This Wednesday scientists will work to recreate the big bang
 

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I find it disturbing that this isn't even close to front page news. Britney Spears at the VMA's is far more important than possibly proving the existence of other dimensions, right? The media infuriates me.

Thoughts?

Personally, I'm anxious as all hell. :forscience::rr:

PS: I also find it slightly annoying that CNN felt it was necessary to point out that there is a "rap video dedicated to this event on YouTube".

This isn't front page news? Everyone I know has been taking about this for ages already.

Here we go.

The video rocks, actually.

YouTube Video

Additional Spam:
Where do we go? What the hell is that?

To uncertainty, genius.

Like Deni said. People I know have been talking about it for a long time.

There was a thread about it already a couple of months ago, too.

I wouldn't jump to conclusions, anyways. No matter how unlikely, even if we -do- tear open some kind of black hole or some shit, we'll be dead so fast, it wouldn't even matter.

Pretty much best not to, but it doesn't mean I can't cower like a bitch in the meantime!

Scientists across the world are doing terrifying experiments every day. Maybe not to this extent financially and as large-scale (I imagine this took a long, long time to get moving), but still.

Science, you know.

DNA experiments terrify me a lot more, honestly.

Entering a black hole is absolutely my preferred method of death. Can you imagine how cool that would be? You don't even know. You might see the whole timeline of the universe pass you by.

I want to hit the age of dash boots and arm cannons before that time, though, Aardark!

I imagine whatever hole we're all getting sucked into would be clogged by you.

So on the behalf of the human race, I preemptively thank you for preventing our mutual destruction.

You're welcome. <3

It would be hard for you to see the timeline of the universe pass when your eyes have been deconstructed into their component parts.

Hmm, I've been meaning to clean my apartment, but I think that I'll put that off until Thursday, just in case.

They haven't responded to my emails, I've been trying to tell them for the longest time that if I stand next to the collider the effect of the black hole will be negligible. ;_;

Funny how the title of the thread has nothing to do with the sort-of-misquoted piece of that particular news story. I'm sorry to be the one to say this, the world will not end this year, or in December 2012. =(

But the Higgs's boson. That'll give out some information on... well, everything. Read your particle physics homework, boys and girls, it's about to get very bumpy on the field of science!

Yes, I went there. =(

I don't have any particle physics homework, and my studies are taking me a completely different direction in science.

This possible huge discovery, though...is quite exciting to me. It's the kind of experiment that inspires the minds of scientists in research with possibility and openness. I imagine this is how I would feel if I was a scientist contemporary of Einstein, Bohr, Oppenheimer and their ilk!

It's like seeing Paganini live :)

When those component parts reach the singularity, they merge with the totality of information contained therein and achieve a transcendent form of consciousness.

We're fucked.

You mean LiveJournal?

Those jokes were so not funny, I'm pretty sure I heard John Stamos tell them at a celebrity roast.

So, Deni...how about the possibly marvelous correlation in particle physics?

Do you care?

What's the matter, Princess? Annoyed because I dissed you for comparing what is possibly the most important experiment in modern history to a guy who played the violin?

And no, I don't care at all about the LHC. I don't care that a 10 billion dollar particle accelerator is looking to map out the forces at work during the big bang. I don't care in the slightest about the Higgs Boson particle, or the role it will play in the future of research in the field. I don't care about the fact it may prove of disprove supersymmetry, and in the process either support or damage the idea of string theory. I don't care about the fact we may find Dark Matter, or at least produce it.

I don't care at all about the field of physics. Not in the slightest.



In future, Princess, assume when I diss you it's because you were making an ass of yourself and I felt the obviousness of why you were getting dissed made it unnecessary to explain it in an actual post, not because you're too deep for the room.

Yes, I compared the experiment to Paganini. It's a comparison of the level of inspiration felt by the Romantic authors and musicians who saw the man playing and were inspired. He directly influenced most of the music of the 19th Century.

If you can't draw a correlation to discovery in the arts and discovery in the sciences, then that's too bad for you. I understand the fundamental importance of this experiment. Thus, I told of my excitement on par with scientists doing research in the earliest discoveries of quantum mechanics, where things that were so new and fresh were being discovered. It makes me want to discover, also.

And, to answer your question, yes! It's quite annoying to have some random guy be a jerk to you for no reason. We don't think on the same level. I don't think you need to attempt to belittle me and call me out on things you really don't seem to understand.


So, at any rate...

Do you guys think there would be any sort of principal application to us if in fact we do prove or disprove our operating theories of everything?

