega]

I think new WMD's while possible, is unlikely. We are unable to manage or strategically propose a use for any of the currently available systems that isn't self-destructive. I think that future technology directed at warfare is moving away from the "squash'em" theory. Nukes while technically legal to use are extremely expensive and cause worldwide environmental damage as well as have a low kill:dollar ratio, chemical weapons which are cheaper, require carefully constructed and monitored storage and deployment systems and have a better kill:dollar but still cannot come even close to the low cost and incredibly high kill:dollar of biological. The latter two are illegal, but thinking that wars follow laws is also ignorant. My guess is that future warfare super-technology will focus more on disarmament, which indeed could have an application in devices like this. Imagine shutting off the lights on an entire continent or dropping all of their satellites with the push of a button. People looking for WMD's don't have the 9 billion to sink into "maybe's", they'd buy the sure things.



If the LHC creates a miniature black hole like some physicists theorize it does, 9 billion dollars for a device that could turn your enemy into a mere page in a history book is one hell of a device.

As a superweapon yeah, it's pretty impractical though, but nothing's saying that the scientific and technological advances we might gain from this can't be used to make weapons.

[Drum Thumper]

Lets say that they do end up destroying the world as we know it. Just what are you going to do about it? Nothing, you're dead, along with everyone else.

It's obviously a chance they are willing to take, and we are ultimately powerless to stop them.

[Omega]

Lets say that they do end up destroying the world as we know it. Just what are you going to do about it? Nothing, you're dead, along with everyone else.

It's obviously a chance they are willing to take, and we are ultimately powerless to stop them.

I'm of the mind that we will all die eventually anyways, if the LHC ends the world then I won't be around to care, so I don't care much now.

[simon275]

I reckon portals will open and aliens will spew out into the world. We just need a good opposing force pulling a blue shift for half our lives to stop it. (readies crowbar)

[Stockholm1984]

Was watching BBC news and listening to them talking about the facility being 100m below the surface and thought how similar it sounded to Black Mesa. I wonder if the machine makes that trademark Half Life high-energy beam noise and if the guy monitoring the experiment is called Gordon...?

While I'm so sure about the possibility of using the LHC for a WMD I do think that, as interesting as the project is, the billions of £ spent could have been put to something slightly more useful than this. But as people have already said, if it does go wrong, none of us are going to know anything about it anyway so wouldn't worry about that side of it.

[XcOM]

you've been going through the steam back catalog haven't you?

[Xpirate]

Try to think positively and believe that this 9 billion dollar atom smasher will give us cheap renewable energy. I honestly doubt that the new larger smasher will destroy the world or even provide any new information on the makeup of atomic particles.

[simon275]

you've been going through the steam back catalog haven't you?

Maybe

[killergamer]

well if you guys think this is outrageous then you guy should know that we americans were going to create one that was going to be a mere 50 miles long and this one is only 17 miles. The congress pulled the plug when the cost jumped from 8 billion to over 14 billion $$. Now all there to show is a hugh hole in the ground.

(I'm writing a 5 page report for english on this.)

[Drum Thumper]

Try to think positively and believe that this 9 billion dollar atom smasher will give us cheap renewable energy. I honestly doubt that the new larger smasher will destroy the world or even provide any new information on the makeup of atomic particles.

For some reason, 9 billion dollars is not cheap in my book. 9 billion could buy roughly half ownership in General Motors at the moment, just to put things into perspective.

[Xpirate]

For some reason, 9 billion dollars is not cheap in my book.

Dang right! That is why I hope that they actually find out something important with the big atom collider. But I am somewhat pessimistic in believing that they will.

I remember that 50 mile long super collider that we were going to produce in the US. Clinton put a stop to it.

The whole point of this thing is to find more sub-atomic particles by hitting the atoms together with more force than they ever have before. This is like figuring out how a Swiss watch works by throwing two of them together as hard as you can and analyzing the pieces. That is what they are doing with two atomic particles.

[Quakken]

Why not just use a very tiny knife?

[Pointy_Stick]

Wow, lots of negativity for the LHC in this thread, particularly with regards to destroying the Earth and potential use as a superweapon. As a supporter of LHC, I'd like to weigh in on the issue.

Firstly, the doomsday scenario. I believe the scientitsts when thay say there is no chance of it destroying the world. One, because they know a hell of a lot more about it than I do, and two, if it was going to kill everybody, that would include the scientists, who I don't think are suicidal. They don't want to be smooshed into a entity of near infinite mass any more than I do.

As far as use a WMD goes, I don't deny for a moment that the information gained from the experiemnts could be used to create new weapons. But this is the way it has been since the dawn of time. Technological advancement has almost always been driven by warfare, and where it hasn't, the knowledge has been invariably adapted for combat.

Perhaps the best example of this is nuclear energy. Radiation was discovered in 1869 by Henri Becquerel. But it was Einstein who opened the floodgates in 1905 with his Special Theory of Relativity and E = MC2, which is used to give the energy release of any nucler reaction. This was later used to create the atomic bomb. But it also led to the development of nuclear fission as a power source, which today provides 20% of the United States power and is relatively clean.

The same is true for rockets and space exploration. Rocketry is often regarded to have been pioneered by Robert Goddard, who launched the first liquid fuelled rocket in 1926.
This research was seized upon by the Nazi's when developing their rockets, the result of this research being the V2, the forefather of modern rockets, including the Saturn V. In fact, the lead designer of the V2, Werner von Braun, was chief architect on the Saturn V project, which famously sent man to the Moon.

And many more examples exist. Metal working, explosives, production lines, computers. Almost anything you can think of has been used in or advanced for use in warfare at some point in its history.

So whats my point? My point is that any new technology will, if at all possible, be made into new weapons. It is human nature. But also, any new weapons technology will, if possible, be developed into something which will benefit mankind. So if the LHC does spawn some terrible weapon, well, it will be no different to anything that has come before it, and hey, something good may come of it too.

Sorry for the long post, but I do feel strongly that the LHC is an important step in furthering our understading of our world, which is ultimately the driving force behind human advancement. I fully expect my arguments to be rebuffed in some way, and I look forward to it. But for now though, thats my view on the issue.

[Drum Thumper]

Pointy, you make excellent points. One more I would bring up would be George Carlin's view on flamethrowers:


Think for a moment about the concept of the flamethrower. Okay? The flamethrower. Because we have them. Well, *we* don't have them, the army has them. That's right. We don't have any flamethrowers. I'd say we're ****ed if we have to go up against the army, wouldn't you? But we have flamethrowers. And what this indicates to me, it means that at some point, some person said to himself, "Gee, I sure would like to set those people on fire over there. But I'm way to far away to get the job done. If only I had something that would throw flame on them." Well, it might have ended right there, but he mentioned it to his friend. His friend who was good with tools. And about a month later, he was back. "Hey, quite a concept!" WHHOOOOOOOOSSHHH! And of course the army heard about it, and they came around. "We'd like to buy about five hundred-thousand of them please. We have some people we'd like to throw flame on. Give us five hundred thousand and paint them dark brown. We don't want anyone to see them."

Sometimes humans do things just because they can.

Kind of like modding a computer.