The End of The World is nigh
I watched Horizon on Tuesday this week.
For those of you who don’t know, Horizon is a science programme on BBC.
This week they did a piece about CERN in Geneva, where they are building the world’s largest experiment – the Large Hadron Collider. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?
They interviewed the scientists involved including the World’s Greatest Geek. He looked about 15 [funny how when you get older all scientists seem so young]. He literally hopped from one foot to the other as he excitedly listed the sub-atomic particles. He listed them with a glowing face – Neutrino, Muon, Tau, Up, Down, Strangeness, Beauty, Truth, [I’m not making this up. Honestly!], Pion, Kaon and so on. He forgot the Quark and was very embarrassed by that. At one stage, he was in an underground tunnel and pointed to a pipe. I thought we were going to be told about the incredible energies flowing in that pipe.
“It’s blue” says he. “Isn’t that exciting”
That kid needs help.
Anyway, the point of the program was that this Large Hadron Collider is going to be completed in November. They’ve been building it for 20 years at a cost of billions. And on November 26th they are going to run their big experiment.
This experiment is to find out what caused the Universe at the time of the Big Bang. It involves flinging things into each other at very high speed [sounds like any road in Ireland].
They admitted that there was a chance that this might cause a Black Hole. If that happens, the Black Hole will suck the new machine into itself, followed by CERN, followed by Geneva, followed by Switzerland, Europe and the the rest of the world. All matter that makes up the world, including you and me will be crushed down to a blob the size of a football. I bet I end up as a Strangeness.
You know what scientists are like when they get excited about something. Nothing will stop them. That’s how we ended up with the Atomic Bomb after all. And this lot are so excited that the prospect of ending the world doesn’t bother them. It’s a small price to pay for the knowledge to be gained. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that they won’t be around to study this knowledge.
So, whatever you are doing now, you had better have it finished by November the 26th.
-oOo-
For those of you who may be worried by this, I have written an update.
Nov 18th
Praise the lord, you fixed your feed!
What? Who? Where? What are you on about? I didn’t do nothin’. Honest!
Oh well, I’m now getting the full feed instead of the abbreviated one, and that’s great. Three thumbs up.
Didn’t change anything [I tried to before, and couldn’t find where!!]
Three thumbs? You been drinking Galway water again?
Grandad,
It will all be worth it if it gets rid of ‘Celebrity Jigs and Reels’ and Westlife and Dundrum Town Centre.
If they could get the ol’ thing thing fired up before October 31st, it would mean that we could ignore the Revenue Commissioners Pay and File.
It would also mean that the barristers would make no more money from the Mahon and Moriarty Tribunals, which by itself would justify the extinction of the planet
If you believe all the doom and gloom about climate change and how in a few years we will all be up to our necks in water then it might just be worth it to give some scientist his fun and get it all over with quickly 😉
You forgot Fianna Fáil [and the rest of them], Pat ‘The Plank’ Kenny, traffic jams, SUVs, George W – the list is endless.
Don’t worry about the Revenue. Sign up for ROS. That gives you ’til the 16th of November. So they only have ten days to complain.
Happy days are here again……
Next week Grandad will be walking about Dublin puffing on the pipe, wearing a display board warning that the end of the world is nigh!
I got as far as Large Hardon Collider, felt wheezy from the images I was having, and skipped to the comments. What’s the post all about?
@robert – That’s what’s called ‘going out in style’ 😉
@grannymar – Nothing would get me into Dublin. I might however start enjoying a few pipe-fulls in the local hostelries. Buy the time my court case comes up……….?!
@Sneezy – It’s nothing to worry about. Scientists are going to make a Black Hole on the 26th November and suck us all into it. Nothing serious. Just the end of the world.
Ah that’s grand so. I’ll be finished the project I’m on by then. If I’m not, do you think they’d put it off for a day or two?
Sneezy – If you read the effing article, you’d know they have waited 20 years for this. They are an excitable bunch and they can’t wait to push the button.
Just finish that project. OK?
Must get on with the tree-house . . .
No need to get the lane fixed anyway. Not worth it…..
I caught a bit of the programme the other night, I thought they had partical accelorators for years, they do, but this one is just the BIGGEST, kinda ironic considering atomic particles are really, really small.
Just think off all the worlds problems that could have been seriously reduced with the money they spent on this thing. Like how big are the results they’re gonna get from this, “we have found that before the big bang there was a lot of very, very small bangs” or “the big bang was actually a very quiet pop, a bit like one of those farts that creaps out and creates a lot of smell”, “Einstien was right, or wrong, or a bit wrong and a bit right”.
On the BBC world service today they’re getting really excited about exactly how much water (ice) there is on mars. For #*@! sake. I think we have some major issues about water too solve on this planet first. And “NO” I really don’t want to spend my future re-incarnated lives on mars…sorry to spoil the party!