I'm specifically curious about how a supposed "Theory of Everything" could be applied to computational fields like quantum mechanics (using computers and the like). I mean, since a huge problem in solving systems (say, a protein's movements and conformational changes over 1 nanosecond) is uncertainty, does a proven theory of everything serve to eliminate those uncertainties? Any theoretical physicists in the house?

Your simile would have worked better if you compared it to a Panini instead.

http://homepage.mac.com/juanwilson/i...5-02Panini.jpg

Delicious.

Yes.

As time goes by, it will be more clear that someone sucks at every forum post he makes, not just one or two in between some good ones, the uncertainty. And one'll eventually learn why. Not uncertain anymore towards why it is so.

No, I was a jerk to you after you made a catty comment. What I did initially was diss you for making an eye-rollingly bad namedrop. I'm sorry your skin isn't thick enough to deal with someone on the internet thinking you're acting like a git when you, well, act like a git.

We don't think on the same level. That's adorable. I love people like Yama and yourself. Someone calls you on something, with specific references to what you're talking about, and your defense boils down to: "you just don't get it. I'm so clever you can't comprehend me." See, your problem, Princess, is that you think because someone doesn't speak like D'artagnan, they haven't read the same books you have.

The concerthall is back that way. Feel free to limp home whenever you like.

posting in an epic thread.

In all seriousness, I just expect to wake up and go to work on Wednesday.

The comment about thinking on different levels is not meant to imply that I think at a higher level than you. It just means that my perspective is a completely different one from yours, so it makes sense to me why you don't see this as an inspiration the way I do.

I doubt we work/learn in the same fields, so we have different manifestations of inspiration, IE different levels of thought. Sorry if I came off as arrogant, since I don't have a right to be to someone I don't even know.

That whole bit where I was saying I didn't care about? That was sarcasm. If I didn't care about it, I wouldn't know about it. Physics is a massive source of inspiration for anyone with an interest in the hard sciences. Being an atheist and not being inspired by science is akin to claiming to be a christian and saying you don't really care about the bible/god.

I'm just saying the way we feel inspired is clearly different if you don't see the same parallels between music history and science history. I can't imagine information like this doesn't excite the imagination of everyone. At least, I hate to think of the people it doesn't inspire...

I'm just saying, science and music are both discovery. The great thinkers on both sides deserve equal respect, because it takes big minds to make symphonies as well as wrap your head around quantum mechanics and the like, and this is coming from a PhD Medicinal Chemistry student. My life is rooted in and depends on science. I'm also fascinated by the parallels between music, historically, empirically...in every way (you can't tell me that organic synthesis and music composition don't require the same mode of thought and creativity).

I'm still incredibly curious about my question, though. If you know a lot about string theory/membrane theory/whichever is supposed to explain everything, then maybe you could answer. Does this take care of the issue of probability? Could it eliminate uncertainty in atomic study?

No, because by matter/energy's own properties, things are probabilistic in nature at those very small scales. Having a uniform theory of everything wouldn't eliminate the properties of everything behaving as a probability wave.

Being an atheist doesn't necessarily mean you care about science. You could not believe in a higher power, but also not give a flying fuck how the universe was created.

I think unravelling the mysteries of the creation of the universe is more important than some violinist. I mean, he's not Buckethead, after all.

don't judge me I have a right to my opinion you asshole

I'm not saying there isn't a direct correlation between art and science, I'm saying coming into a room where you know the majority of people will have no idea who you're talking about and throwing around a name like Paganini without explanation makes you come off like a berke.

Think of it this way: It would be like me wandering into a room full of people obsessed with the show America's Next Top Model and claiming that the model's haircut reminded me of Louise Brooks circa her time in the movies of G.W. Pabst. It doesn't make me wrong, it just makes me look like a dick.

And as for the ToE, my understanding of things like string theory and the ToE are as rudimentary as most people's with an amateur interest in physics. As I understand it, the ToE is just an equation that solves the difference between the two major theories. So it doesn't eliminate probability or uncertainty, but rather just provides proof that both approaches are correct, and that you can explain pretty much anything. Prediction still being inherently difficult.

Damn, Reav...I was really hoping otherwise. The whole concept of probability in physics is probably what tripped me up the most in my undergrad PChem.

How do you think this kind of discovery might apply to computer-aided modeling, though? Does it help in any way, since they're still using mainly classical mechanics to deduce general movement (since systems like proteins are much too large for quantum mechanics). I suppose what I'm asking is how does this change the fundamentals further? Will the next generation learn that gravity is a force exerted by mass, or will they learn something else?

