# I killed my own grandpa! - The Large Hadron Collider Story **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 15, 2009, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955 "2009-10-15T21:50:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/21 "2009-10-16T15:14:00Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > In 1971, Larry Niven suggested that, if time tavel and the possibility of changing the past do exist, the result will be that no working time machine will in fact be built. His reasoning is that (a) either a time machine will be built, or not. If not, Q.E.D. If so, then it will be taken into the past, and introduce random changes. Eventually, one effect of such changes will be to alter the properties of the universe in such a way to prohibit the construction of a functional time machine. Since the past \*\*has been \*\*changed to make time machines impossible, the machine \*\*will never \*\*be built. Q.E.D. But that means time machines **were** built, back in the future. So, proof that we can’t build a time machine is proof positive they WERE built. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/22 "2009-10-16T15:36:15Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > But that means time machines **were** built, back in the future. > > So, proof that we can’t build a time machine is proof positive they WERE built. No, it means time machines might have been already will have been built in the past future (though not the current future). [Ooh, the rare subjunctive imperfect pre-ex-future tense] But that’s only one possibility; the other possibility is that time machines are always and forever impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/23 "2009-10-16T15:49:49Z")
Well, in that alternate past future no longer accessible, I did spell “time tRavel” correctly. :o ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/24 "2009-10-16T16:53:30Z")
Little known fact: In addition to causing mass, the Higg’s boson is responsible for all typos as well. ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/25 "2009-10-16T17:05:47Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > Little known fact: In addition to causing mass, the Higg’s boson is responsible for all typos as well. Not doubting you, but I find that a little bard to helieve. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/26 "2009-10-16T17:05:56Z")
Hence its nickname, “the Gaudere particle”. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/27 "2009-10-16T18:14:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Hence its nickname, “the Gaudere particle”. Wow. That’s an amazingly bad pun. :golf clap: ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/28 "2009-10-17T14:30:45Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > And the Superconducting Super Collider was killed by the usual thing, i.e. bullshit competition between political factions who had no understanding of the ultimate implications of results obtained therefrom, i.e. if it doesn’t generate additional GNP or blow something up real good, it must not be of much value. Ha! John Cramer’s excellent documentary **Einstein’s Bridge** proved that that’s just what the two alien-modified guys from the future wanted us to think. It was really killed to save all of humanity from destruction by the Hive. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/29 "2009-10-17T17:42:12Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > Btw, isn’t the creation of a Higgs Boson the thing that triggered inflation and the birth of our universe? If we ever produce these things, do we run the risk of destroying the universe as it currently is? Moreover, if we posit that we experience our lives only as simulations and rememberings in some sort of post-singularity universal meta-mind, then we can argue that that mind not exist if earlier in the history of its universe, the universe was destroyed by a higgs boson. Hence, the world we live in is steered to live a history where very few higgs bosons are produced. See, with that layman’s explanation, the non-locality of the imagine components of action in trying to avoid the creation of the higgs boson makes perfect sense 😛 I recall a sci-fi story with a related plot ( I think it was \*Vacuum States \* by Geoffrey A. Landis ). Every time that scientists tried to use a new particle accelerator for an experiment, something would go wrong. It turned out that the experiment in question if accomplished would destabilize the [false vacuum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum) we live in and destroy the universe. Only those alternate universes where by chance the accelerator didn’t work survived, so subjectively the experiment can’t ever work because if it does work no one will be alive to know. So, they simultaneously demonstrated both that we live in a false vacuum and the truth of the many worlds theory; while destroying uncountable universes in the process without realizing it. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/30 "2009-10-17T18:51:16Z")
Opps, wrong click ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/31 "2009-10-17T21:15:44Z")
Are you guys sure it’s not just the Eschaton preventing causality violation in its historic light cone? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/32 "2009-10-17T22:08:52Z")
