The Large Hadron Collider which some say will destroy the world and possibly the entire universe via the creation of black holes or “strangelets” is almost complete. The first collisions begin in August.
Excited? Scared?
Wikipedia quotes the budget of the collider at 2.6 billion Swiss francs - personally I think that money would be better spent helping the poor, than put towards a device which has the potential (however small) to destroy our planet and will contribute almost nothing to society beyond perhaps observing a theoretical “Higgs boson” and making a bunch of scientists feel good about themselves. But what do I know, I’m just an ignorant Midwestern boy from a podunk town who never took physics in high school.
Has anything, besides a war, ever sucked up such a giant amount of money with so few potential benefits?
Is that a large Hadron in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
As for what it’s worth… That’s kinda one of the things about research, some of it goes more or less the way you think, and some of it produces bup-kiss, and some of it pays off really, really big.
You never know, especially in the weird world of particle physics, which way things will go. It’s like there’s some uncertainty, or something.
If you want some specific possibilities, I have nothing other than conjecture. Who knows, maybe the work they do in some way allows us to come to such a better understanding of quantum or string physics that energy producing fusion is a possibility. Or maybe we just learn something about why different particles behave the way they do.
Whatever we get out of the research, it will be something worth knowing.
Recently I had lectures on this subject from a husband-and-wife team (I guess experimental particle physicists stick together), both of whom work on the collider and neither of whom made claims like it might eat the world or be a time machine. But then they would say that, wouldn’t they?
I actually can’t wait to see the results when it is completed. The Higgs boson is a pretty big deal. Unfortunately I would do a massive disservice to physics if I were to attempt to explain why, but when it was explained to me properly it was proper awesome. It’s really exciting! I don’t think I’ve heard anything trustworthy about it destroying the world. The two people I’ve met who actually theorise/design/operate it didn’t think it would. But bear in mind that quantum particle physics in my elective and I actually study philosophy, and also that this is my memory of events and I have memory problems. So don’t quote me on that when the world ends.
Feel free to move this to the Debates section because I really think that this thing is bullshit, and I know I had a thread about it a while ago but nobody has provided any solid, concrete, reasonable evidence that there is any benefit whatsoever to this gigantic, stupendously expensive, and potentially world-destroying machine. All the answers center around theoretical bullshit and hypothetical this and that. There are already several giant colliders in existence and none of them have given us any practical uses, such as more efficient energy. And what is this idea that we should pursue knowledge at all costs, at the expense of everything else? Why do scientists feel the need to play God and put the whole world at risk? Remember, scientists gave us the atomic bomb and scientists backed the Holocaust. Scientists are not some magical race of inherently helpful creatures who do nothing but good for the world.
Am I the only person who thinks this project is a ridiculous waste of money and time, to say nothing of, you know, black holes (which we are supposedly protected against by theoretical, untested “Hawking radiation.”
Large Hadron Collider, ROCK ON! Argent, c’mon! This country spends more on gourmet pet food every year. That we don’t know what will happen is the whole point of the thing! Where’s your sense of adventure?
At worst, the LHC will deliver very little. At best…who knows? And this thing about creating black holes that will eat the universe? The billions of supermassive black holes already extant haven’t managed to do that yet.
Sorry, Argent, if that came off as pedantic (it was). I was so puzzled by your OP. Was that a whoosh?
Still, the sheer amount of money being spent…Christ, at least the Space Program produced something that’s actually tangible and real - men landing on the moon and being able to venture past the bounds of earth. It also created morale for the country and led to the development of new technologies. All this hadron collider seems to offer is very vague theoretical discoveries that are beneficial only to the egos of the scientists that stumble upon them. 2.5 billion Swiss Francs? Is it worth that much just to discover some hypothetical particle? That doesn’t sound very adventurous to me, just a very dangerous waste of cash. No, my OP is not a whoosh.
Dude, here, let me help you with that large brush. It must be heavy.
Can’t say I’ve ever met any scientist who said (or said myself), “Here, let’s pretend that we’re an omniscient, omnipotent being.”
You’ve latched onto the concept of the black-hole creation thing that was sensationalized in the press. Basically, the process that allows for the creation of these black holes is already happening and has been happening as long as there has been an Earth. You’ve focused on one minute part of the physics that you’ve already admitted that you don’t think is worth knowing any more about.
If you’re trying to say that we should be spending the money on other areas of research, I might agree with you. For instance, oceanography, which is nowhere near as sexy as High energy physics or extra terrestrial exploration is severely underfunded and, shall we say, much closer to home.
However, our ability to put to use scientific understanding almost always trails behind our ability to find out new things that we didn’t know before. One of the great things about humans is that we are constantly trying to understand just a little bit more about our universe.
I dunno, one of the many things the Large Hadron Collider will hopefully give insight into is why there is so much more matter than antimatter in the world. The first solid proof for antimatter was the positron, which was discovered using particle colliders and is now routinely used in cancer therapy. PET scanners and all that. So er, there’s one practical use.
I concur about the waste of time and money but there are other projects that I feel the same way about. I feel the same way about the fear aspect that you mentioned in that there isn’t a thing I can do about either. As for excitment, I don’t know enough about particle physics to fill a thimble so aside from being curious about what benefits we will receive that benefit mankind on the whole, I can only hope that it will lead to some discovery that will make a difference in the future quality of life that benefits us all.
All of that money for the collider could have gone to cancer, AIDS or Alzheimer’s research, to alternative fuel development, or to conservation efforts for the environment. I still think there is absolutely no way that the discovery of one hypothetical particle is worth all of that. It’s ridiculous.
ETA - I also agree, I hate the fact that there’s nothing I can do about this. I almost feel as if I should be organizing some kind of petition to stop the use of the collider but I know it would never work.
“The energy produced by breaking down the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformations of these atoms is taking moonshine.”
Attributed to Rutherford
It’s not just the Higgs Boson (which may be responsible for why particles have mass). There are other large particles that may be found which can give credence to String theory. I have absolutely no doubt, that, if the LHC can influence the direction of study / development of String theory, something profoundly useful will come out of it.
Let’s put it another way: Einstein’s Nobel prize was not for relativity, but rather for discovering & explaining the photoelectric effect. It might have seemed like it would never have amounted to anything, but the technological use of his ideas are in things as mundane as sensors to know when to open the door for you at the grocery store, or solar panels on a roof. Not earth shattering or nearly as wonderful as controlled fusion reactions, but hey, those photovoltaic cells are still free energy.
Theories, theories, theories. I’ve never heard anyone talk about String Theory who didn’t sound like a total whackjob with his head in the clouds. I’ve read about it and as far as I can tell it’s basically on the level of religious mysticism.
Yeah! And while we’re at it, let’s kick all those atomic bomb making, Holocaust supporting scientists to the curb and get some gee-shucks, salt of the Earth, honest folks doing all that research instead!
