Hi! Wasn't sure which forum to place this in, so the tech board seemed a good place.

Was wondering if anyone else was following this experiment, or am I the only one geeking out about this? They are trying to reproduce conditions that supposedly recreate the first moments after the "big bang". The first beam has completed it's full turn around the large circle.

I find myself both fascinated and scared at the same time at what they are trying to do. I've read of all the pros and cons that could be the outcome from this.

Of course my favorite so far is Stephen Hawking making bets they won't find the particle they are looking for.

I have been paying attention to it for a while.

The technology is amazing, and of course the critics are amazing too.

I was stunned to hear a JPL staff memebr say that if there was a proble after the proton collision, the we would not know about it...as we would all just be a flash of stellar light.

Alas, his fears were not realized and hypotheses relative to the Big Bang are in the process of testing.

-Vic

My 3 1/2 cents: (inflation).

I've been heckling people on the web who were freaking out everytime this new 'The Sky Is Falling' silliness popped up in the headlines.

Are we that frightened of technology?
I remember reading that people claimed we would be gone in an instant with testing and detonating the Hydrogen Bomb way back in the 40's and 50's.

"A weapon that uses the most common element in the universe??!! We set it off and it'll start a chain reaction that'll wipe out the cosmos!!".

I just don't think we are smart enough to pull that off just yet. -And hopefully never will be.

And can't remember the poet but; 'This is how it ends, not with a bang. But a whimper.' -Robert Frost?

LOL gotta love all the people that believe this could end the world as we know it. I have been following this stuff for around 12 years, and have been looking forward to the day CERN was fired up.

I personally believe that they arent doing anything that isnt done on a universal level, every nano second of everyday. These particles are so small that they need special equipment to see them. They are the largest microscope in the world right this minute lol.

Dont ya think that these very same particles collide all the time? I do believe they will learn some things, and discover other things they had no idea were happening. As far as finding the big bang ..... well.......we shall see

Now what would be cool in all of this is if they are able to figure out how to time travel. Now that would be awesome!! The only problem is that knowledge could be abused so very badly before the public even is aware they are even doing that.

Even Google is in on the action:

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I've been following CERN loosely since last year...but allen pointed to more details about them and then it really got me interested...

for me, I think it is always good to have both sides, the balance of checks and gun powder(or is it check of scale and pow-wows?) or check of balance of power is always good so one side doesn't go overboard (although in reality, both sides usually DO go overboard, but that usually creates a THIRD party that is independent and will dig at the dualing sides and hopefully wring out some truth...)

I think the concern for the opposing side started out as logical concerns(am cut and pasting an article at the end of this post) and I think on CERN's side, they are not as worried for good reasons...although one just can never be certain when playing at cosmic levels, eh?

I am with allen that all these particles happen on cosmic levels...

but I am also cautious cause I also think about the Mahattan project and how Einstein didn't expect it to be THAT devastating based on his projections...

there is an article today about CERN's first successful experiement and that's way cool...

Dr. Kaku's interviews on History Channel are always very level headed. He never really jumps ahead and always gives the pros and cons. He reminds me a lot of Dr. Andrew Weil...I really admire them both....

well, here is one of the articles below on CERN in case anyone wants to read it. And Allen has been gracious enough to include some really cool links in Geek Tawk in case anyone wants to delve into it a bit deeper

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Will the Large Hadron Collider save the world, or destroy it?

As the atom-smasher at Europe's CERN research center is readied for its official startup on Wednesday, researchers might wish that the general public was captivated by the quest for the Higgs boson, the search for supersymmetric particles and even the evidence for extra dimensions.

But if the feedback so far is any guide, the real headline-grabber is the claim that the world's most powerful particle-smasher could create microscopic black holes that some fear would gobble up the planet.

The black-hole scenario is even getting its day in court: Critics of the project have called for the suspension of work on the European collider until the scenario receives a more thorough safety review, filing separate legal challenges in U.S. federal court and the European Court of Human Rights.

The strange case of the planet-eating black hole serves as just one example showing how grand scientific projects can lead to a collision between science fiction and science fact. The hubbub also has led some to question why billions of dollars are being spent on a physics experiment so removed from everyday life.

Why do it?
Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist at the City College of New York, acknowledged that people often ask about the practical applications of particle physics. Even if physicists figure out how a particle called the Higgs boson creates the property of mass in the universe, how will that improve life on Earth?

