Large Hadron Collider - NOT an end of the world thread!

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My Compaq Armada M700 has an LCD screen, and the screen does a good job with no warm up.

Thanks guys

woo! a thread about LHC that isn't about the world ending

I was listening to the switch-on live on BBC Radio 4 this morning (likely today is going to be the ONLY time I'll listen to BBC Radio 4), and I knew deep down that the scientists that built that machine were not going to build a doomsday device or something like that

so, I was right all along

*runs in* ahhhh!! ! *runs out*

I have seen quite a few people, around WP and elsewhere, decrying the Large Hadron Collider because there are no clear and immediate benefits.

I would like to point out that for almost ten years after its invention, the laser seemed to have no practical applications whatsoever. Wags at the time dubbed it "a solution in search of a problem". Today, any time you need precise measurements or cutting (eye surgery, for instance, or computer-chip etching), secure communications (optical fibers and line-of-sight links), or just want to listen to your music or watch a movie on a non-destructive medium (CD or DVD), you'll need a laser.

For that matter, from the first practical computer (ENIGMA, in WWII) until the 1980s, no one ever thought computers would ever be of any use in anyone's regular life. Oh, sure, they were fine for major universities to use in abstruse experiments, but they would never affect anyone in the real world... Right now, I am typing this on my laptop computer, using a decentralized worldwide network of computing resources to communicate with other people like me, and drinking the coffee prewarmed for me by my programmable coffeemaker. My son is being distracted by educational cartoons on a flatscreen TV (that itself has more processing power than NASA did during the Apollo missions); if I need to go out later, my car is guaranteed to be able to take me there, thanks to the computer controls that maintain the engine in peak shape (and warn me if anything is going awry, long before I can be hung out to dry alongside a freeway somewhere). The traffic, while rough, will not be as bad as it could have been, as the traffic patterns are controlled with the help of computer analysis of flow patterns (so that money isn't wasted adding lanes and lights to streets in wealthy neighborhoods, while leaving the high-traffic roads untouched). I may also relax later with the help of my XBox 360, and GTA IV (which is computer-animated, not to mention the obvious computer components in the console itself).

How will the discoveries made by the LHC help humanity? I have no idea - yet.

I am so psyched about this thing.

"the first practical computer (ENIGMA, in WWII) until the 1980s, no one ever thought computers would ever be of any use in anyone's regular life"

~Ahem~
Enigma was the name of the German Code Machine, which was more like a typewriter than a computer. You're probably thinking of Colossus, which was the tape driven decoding machine invented by Alan Turing (one of our blokes!) which is probably the first electronic computer. Computers were quite popular with the Military back in the 60's, but weren't practical as they were huge.

If you are really worried about it, there are some web cams set up so you can look at the process. Here is the link.

http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

"""and I knew deep down that the scientists that built that machine
were not going to build a doomsday device or something like that"""

Yeah, its not like humans have screwed up things before or anything..
jeez, what are people thinking with. Some guy knows deep
down that its safe...ok then, guess i have nothing to worry about
Come on, honestly, gut feelings about this are worth crap unless you
have a magical gut that can see in to the future and give you answers.

Human+machines=something will eventually fail, its the human
way, we`re idiots deep down. It would be too f-ing funny if we
deleted ourself in the quest of finding out who we are and where
we come from a few more years and we`re probably there.
Hold on to something, this is gonna be great!! 6 billion people
screwing themselfs up, yeah this will have a happy ending...not

I'll admit, it is interesting. But, dangerous. To assume that scientists are infallible and the machine one hundred percent safe is a joke, as bad as saying it's one hundred percent certain to destroy the world! The safety protocols are based on one mans theory!
For those of you not in the know; degrees mean neither talent nor intellect, merely memory enough to tick the right boxes. This "I believe it's one hundred percent safe - a guy with a piece of paper told me so!" hero worship mentality is frightening.
There is a very real danger of stable mini black holes! Unlikely, improbable, but real!
To be dismissive of the possibillity is anti-scientific.
An experiment aimed at proving things already theorized should not be done at risk to everything known! Why didn't they just spend a little extra building the thing in space? Not a new concept! Just expensive!

It's going to open a parallel dimension ~! !!

Ishmael, if someone managed to create a stable quantum hole, we would need to rewrite the laws of physics from the word "bang!", along with a number of other fields that are influenced by those laws - biology, geology, heck, just about anything that deals with the physical world.

Stable "small holes" cannot exist, if we can claim to know anything at all about anything. (And if we can't, then maybe the fundamentalists are right and the world really was created in one week six thousand years ago, by the world's most powerful congenital liar [and how else could you describe Someone Who went to so much trouble to make everyone think His creation was far older than that?], and Joshua ben Nun really did make the sun stand still for trivial purposes, and God really did send two bears to kill 42 children for daring to mock a prophet's baldness...)

No true scientist is going to tell you anything is "100% safe" - for instance, there is a small, but finite, possibility, under Maxwell's equations, that all the air in the room you're now in will suddenly move to the other side of the room and leave you in vacuum. I wouldn't worry about it, but the possibility does exist. It's about as likely as the LHC blowing anything up. Go have a beer and relax...

We do need to rewrite physics; much of it is a constantly developing.
The argument that stable holes are impossible is no more or less valid or invalid than the argument stating they are a possibility.
The assumption we know, 100%, they are impossible is foolish and arrogant.
Where's the evidence against? Hawking radiation theory?
Physics information is still infantile; one of the reasons for the LHC, but several theories they operate from are limited. They wonder why they can't find CEoCP...