[QUOTE=NYTimes] A pair of \*\*otherwise \*\*distinguished physicists . . . [/quote] That pesky word “otherwise” pretty much sums up the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/33 "2009-10-18T02:39:26Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Are you guys sure it’s not just the Eschaton preventing causality violation in its historic light cone? Eschaton. What an interesting word. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/34 "2009-10-18T02:42:13Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I recall a sci-fi story with a related plot ( I think it was \*Vacuum States \* by Geoffrey A. Landis ). Every time that scientists tried to use a new particle accelerator for an experiment, something would go wrong. It turned out that the experiment in question if accomplished would destabilize the [false vacuum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum) we live in and destroy the universe. Only those alternate universes where by chance the accelerator didn’t work survived, so subjectively the experiment can’t ever work because if it does work no one will be alive to know. > > So, they simultaneously demonstrated both that we live in a false vacuum and the truth of the many worlds theory; while destroying uncountable universes in the process without realizing it. Technically we live in the _true_ vacuum. A false vacuum is what a Higgs boson might _create_. But yeah, fascinating story. I like how it bypasses invoking the Eschaton. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/35 "2009-10-18T03:56:13Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > Technically we live in the _true_ vacuum. A false vacuum is what a Higgs boson might _create_. > > But yeah, fascinating story. The whole idea of the story is that we live in a metastable false vacuum; one that the right experiment can collapse into the more stable true vacuum. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/36 "2009-10-18T04:02:52Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The whole idea of the story is that we live in a metastable false vacuum; one that the right experiment can collapse into the more stable true vacuum. Oh. But the whole idea of modern physics is that we live in a stable true vacuum. One that the right experiment or accident (concerning Higgs bosons of all things) can turn into a metastable but explosively inflationary false vacuum. Reality is exactly like the story. Dunno why the story mixed things up. Maybe you’re just misremembering. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/37 "2009-10-18T04:22:09Z")
No, true vacuum is inherently more stable than false vacuum, as the true vacuum is the global minimum state. If we really are living in the true vacuum, then we have nothing to fear. The problem is just that, from the bottom of a local minimum, you can never be completely sure whether you’re in the global minimum after all, until you find someplace lower. EDIT: That’s why the original inflationary era ended, because the false vacuum that led to inflation found a lower state and settled into it. We don’t know if we’re in the true vacuum, but we do at least know that we’re closer to it than that inflationary state was. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/38 "2009-10-18T04:25:37Z")
I’ve never understood why the moderators keep deleting this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/39 "2009-10-18T04:48:33Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I’ve never understood why the moderators keep deleting this thread. Well, when **billfish** reported the successful creation of a Higgs boson in post #30, the only hope for saving the Universe, however forlorn, was to delete the thread. Unfortunately, it was too little and too late, and all those Universes succumbed to the rapid expansion of the true vacuum. Aren’t you glad that in this Universe, what he did was to make a post intended for another thread and then delete it, instead? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955/40 "2009-10-18T04:48:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > No, true vacuum is inherently more stable than false vacuum, as the true vacuum is the global minimum state. If we really are living in the true vacuum, then we have nothing to fear. The problem is just that, from the bottom of a local minimum, you can never be completely sure whether you’re in the global minimum after all, until you find someplace lower. > > EDIT: That’s why the original inflationary era ended, because the false vacuum that led to inflation found a lower state and settled into it. We don’t know if we’re in the true vacuum, but we do at least know that we’re closer to it than that inflationary state was. My point was that the false vacuum and the inflationary state can be recreated (certainly by chance, conceivably by experiment) within our universe. The stability of true vacuum does not keep our universe from being destroyed. Come on, you knew that, and you would’ve realized what I meant with a moment’s thought. > [@Chronos](#): > > The problem is just that, from the bottom of a local minimum, you can never be completely sure whether you’re in the global minimum after all, until you find someplace lower. But thanks for clarifying that there’s a danger of going down into a more stable state too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-killed-my-own-grandpa-the-large-hadron-collider-story/513955.md?page=3)