<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 width=1 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> Monday September 11, 2006 Deep underground on the Franco-Swiss border, someone will throw a switch next year to start one of the most ambitious experiments in history, probing the secrets of the universe and possibly finding new dimensions. The Large Hadron Collider - a 27km-long circular particle accelerator at the CERN experimental facility near Geneva, will smash protons into one another at unimaginable speeds trying to replicate in miniature the events of the Big Bang. "These beams will have the kinetic energy of an aircraft carrier slammed into the size of a zero on a 20p piece," Brian Cox of Manchester University told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "We are going to make mini Big Bangs. "There has never been such a jump in particle physics. It will go into an area that we don't really understand," he added. The fundamental goal of the massive machine is to answer the basic but crucial question of how matter was created at the birth of the universe. "We don't know what 95 per cent of the universe is made of - which is a bit embarrassing for a subject that claims to be fundamental," Dr Cox said. "There is dark matter. It is all over the place but we have no idea what it is." "There is also something called dark energy, and that is an even bigger question. "It makes up about 70 per cent of the energy in the universe, but again we have absolutely no idea what it is. "It is an incredibly exciting machine. It will be turned on next year and run for at least a decade and probably 20 years and the first results - if the machine behaves itself - should start coming out within a year," he added. If the theories are correct, the machine will create tiny black holes that evaporate and possibly even find particles that offer evidence that the three dimensions known to mankind are just a fraction of those that exist. "That would be an even bigger headline than the black holes. It could be that there is a whole new universe a millimetre away from our heads but at right-angles to the three dimensions that are here," Dr Cox said. "That would be a real paradigm shift - our relegation to a little sheet in a multi-dimensional universe. "That kind of thing is really profound and will capture the imagination that perhaps the origin of mass won't, although it should. "For the first time in many decades we have built a machine that exceeds our powers of prediction. "New processes are bound to be discovered. We are truly journeying into unknown territory." Dr Cox dismissed worries that by adventuring into the unknown and creating tiny black holes, the machine could even destroy the planet. "The probability is at the level of 10 to the minus 40," he said. MINI BANGS * Scientists aim to reproduce miniature versions of the so-called Big Bang, which is thought to have started the universe. * To do this they will smash protons together at huge speeds along a 27km tube known as a particle accelerator. * They hope to create tiny black holes or find extra dimensions in the universe. * They estimate the possibility of accidentally destroying the planet as extremely low. * The risk is calculated at about 10 to the minus 40 - a 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance.
wow. this is pretty amazing. i know my town has one, i think it's a mile in diameter. but 27km. jesus, that's enormous. i'm excited to find out what happens.
Im not excited at all, damn scientists trying to figure everything out. I don't see how this is going to be good in the long run.
Yes, I'd rather live in nature without technology blazing and relaxing just looking at the beauty of the world rather than inventing all kinds of shit so we can be lazy and try to understand everything there is in the world, when the true nature of things is a lot simpler than that. I mean look at me, here I am sitting at this computer rather than being outside and enjoying life for how it is. How stupid of me.
I'd have agreed with you wholly if not for an article I read on Transhumanism a couple days ago. Very interested, it's really making me look at things from another perspective. But i'll tell you what; I dont feel more alive than when I'm hiking in the woods with everything i need to survive on my back. Looking out on a lake, breathing in fresh air, feeling the warmth of the sun
.ViciouS., when would you get a chance to smoke a doob if you had no technology? you'd be hunting, farming, war-making or building all day. Its only in the last 200 years or so that the average person in society has been allowed to enjoy themselves and not work themselves to death.
That's not really my point, it's that we always need to improve, always need something faster, better, etc. I know a lot of people don't see eye to eye on me with this but it's just how I see it. I think one day it's gonna screw us all over, actually it is already, but not totally yet.
self improvement is masturbation hahah... fight club reference haha, but seriously technology it's not really good or bad, it's just human nature to strive for something better, as rasta_man's sig says...'Unto each man is given the key that opens the door to heaven, the same key unlocks the gates of hell' so it's like tech is like a disease, and a cure, it's weird...
im looking forward to it.but i do have caution on the mind. "technology is like an axe in the hands of a mass killer." -Ablert Eistien
haha...It's actually kind of ironic, now that I think about it. Where I read that buddhist quote originally. It was in a book Richard Feinman wrote (sp?). He was one of the physicists that worked on the Manhattan project or whatever. Building The Bomb.
hmm looks like a good book, I'll pick that up my next trip to the book store. I'll be interested to find out why mastering certain seemingly necessary technologies didn't give us the leisure time I percieve we have now.
i love thoreau and the idea of living off the land, but incredible technology just amazes me. hopefully we get fusion energy and can power the world with nothing. now that would make everyones life alot easier. black matter and dark energy? that makes me laugh, i wish they would stop making up bs and say we dont know much.
It's not bullshit, it's an unknown in an equation. We know it's exists, we just don't know what it equals. Hard to tell when we're on a tiny spec of carbon and hydrogen hurdling through the outskirts of the galaxy.
it never ends up being a good idea to just jump into something they don't really know much about but it is very interesting, and i am kind of axious to see the results nonetheless