Ugh...there's so much to think about.

Appended- I had no clue if the majority of the room knew or didn't know about Paganini. I'd say if anybody was curious about why I threw his name out there, then I'd happily explain what I meant. My naivety is in assuming that anybody here really cares, which I quickly realized they don't.

However, throwing out the name was quite an unconscious move for me. I was very happy to read about the news that it's actually going to move forward, and I didn't particularly think about what I was typing.

Don't they already learn that gravity is curvature in spacetime? Anyway, if you're interested in these things, there is a great thread over at SA by a guy working with the LHC. It's very interesting. Also, here's his response regarding your earlier question about quantum computing:

Oh, quantum computing would be neat, but I was talking more about software than hardware-wise. I know quantum computing is the current holy grail for computer scientists (computer engineers?), but I meant calculations using quantum mechanics (taking a broad definition of quantum mechanics to include string theory and its ilk, which may be a totally off-base definition...I have a sub-basal understanding of most of it) to predict movement of macro particles and molecules accurately, far more accurately than we've been able to so far.

Well, that's the thing. Once you get to large enough stuff, you don't need to use quantum mechanics anymore. Like, you can use QM to figure out the uncertainty in a baseball's position/momentum, but it's so small in relation to its other values that it's inconsequential. Just like how you can use general relativity to figure out the length contraction a baseball undergoes during a pitch, it's so small that it's an insignificant amount.

I'm not actually sure what practical uses the LHC will have. I imagine most of what comes out of it will be theoretical stuff that maybe in 5-10+ years we'll see something worthwhile come out of it.

Actually, I'm more curious about what a quantized 'Theory of Everything' and creation [as the Big Bang, for example] would do to all the religious zealots of the world.

It does nothing, particularly, except tell the HOW a god created the universe, if they choose to believe the results at all.

A teeny little ding in their thinking, which sure is a shame.

You're talking about a group of people who claim god faked the age of dinosaurs (as seen in carbon dating) to fuck with science.

I think they'll get along just fine with this.

I don't think Carbon 14 dating is actually use on dinosaurs. >.>

I think that's into Potassium-Argon dating territory.

Carbon Dating goes back only 60,000 years maximum, thanks to beta decay.

Potassium-Argon, as J-Man said, is in fact the biggie. It's used on many geological as well as biological dating estimations. It helped us narrow down the timing of the K-T boundary quite nicely, for example.

I work a double shift on Wednesday. The world ending would be a fabulous vacation!

In all seriousness though, Ness IMing me about it today was the first time I've heard of this experiment. Granted, this last week I've been busy and haven't listened to NPR and the BBC as much as normal, but if this has been around for years, you'd think I'd have heard.

I think if there were any real threat it would have been made known, and rather publicly. People love to cover doomsday stories.

This is the first I'veheard about it, could have interesting results. Don't know nearly enough about physics to say much beyond that. Kinda wish I was there to see what they were doing, experiments like this can be pretty interesting to watch- even if you've got only a basic idea of what's going on.

I doubt you'd be able to see much of anything going on. The particles will be smashed together inside giant detectors. The changes observed would probably be on a scale so small that they're undetectable to humans, save for the collision itself.

This is evidenced by the fact that they are going to "watch" the whole process via the data that appears on the computers that will do the real detecting. They'll get the information from the numbers generated, not what they see with their eyes.

First time I heard about this at all, what time do they even plan on "Turning it on" ? I mean I'd like to be asleep when it happens rather then out doing my job... Zzzzzzzzz....

In all seriousness though, a black hole? Our own sun doesn't even have the power to make one when it's life ends haha, maybe we'll just blow our planet into obilivion, much more likely lol

and blowing things up underground? Who's brilliant idea was that? I hope they have vents or something to release the pressure without collasping the rest of the land above it, if they're trying to hide it, even though it might be small, it sounds pretty powerful... Maybe it'll be the end of them, but I doubt the end of us.

Aside from the rest of your inane post, you do realize that "they" have been "blowing shit up" underground for ages now, right?

"They" would not go out on a limb with billions of dollars at risk.

Some clowns called "Physicists". In addition, you clearly don't have a fuckin' clue what you're talking about.

Well I'm not a scientist, I only know what I read, that's obvious, so you're right, but I don't like to read the ground I stand on might not be there tomorrow.

I do look forward to the hundreds of little black holes they are actually going to create. A scientist is going to put his finger in one and be shloooped to the other side of the universe.