There are loads of arguments for and against research.
After all, if it weren’t for research, there would be no Internet, and you wouldn’t be able to vent your spleen 😉
What I am more concerned at though is this remote possibility that they might create a Black Hole. They estimate the chances as ‘insignificant to non-existent’ but it is quite a big gamble considering the stakes.
grandad
I am for the benifits of science, and research, if done in a ethical manner. IMO I don’t think it will bring about our totally demise. Science often teaches us how little we really know, and I think that will be the end result of this project.
I do try to keep informed on my quantum physics, and enjoy doing so, but most of it looses me. I think on a spiritual level its the same ol’ question, what happened before adam bit the apple? or black holes do contain something that is nothing, but what exactly is its form of nothingness?
I am expecting a fizzle-out on this one or a big hole in the ground somewhere near geneva. This would be a bummer as easy jet fly direct from amsterdam for €20. And I like going to switzerland for vacations.
Yes. Invariably all these [very expensive] experiments do is pose more questions than they answer.
I must confess to being intrigued as to what was there, before time and matter existed. But then, if there was no time, there couldn’t have been a ‘before’.
So if there was no ‘before’, were there any afters! 😉
I wonder will they patent it and sell it? I could do with a cupboard door with a black hole behind it. It’s cheaper than a skip.
They’ve been working on the LHC for years, and I have to say, I think that it’s the absolute biggest waste of money ever seen. They waste billions so they can see quarks and neutrinos; people starve in Africa.
While I’m no great philanthropist, even I can see the sense in this matter.
I won’t argue with you on that.
On the other hand, it’s a tiny fraction of what women spend on cosmetics each year?
What a waste of money!! They could have given that money to Guinness and they could have built who knows how many more breweries. I would even have offered to let them use my backyard for one.
see i knew dan brown wasn,t writing his books without some truth in them.hes got a gizmo like that in angels and demons, but now i have to start thinking about holy grails.and whether mary magdelen is the holy grail or mabe i just shouldn’t read too many books.
The odds of a cataclysmic disaster are about 1 in 50,000,000 – similar to the national lottery. All I have to say is that people win the lottery every week!
Now, there’s a cheerful thought!!
a bunch of geeks who probably dont get laid enough will destroy the universe this november in a massive techno-orgasm.
yipee for that! hurray!
We might be fucked. Who knows we might end up in a kick ass alternate universe. There could be a good time at the end of that black hole wait time dosen’t exsist in a black hole hahahahahahah.
either way… were all fucked in one way or another
does any one no wot time the experiment is hollding place ?
I think if it all goes horribly wrong, we’ll soon find out.
😉
this will be fun
One way or the other 😉
You are so stupid, a black hole created by two atoms would dissapear within a nanosecond because of a thing called hawking radiation and would not suck anything into it
Thank you Alex. We’ll talk about it on November 27th 🙂
alex, hawking radiation is theoretical and even the guy who coined the theory (Stephen Hawking) admitted that he may have gotten it wrong. Did you even know that?…
-its probabbly correct though, but theres always that shadow of doubt… read the wikipedia article about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation
alex, hawking radiation is theoretical and even the guy who coined the theory (Stephen Hawking) admitted that he may have gotten it wrong. Did you even know that?…
-its probabbly correct though, but theres always that shadow of doubt… read the wikipedia article about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation, oh, and before you go around pointing fingers at how stupid people are. Remember that whenever you point a finger- you point three back at yourself…
During the hydrogen bomb tests there were worries that the temperatures produced could actually ignite the hydrogen in the atmosphere. These doubts were only published later.
There is always an element of doubt in any journey into the unknown. One day, one of those doubts will be justified.
This is scary!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1626728.ece
Something always has to screw up my birthday. Might as well getsucked into a black hole or what ever the hell it is that is going to happen. Most of my BD’s get screwed up in one form or another, maybe this year it will be a reallybig bang!
Hey this showed up in my reader and dang you posted it in may…. lol
Oh still good to know what I’ll be doing this birthday!
if one could theoretically re-create the instances after the first so called “big bang” wouldnt it be possible then that there could or might already have been a second? or that the reprocussions of the experimEnt could be, as claimed by some, as the pinnacle of human science and technology. Rebooting the universe might be a good idea for some- But if there is only just “now”, relaxing to that thought doesnt sound like half a bad idea. All the known information about the universe has loaded itself in the time now and into our relative past, The future is yet in sight. the Atomic age has come and past, smaller things having bigger implications and now to tearing into the past and unknown with brutal machines.
“We already tested the first weapon, and it worked…”
It begins next Wednesday. Although the high energy collisions won’t take place for a while.