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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Still Here I See

Well, looks like Walter Wagner and the anti-LHC crowd were wrong, eh?

Big surprise there.

The LHC is at full power this morning doing record setting high energy science. So far, the earth appears to be unaffected.

However, if the world is destroyed, I'll be the first to let you know.

Stay tuned.

14 comments:

  1. If the world is destroyed, can I leave work early?

    winones- what the republicans wish they could do

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  2. Yeah, but the longer that thing runs without destroying the world, the closer we come to that 50% chance of it actually destroying the world. The danger becomes more pronounced every minute it's running because it's using up that 50% of the time not destroying the world part, so the destroying the world part gets closer to happening.

    Or something like that.

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  3. If it does destroy the Earth, we should totally have up to date commentary on our next dinorama podcast.

    Which might be a little late if the Earth is destroyed.

    vicaph -- medicine taken vicariously.

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  4. If the earth is going to be destroyed by the LHC, do I still have to get the insurance to cover my funeral mentioned in the previous post?

    sarcusli: A loose form of sarcasm.

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  5. I think Phiala's site may be mistaken. Check out this animated gif: LHC Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment Webcams

    restsa: A rest with a little salsa.

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  6. Still and all, with the operators demonstrating this kind of flawed logic, concern might not be so misplaced.

    Quote::

    "Schukraft dismisses fears that these kinds of high-energy collisions could produce a voracious black hole and swallow the world by pointing out that he is “standing rather close to the experiment” and still able to carry on a conversation."


    Yep, you can stand next to low level nuclear reactions and 'still carry on a conversation',

    ..trouble is, once the radiation saturation level reaches a certain point, conversation won't be a concern at all.

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  7. Jim, I eagerly await your response to "Anonymous," however in the meantime, I would like to take a crack!

    Quote::

    "Schukraft dismisses fears that these kinds of high-energy collisions could produce a voracious black hole and swallow the world by pointing out that he is “standing rather close to the experiment” and still able to carry on a conversation."

    The above quote you so namelessly posted as support for your argument shows how uninformed and uneducated you are. The person quoted was dismissive because he knows the facts and isn't worried by faceless doomsday theorists. Though a small percentage of actual scientists believe such a phenomenon is possible (it's called a micro black hole), nearly all agree that phenomenon would be short lived (its lifespan would be measured in nanoseconds) and would behave according to the theory of Hawking Radiation, thus disappearing in a small flash of gamma rays. Sorry, you're still gonna have to pay those credit card bills you ran up in anticipation of the end of the world. . .

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  8. Jim, the "full power" part of your post isn't quite right. It's only running at half power, because of the problem that shut it down earlier. There are still flaws that need to be corrected. They'll run like this for a while, to do science, then shut it down and fir the flaws. Then it will come up at full power. But it will be a while before that happens.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/31collider.html

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  9. "I'm not sure that's how probability works, Walter."

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  10. Tom, you're right, of course. That's what I get for leaving a quick post in the morning. What I should have said was highest ever collision energies to date, surpassing RHIC. But still far short of its ultimate maximum. ON the other hand, we're still here.

    Anonymous, your comment is so damned silly that I had a hard time determining if you were joking or not. Please, elaborate on how localized low level radiation either: a) pertains to the post (i.e. black holes eating the earth) or b) is a threat to anybody not standing right next to the machine.

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  11. And there was worry in 45 about igniting the atmosphere.

    mende one letter from merde

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  12. who said anything about localized low level radiation?

    I said you can stand next to a low level nuclear reaction and still carry on a conversation.

    That doesn't mean the radiation won't eventually kill you.

    Just because we can do something doesn't mean it's necessarily also an intelligent move. Not everything we're able to do has resulted in quantifiable positive gains. Much of what we've discovered we can do has led to nothing but negative results.

    Whether the Hadron Collider is or is not going to cause a problem isn't really the only point I'm contending with.

    The point of my comment was that the quote about being able to carry on a conversation equals proof of benign security was lame, bereft of logic, as well as nonsensical.

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