Yeah, that's gonna happen.

Just for comic effect, of course. Let me have some self-humour here. After all, I might die in 6 hours 10 minutes :tpg:

No, I don't think it's obvious you know what you read, unless you read scientific journals written by 3 year-olds. I will admit I know fuck all about physics, which is why I haven't posted in this thread. Nobody wants to read a post by someone talking about a subject they clearly know nothing about.

Although I know I am not innocent of sticking my foot in my mouth sometimes, I generally try to live by the following quote, whose origin I know not:

" 'Tis better to be silent and thought of as a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. "

Remember it, sweetheart.

If, for some ridiculous reason, this whole thing does bring about our collective ends... well, I'd like to be the first to say:

SEE YOU ALL IN HELL

f u jess. I like the opposite sex leik god intended so im goin 2 hevin lol ;3

Can't they stop this whole thing? We'll all die because of them!

Actually, I think this test is just firing up the particle beam. They aren't going to start any particle collision tests until October, as far as I know.

Dear mom, there was a fire today and I was scared. But a man with a blowtorch held me tightly and said "It gon' be all right." He told me he was zombie chainin', but I think those people who were screaming might have still been alive.

----------

Haven't even started impacting particles you say? It's like saying you plugged in the blender to make a smoothie while the ingredients are all still inside.

Watch this shit live: Sky News Live

You won't see the black holes, but you can look at a room full of excited scientists.

http://g.photos.cx/tennant_2-50.jpg

If this guy shows up in a month, be very afraid.

Well, given their nature of absorbing all light I would think not! :tpg:

Actually, all the scaremongering about the world ending today is bullshit anyway as even the scientists who opposed the thing said it'd take about four years before anyone noticed anything wrong. German chemist Otto Rossler said "Nothing will change for about four years. Then someone will spot a light-ray coming out of the Indian Ocean. The weather will change, completely wiping out life on Earth". Of course, he's retired and never published a paper in his life but he's the closest thing to a credible opponent of the project.

Quote of the day has to go to Professor Brian Cox who works on the project who according to the Metro said "Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat".

I think he has published a shitload of papers and several books. :confused: Of course, that doesn't mean he's credible in this issue. The continuation of that quote about the Indian Ocean is something about Armageddon and the Bible, so...

I just finished watching the live feed this morning here. They were just doing test laps and weren't collilding anything. Sure takes it a long time though...... 1hour or something for one lap.

Watched it here: http://webcast.cern.ch/index.html

Can we get a youtube of the LHC rap interrupted by the Japanese "world destruction to funny music" clip?

Got a link to the world destruction clip?

I wonder what it means to "discover other dimensions". I know very little about these theoretics and the definition of what exactly a dimension is escapes me.

I doubt very much that they're talking about finding another level of existence or conciousness but rather a position in space in time.

What eludes me is what "other dimensions" they're hoping to discover.

Four years huh? Sounds awfully convenient timing-wise, if you ask me.

All I ask of physicists is what I ask of God - if you're going to bring down the end of the world on me, just give me enough time to get a gun to blow my brains out before you super ignite all the oxygen in the world with molten ash.

I can't wait for those hardons to collide.

Existence of extra dimensions is predicted by the string theory. The string theory is one proposed 'theory of everything'; a theory that would unite the going-ons of the smallest scales (quantum mechanics) with the macroscopic scales (general relativity). It's the Holy Grail of physics today, and without such a theory we can't explain what happens when a lot of matter is packed in a very small space − the singularity of a black hole or the beginning of the big bang (hence the reference in this thread's title, I assume).

String theory says that the smallest building blocks of everything are little 'strings' (around the Planck lenght or 1.6 × 10-35 m) that can vibrate in different ways. Depending on the manner of vibration they can manifest themselves as different elementary particles, like photons (light) or quarks, which combine to form protons, which combine with neutrons to create atoms, which create macroscopic stuff that we know.

Now about dimensions. Here is an illustration, courtesy of professor Richard Wolfson:

http://i35.tinypic.com/1zpmzqw.png

In the upper part, you are looking from afar, and you see an ant that appears to be able to travel on a stem in one dimension only. When you move in close enough, you see that there is actually another dimension. That dimension is 'curled up on itself', in a kind of sphere. You couldn't see it before, because you were looking from a great distance.

