Today is a landmark day in the History of Science. The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most massive particle accelerator located at CERN in Switzerland, was switched on for the first time.
The LHC has cost billions of dollars and taken more than 15 years to complete, but if all goes according to plan, scientists will be able to reproduce conditions at the moment of the Universe’s creation: The Big Bang. Data collected has the potential to lead to the discovery of new dimensions, a new understanding of time and space. To reveal the nature of Dark Matter, and the elusive Higgs Boson, a theoretical particle that gives other particles mass. If things don’t go according to plan…it could, in theory, create infinitesimally small black holes capable of destroying the entire Earth.
Some scientists claim that we shouldn’t be playing God, creating and toying with forces we don’t understand.
Others say it could be the most exciting thing since Einstein.
I guess time will tell. But it’s on, and little by little, those particles are speeding up. Remember this day. This is history.
According to a trusted Norwegian tech-site, planning and building the LHC has taken 25 years. It will take the researchers one full month to accelerate the particles up to 99.9% the speed of light, and first then will the first collisions start taking place. Even though the particles are endlessly small, the tiny beams have a power equal to a car going 1600km/h (roughly 1000mph). The energy in the magnets holding the beams in place would be enough to melt 50 tonnes of copper. The explosion that will happen once the beams collide will create 100.000 times the heat in the Sun.
If you are concerned about the world coming to an end, check out “Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the earth yet?”: http://hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com
For all you others, I propose that you have one massive doomsday party those hours before the experiments start, where you can party like there is no tomorrow 🙂
How do you like this article, Jeff?
By the way this experiment is sounding more and more like the opening level of Half-Life. If you don’t know what I mean, go download it and play it for one hour. It’s worth it.
Uncle Jerry’s quote might well be “it’s not nice to f— with mother nature”
cool stuff……even if it is kinda scary
Haha Peder, that website is great! 😆
this is lame and entirely uninteresting.
okay just kidding (that was just for Noz), however, I really don’t want to die just cause some Noz-types want to look at a vacuum with bits of dust moving really fast around and hitting each other and see what happens.
Okay, no, THAT was for Noz!
That’s awesome, I hope we figure some cool stuff out, like how Jesus created the big bang and stuff…and I hope I don’t die cause of it. sweet.
…plan? Also rhymes with bang…
How can it be history when there is no world to remember?
Jeff – if this thing does destroy the earth, you wouldn’t feel it. And if I had two options for the end of humanity, and one was the LHC, and the other was a global religious war (in progress), I’d take the LHC.
If I had two options for the end of humanity, in which one was in 5-9999 years, and the other was in 6 months, I’d go with the 5-9999.
I’d choose 9999 years over 6 months too.
…But based on the likelyhood that this thing actually WILL destroy the earth, I’d also choose to switch it on 🙂
From Noz: Webcams of the LHC
http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html
Check out the Large Hadron Rap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM
The future, the past, it’s all so now.
Jeff: If you think the LHC by itself is nerdy…you’ll probably go into a coma after watching that “rap”…
…Speaking of groundbreaking days in the history of science, today the first privately funded rocket reached orbit!
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/space-x-did-it.html?fark