"Sometimes the public says, 'What's in it for Numero Uno? Am I going to get better television reception? Am I going to get better Internet reception?' Well, in some sense, yeah," he said. "All the wonders of quantum physics were learned basically from looking at atom-smasher technology."

fact file LHC by the numbers

• Cost: $6 billion to $10 billion
• Years in the making: 14
• Top energy: 14 trillion electron volts
• Peak power consumption: 120 megawatts
• Number of collaborators: More than 10,000



Cost: $6 billion to $10 billion
Why the wide range of estimates?
Europe’s CERN research organization says it’s investing $6 billion. Adding the value of other contributions since 1994, including the detectors, boosts the total to as much as $10 billion. To some extent, it depends on who’s doing the counting and what the currency rates are.


Kaku noted that past discoveries from the world of particle physics ushered in many of the innovations we enjoy today, ranging from satellite communications and handheld media players to medical PET scanners (which put antimatter to practical use).

"But let me let you in on a secret: We physicists are not driven to do this because of better color television," he added. "That's a spin-off. We do this because we want to understand our role and our place in the universe."

About those black holes ...
The black holes that may (or may not) be generated by the Large Hadron Collider would have theoretical rather than practical applications.

If the collider's detectors turn up evidence of black holes, that would suggest that gravity is stronger on a subatomic scale than it is on the distance scales scientists have been able to measure so far. That, in turn, would support the weird idea that we live in a 10- or 11-dimensional universe, with some of the dimensions rolled up so tightly that they can't be perceived.

Some theorists say the idea would explain why gravity is so much weaker than the universe's other fundamental forces — for example, why a simple magnet can match the entire Earth's gravitational force pulling on a paper clip. These theorists suggest that much of the gravitational field is "leaking out" into the extra dimensions.

"It will be extremely exciting if the LHC did produce black holes," CERN theoretical physicist John Ellis said. "OK, so some people are going to say, 'Black holes? Those big things eating up stars?' No. These are microscopic, tiny little black holes. And they’re extremely unstable. They would disappear almost as soon as they were produced."

Not everyone is convinced that the black holes would disappear. "It doesn't have to be that way," said Walter Wagner, a former radiation safety officer with a law degree who is one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit. Despite a series of reassuring scientific studies, Wagner and others insist that the black holes might not fizzle out, and they fear that the mini-singularities produced by the Large Hadron Collider will fall to the center of the earth, grow larger and swallow more and more of Earth's matter.

Ellis, Kaku and a host of other physicists point out that cosmic rays in space are far more energetic than the collisions produced in the Large Hadron Collider, and do not produce the kinds of persistent black holes claimed by the critics. In the most recent report, CERN scientists rule out the globe-gobbling black holes and the other nightmares enumerated in the lawsuit, even under the most outlandish scenarios. Wagner remains unconvinced, however.

"I don't think the knowledge we are going to acquire by doing such an experiment outweighs the risk that we are taking, if we can't quantify that risk. ... We need to obtain other evidence," he said.

Strangelets, monopoles and more Black holes aren't Wagner's only worry: He also is concerned that when the collider creates a soup of free-flying quarks, some of those quarks might recombine in a hazardous way — creating a stable, negatively charged "strangelet" that could turn everything it touches into more strangelets.

The lawsuit also suggests that magnetic monopoles — basically, magnets with only a north or a south pole, but not both — could be created in the collider and wreak havoc.

Physicists point out that such phenomena have never been seen, either in previous collider experiments or in the wide cosmos beyond Earth.

"The experiments that we will do with the LHC have been done billions of times by cosmic rays hitting the earth," Ellis said. "They're being done continuously by cosmic rays hitting our astronomical bodies, like the moon, the sun, like Jupiter and so on and so forth. And the earth's still here, the sun's still here, the moon's still here. LHC collisions are not going to destroy the planet."

But how will all those collisions benefit the planet?

"We don't justify CERN or other big particle accelerators on the basis of spin-offs or technology transfer," Ellis said. "Of course, we do have programs for that. Personally, I believe that the most important knowledge transfer that we can make is by training young people who then maybe go off and do something else. I think that's probably more important than some particular technological widget that we may develop.

"I think the primary justification for this sort of science that we do is fundamental human curiosity," Ellis said. "It's true, of course, that every previous generation that's made some breakthrough in understanding nature has seen those discoveries translated into new technologies, new possibilities for the human race. That may well happen with the Higgs boson. Quite frankly, at the moment I don't see how you can use the Higgs boson for anything useful."

