LHC director: 'Out of this door might come something'

[monster]

ShrikeHammer

Cool handle, I just finished reading Hyperion, looking forward to the rest of those books. Carry on.

[Hugo Farnsworth]

rigorousintuition.ca :: View topic - Mind Kontrol Themes on TeleVision

Latest episode of Fringe, more mind control. Sheesh.

[MacCruiskeen]

I don't know if it's an urban myth or not, but I remember hearing there was some slight uncertainty among scientists involved in the Manhattan Project as to whether or not the nuclear chain reaction would stop before consuming the entire planet.

Get ready for the show everyone...

The thing is, if the show does go wrong, then we might not even have time to notice we had been around for it. We could be online, for instance, typing away happily about the possible consequences, and then sudd

[jingofever]

Nobody spends 5 billion dollars to manifest Higgs bosons, or to altruistically add to the supersymmetrical particle zoo out of some spirit of philanthropy to the sheer curiosity of physicists. Consider that the world's largest telescope cost a mere 180 million. You could build six of them for one-fifth the cost of this project. There are almost certainly military applications to these atom-smashers which which don't make it into the press releases.

If there were military applications to these colliders then Congress wouldn't have canceled the Superconducting Super Collider and let Europe take the prize after two billion dollars had already been dropped on it.

[jingofever]

I don't know if it's an urban myth or not, but I remember hearing there was some slight uncertainty among scientists involved in the Manhattan Project as to whether or not the nuclear chain reaction would stop before consuming the entire planet.

Edward Teller did some calculations that suggested it was possible that the nitrogen in the atmosphere would ignite but it was shown long before the bomb was built that it wouldn't happen. This apparently disappointed Teller so much that he ran off and invented the hydrogen bomb, which when given enough fuel can destroy the world in a similar manner.

[tron]

Nobody spends 5 billion dollars to manifest Higgs bosons, or to altruistically add to the supersymmetrical particle zoo out of some spirit of philanthropy to the sheer curiosity of physicists. Consider that the world's largest telescope cost a mere 180 million. You could build six of them for one-fifth the cost of this project. There are almost certainly military applications to these atom-smashers which which don't make it into the press releases.

If there were military applications to these colliders then Congress wouldn't have canceled the Superconducting Super Collider and let Europe take the prize after two billion dollars had already been dropped on it.

desnt that mean the project siply went dark after they found something naughty?

[MacCruiskeen]

I don't know if it's an urban myth or not, but I remember hearing there was some slight uncertainty among scientists involved in the Manhattan Project as to whether or not the nuclear chain reaction would stop before consuming the entire planet.

Edward Teller did some calculations that suggested it was possible that the nitrogen in the atmosphere would ignite but it was shown long before the bomb was built that it wouldn't happen. This apparently disappointed Teller so much that he ran off and invented the hydrogen bomb, which when given enough fuel can destroy the world in a similar manner.

Thanks, jingofever. That's reassuring.

[justdrew]

Nobody spends 5 billion dollars to manifest Higgs bosons, or to altruistically add to the supersymmetrical particle zoo out of some spirit of philanthropy to the sheer curiosity of physicists. Consider that the world's largest telescope cost a mere 180 million. You could build six of them for one-fifth the cost of this project. There are almost certainly military applications to these atom-smashers which which don't make it into the press releases.

Well you make an oh-so-obvious point that I'd never thought of before ...

Great, now I'm really freaked out.

Seems like bad science fiction. The Evil Generals standing around the Doomsday Machine with the mad scientists, about to turn it on .....

Where's Indiana Jones or James Bond when you need him?

It's not that much money over the many many years it's been constructed. It's funded by every country in the EU and then some, it's also a jobs program for scientists, it's going to do real science and may or may not ever get revved up to the really high energy levels, Interactions on these high energy levels do happen in nature around us, this is just making them happen in controlled observable situation. If it were directly weapon related, the US wouldn't have canceled the SuperCollider.

[beeline]

I'm not gonna worry about this at all. On the off chance that something really bad does happen, we won't be around long enough to realize it.

[Jeff]

Edward Teller did some calculations that suggested it was possible that the nitrogen in the atmosphere would ignite but it was shown long before the bomb was built that it wouldn't happen. This apparently disappointed Teller so much that he ran off and invented the hydrogen bomb, which when given enough fuel can destroy the world in a similar manner.

"There is no case where ignorance should be preferred to knowledge - especially if the knowledge is terrible."

That darn Teller!

[MacCruiskeen]

It's not that much money over the many many years it's been constructed. It's funded by every country in the EU and then some, it's also a jobs program for scientists, it's going to do real science and may or may not ever get revved up to the really high energy levels, Interactions on these high energy levels do happen in nature around us, this is just making them happen in controlled observable situation. If it were directly weapon related, the US wouldn't have canceled the SuperCollider.

I think the Apollo space programme cost something like 140 billion in today's terms, so 5 billion for the LHR over all these years is really not that much by comparison, especially since several countries are sharing the costs.

Not to dismiss barracuda's suspicion out of hand, but a hell of a lot of money does go into sustaining "pure" academic research every year. It would be interesting to know exactly how much annual funding has gone into Pure (i.e. Non-Applied) Mathematics departments at European universities in the same period.

[barracuda]

There couldn't possibly be any military interest in a device which could theoretically destroy the universe. But it is funny how the hobbies of soldiers and scientists overlap sometimes.

[beeline]

Sometimes? Since someone decided to string a bow and shoot an arrow, I'll reckon.

[MacCruiskeen]

There couldn't possibly be any military interest in a device which could theoretically destroy the universe.

We'd better make damn sure Al Qaeda don't get their hands on it.

Still, destroying the universe would be a dubious military victory in anyone's terms. For who would pick up the booty, and how?

I shudder to think what God would say. (Or Allah, if you prefer.) I bet it wouldn't please him one little bit.

[beeline]

Hmmmm....well, assuming God/Allah figure of which you speak is omincient and omnipresent, wouldn't that make the ultimate destruction of the Universe at the hands of the LHC entirely God's/Allah's fault? Kind of like leaving loaded handguns around children.