This Wednesday scientists will work to recreate the big bang

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.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

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.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by Shin

...said "Nothing will change for about four years...

You mean 2012?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

OH jebus!



FELIPE NO

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

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by LeHah

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.



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

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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 thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Animechanic

I can't see photos.cx pictures while at work

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

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

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.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by KrelEN

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

In the same journal entry, yes

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Oh. Sorry.

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

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Aardark

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:



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.

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?

How ya doing, buddy?

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

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Eschbach

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?

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Excellent, thanks a bunch.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Or you could just read Flatland.

Most amazing jew boots

You knew it was bound to happen.

Quote:

A TEENAGE girl in central India killed herself on Wednesday after being traumatised by media reports that a "Big Bang" experiment in Europe could bring about the end of the world, her father said.

The 16-year old girl from the state of Madhya Pradesh drank pesticide and was rushed to the hospital but later died, police said.

Her father, identified on local television as Biharilal, said that his daughter, Chayya, killed herself after watching doomsday predictions made on Indian news programmes.

"In the past two days, Chayya had asked me and other relatives about the world coming to an end on Sept. 10," Biharilal was quoted as saying.

"We tried to divert her attention and told her she should not worry about such things, but to no avail."

For the past two days, many Indian news channels held discussions airing doomsday predictions over a huge particle-smashing machine buried under the Swiss-French border.

Now we know what happened to ShadowSky.

I was speaking idiomatically.

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.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Radez29

so our children can live forever.

and then eventually kill themselves anyway due to crippling ennui.

FELIPE NO

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

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

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

How ya doing, buddy?

GEMMA - BURN IN YOUR GOLDEN HELL

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Pangalin

and then eventually kill themselves anyway due to crippling ennui.

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

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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."

How ya doing, buddy?