Kaku takes a different view: He said physicists will have to do a better job of explaining the potential payoffs if they expect taxpayers to keep covering the multibillion-dollar cost of exploring the scientific frontier. He pointed to the example of the Superconducting Super Collider — a project planned for Texas that would have been bigger than the Large Hadron Collider, but was canceled by Congress after $2 billion had been spent.

"After that cancellation, we physicists learned that we have to sing for our supper," Kaku said. "The Cold War is over. You can't simply say 'Russia!' to Congress, and they whip out their checkbook and say, 'How much?' We have to tell the people why this atom-smasher is going to benefit their lives."

Forecasting future benefits

If past physics experiments are any guide, the potential payoffs would likely come in three areas, Kaku said:

Telecommunications: The challenge of dealing with all the data created by past experiments led to the creation of the World Wide Web at CERN in 1990. In a similar way, the Large Hadron Collider could usher in an era of global distributed computing and more efficient mass data storage. A better understanding of the subatomic world could lead to breakthroughs in quantum computing and super-secure communication.


Medicine: Particle accelerators are already playing a fast-rising role in cancer treatment and medical imaging. New technologies developed for the Large Hadron Collider could well find their way into hospitals of the future. The ultrasensitive photon detector built for the LHCb experiment is a prime example, said the project's deputy spokesperson, Roger Forty. "I think there will be some cross-pollination with medical applications," he told msnbc.com.


Energy: Kaku suggested that the insights gained from the Large Hadron Collider could be applied to developing new energy sources in the decades ahead — such as controlled fusion power. Those microscopic black holes might even play a long-range role in the energy quest. "Some people think that maybe black holes in outer space may be a source of energy for future civilizations," he said.
Looking even farther ahead, Kaku noted that a deeper understanding of the universe has always led to technological leaps. Harnessing mechanical power led to the steam engine and the industrial revolution of the 19th century. The unification of electricity and magnetism led to computers, lasers and other 20th-century wonders. Unlocking the secrets of the atom led to the triumphs and terrors of the nuclear age.


"Human history has been shaped by the progressive unraveling of gravity, electricity and magnetism, and the nuclear force," Kaku said. "Now we are at the brink of the granddaddy of all such unifications ... the unification of all forces into a super force. We think the super force is superstring theory, a super force that drove the big bang, that created the heavens and the earth, that drives the sun, that makes all the wondrous technologies of the earth possible."

Will that great revelation come from the LHC? Even Kaku thinks that would be too much of a giant leap. "The Large Hadron Collider will not open up a gateway to another universe," he said. "It will not open up a hole in space. But it will try to nail down the equations which would allow perhaps an advanced civilization to do precisely that, to manipulate the fabric of space and time."

How will the machine do that? Ironically, it takes bigger and bigger machines to unlock the smallest subatomic mysteries — and the Large Hadron Collider is the biggest Big Bang Machine ever built. With its tangles of wiring, twists of plumbing and 17 miles of supercooled magnets, the machine may well rank as one of the engineering wonders of the 21st century.

here are a couple of cool sites that give pros and cons a bit more...

I like Stephen Hawkins but sometimes, I have problems with some of his theories...LOL not to take it away from his brilliant mind by any means cause he is a billion times smarter than I am..but some of his theories really are..well...just his own..esoteric to the utmost to him....

anyways...

Pros and Cons

CERN's first successful test

Wow that is some good stuff bro!!

It amazes me on the many different ideals of what may or may not happen. Some people would rather put there head in the sand than look at what could or could not be beneficial to the human race.

While others forge ahead with out a care in the world where we are going with anything known or unknown.

I actually believe there is more to gravity than even the most brilliant minds can grasp, otherwise we would already be flyin around at near lightspeed everywhere our little minds could imagine.

You know the black hole theories are the ones that has everyone scared out of their wits about this collider. What if they figure out how to harness these black holes? What if they figure out time travel?

I do know that what ever they find will be soooo interesting that these converstaions will probably be pretty mundane

LOL. That is probably true.

Uh, I have one question. If the purpose of this whole experiment is to find out about the creation of the universe, how exactly are they going to do this? And, more important, how will this affect the people of the world who believe that God created the universe?

Not a bad question, right?

And I've been following the whole thing. I told Alan the other night "At 3:15 am we'll either still be here or we won't. He just looked at me.

lol

Melody