Now, remember that these strings in the string theory are small as fuck. They operate at Planck length, the smallest physically possible length. What if there are more dimensions curled up there, and we simply aren't close enough to that tiny scale for them to have any effect on us? Of course, we can't really imagine another dimension very well, so to us it's just extremely complex mathematics, but for subatomic particles created by the strings, like the protons that they will be colliding in LHC, it may be a different story. It's also theorised that the hypothetical graviton particle, which supposedly 'carries' gravity, 'leaks' into these curled-up dimensions (since it's small enough to access them), which is why gravity is such a weak force and only becomes considerable when dealing with massive objects like planets.

I know this is not very clear. Since I don't really know what I'm talking about, I can't explain it very well, but hopefully this gives you at least some idea.

Looks like Professor Wolfson read A Wrinkle In Time like the rest of us did in 4th grade.

Is that where it is originally from? I haven't read that book, so I only knew the image from Wolfson's series of lectures, where he uses it when talking about this stuff.

L'Engle inappropriate confused a tesseract with a stable wormhole.

The example was an ant walking across a string - versus an ant walking across the same string, folded in half.

You mean 2012?

OH jebus!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3208/...becc3bf2_b.jpg

Day late and dollar short - someone posted that in their journal days ago and in a much less annoying image size.

I don't believe this one's been posted here yet.

http://g.photos.cx/gman-2d.jpg

I wonder who'll bark at me for not catering to their insatiable demand for new content 24/7!

I can't see photos.cx pictures while at work, but if it's a similar pic with a guy that looks like the G-Man, I had that one in my journal too.

I hope Qwarky is keeping up on all this. He could be our last line of defense against extra-dimensional aggressors.

This saddens me greatly as they are my main means of picturing up the Internet. :(

While I was still at school they blocked everything from g.photos.cx (but not e or a). I could still upload, but if the image was hosted at g, then I got a nice big yellow-and-white striped "this content is moderated" image instead.

ANYWAY. There is an official CERN Twitter page. Not sure if updates will continue, but it's a nice little way to chronicle how it went down.

In the same journal entry, yes :mad:

Oh. Sorry.

In the future I'll keep track of all of the same things as you!

I sort of understand what you're talking about but it's definitely still confusing as all hell to me. Are there any books you'd recommend on the subject or is this stuff pure math?

If they could make it simple enough for the layman, I'm sure they would

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
There is a great deal of information there that is mathematical in nature, but Greene does an excellent job of explaining string theory concepts in a more accessible language. Even then, it is still a rather challenging read, so be prepared to re-read and re-re-read segments, and possibly even whole chapters of the book.

Excellent, thanks a bunch.

Or you could just read Flatland.

You knew it was bound to happen.

Now we know what happened to ShadowSky.

It's interesting that there are people who are so afraid of dying they will kill themselves.

I feel kind of bad for her. Kind of annoyed at the way media sensationalizes doomsday scenarios, and generally mucks around with scientific advance.

Not very intense feeling either way, just sort of a half-hearted wish that people'd stfu and let scientists get on with the business of cracking the universe so our children can live forever.

and then eventually kill themselves anyway due to crippling ennui.

What!? Not with the Triannual Hokey Pokey Dance-Off Spectacular to look forward to! =O

I can't kill myself until I see the next season of Doctor Who.

GEMMA - BURN IN YOUR GOLDEN HELL

I don't see anything wrong with this scenario. Freedom of choice and all that. Fuckin' Nature's oppressing me. =(

It's so funny to me that people are killing themselves to avoid dying. That black hole couldn't possibly swallow that irony.

Last night I was at my friend Crispin's house working on his computer and his son and I were having a conversation about all this and I was explaining to him how it's SUPPOSED to work. But my friend Crispin is Catholic so his children inevitably believe in "god" too so I ended up having this argument with a 16 year old boy about why scientists shouldn't play god and how he's seriously terrified about this doomsday machine killing us all.

I don't know what I'm gonna do with these people, I really don't. I just told him one thing: "If you're terrified of all this, maybe you need to make peace with your "god" like I did with myself. Because then you'll learn to live life without having the fear of death."

This was your first mistake.

No, I assure you that the mistake is all his.

I think it has more to do with being able to die on your own terms or something of that nature.

Isn't suicide looked down upon by most churchy people?

So is kiddie raping but... you know... holy shit happens.

I don't know if anyone's been keeping up with the LHC, but apparently there was a faulty transformer that cooled the "track". The temperatures rose from just under 2 degrees K to around 4.5 degrees K.

It was shut down last week Thursday, and just got back up to speed today I believe.

They're still on track to start the collision experiments in a few weeks though. So that's good, right?