shrug Some people complain about the relatively paltry sums that fund these programs, suggesting instead that they should be applied to cancer research (already amply funded) or providing aid to Africa (badly mismanaged, and the more money thrown at NGOs the more wasteful they seem to get). Personally, I don’t regard the research into abstract scientific knowledge as a “waste” given how many “abstract” discoveries have turned into life-improving, paradigm-shattering technical innovations, not to mention the value and pleasure that comes from better understanding the workings of the natural world.
I cannot believe that people who have invested George Bush with the button that can unleash world destruction can seriously worry about the infinitesimally remote chance that this machine could create a particle that would destroy the world. Several points to be made. There is no difference between two particles moving with respect to our frame from one stationary and one moving particle. Just choose a coordinate system based on one of the particles (after its acceleration is finished) and that particle is stationary and the other one moving. Another point is that a mini black hole will evaporate almost immediately by Hawking radiation. In fact that is one real possibility and they know what to look for.
Yeah, I really fucked that post up. Half of it’s missing, the other half’s badly jumbled up. Perhaps I was just trying to justify my username. In my defence, it was half past eleven PM over here when I wrote it…
So! Most of what’s to be said has already been said, so I’ll just clarify how my post was meant – you are of course right that a particle travelling at 0.99995c will have vastly more energy than one travelling at 0.99c, in fact the Lorentz factor (gamma: y) for the latter will be around 7, and for the former at about 100, and total relativistic energy is equal to ymc[sup]2[/sup].
Now, how does that fit with Chronos’ argumentation? Well, as he said, the OMG!-particle had a gamma of about 310[sup]11[/sup], which is equal to a speed of far too close to c for me to type out all the nines, but, if I transform it back, the resulting gamma (for again a speed very close to c) is around 3.910[sup]5[/sup] in the CoM-system, which, given a mass-energy for a proton of 0.94 GeV equates to a total relativistic energy of 3.6410[sup]5[/sup], thus, for two particles colliding head-on, 7.2810[sup]5[/sup] GeV = 728 TeV.
Right, I understand. I wasn’t complaining about the money spent on science. Just that specific type of counter-argument.
It’s the type of counter-argument that gets used during different kinds of public spending debates, from education, defence, law enforcement (prison inmate amenities, for example), and so on.
I forget the sums involved and can’t find the link, but one scientist quoted on the BBC made the comparison between the cost of the LHC to the UK and the amount Britons spend on peanuts every year.
Ah yes, I can find the quote…
From Brian Cox (the man behind the “twat” quote ) here.