Who is this guy?

Thomas

Thomas

So it goes ...
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So let me get this right.

All this Hobbiting about under the mountains of Switzerland is in aid of the search for Higg's Bosun, who apparently jumped ship a long time ago, and has never been seen since?

In fact, it was so long ago now, no-one's sure if he really existed at all?

OK. So I can see the boatswain's important to the crew, and maybe Captain Higgs wants to apologise for something he said, or maybe he just wants to kick the boatswain's butt for jumping ship in the first place ... whatever ... I would have thought it's all 'water under the bow' by now ...

But this bit about the possibility of the accidental generation of a Black Hole that will swallow us all ... well, that makes me wonder.

I mean, call me a silly old sausage if you will, but I always thought the risk should be offset against the reward. Like when I ride my motorbike to work, the risk to life and limb is significantly greater than if I commuted by public transport — but the reward of playing with the cars, of actually deriving pleasure from a 22 mile commute ... I've convinced myself it's worth it — I want one more big bike before I hang up my helmet.

But who is this Higg's boatswain anyway? How come he's so important, if we can't even remember his name? Will it solve the credit crunch, the sub-prime market (now there is someone who needs a right royal butt-kicking, whoever the genius is who thought that up!) ...

Will it make my ride to work even more fun?

So where's the return? How is it worth the risk?

I have to say, press releases from those people who have a vested interest in the programme, offering assurances that 'there's absolutely nothing to worry about' doesn't exactly set my mind at ease.

Sheesh ... and people tell me bikers are crazy!

Thomas
 
I think this is a ramble aboot the new super collider.

Funny thing is, I pretty well agree with him. I mean, one of the potential risks is opening up a black hole? NIMBY, thanks. ;) :D
 
Och aye!! The end of the world is nigh!! Why is it religionists seek to find any excuse to herald ye olde end of days?

tao
 
123 said:
I think this is a ramble aboot the new super collider.
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ah...that
Thomas said:
Will it make my ride to work even more fun?

So where's the return? How is it worth the risk?
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Maybe, who knows, and what risk?

I remember reading the same about the US in space and landing on the moon. We were afraid their eyeballs would pop out, that our bodies couldn't take the speed and on and on.

Oh the same was said about the automobile as well. Humans couldn't stand going faster than 40 mph, it would be detrimental to our health. And it made your ride to work more fun, plenty of return...worth the risk?
 
Oh. I figured it was a joke, lol.

So this is dangerous and bad news, but the Philadelphia Experiment wasn't?

Hmmmm.
 
The only downside for you that your side of world will get sucked into the black hole a microsecond before us. At least you're getting some of the Science money for it. The moment you get Higgs boson we'll get the mate.
 
Ah, me hearties ... yes, 'tis the CERN experiment of which I was speakin' an' it is my error in running on from a post elsewhere, and assumin' that everyone knew what I was speaking about ...

Oh, and the accidental generation of a black hole has been put on the back burner, I think ... the most recent theory, from a couple of Russian physicists, is that we might be able to teleport someone in from the future!

Now, if that happened, and his name was Higgs, that would really confuse the issue, wouldn't it?

A scientist was asked what would be the outcome of all this time and money if we don't find the Boson, and his reply "well it would be money well spent, because it will tell us we're looking in the wrong place ... " was something of a classic response.

In the eventuality that it fails (and I would rather see it succeed) I shall be building my own scientific experiment in a shed at the bottom of the garden, for a fraction of the cost of CERN, which will also supply reliable data to suggest we're looking in the wrong place ... or indeed the wrong way ...

Although why we're looking for a boson, or rather a bo'sun, or more properly a boatswain, in a cave in the Swiss alps escapes me ... did he serve in the Swiss Navy? (My sister did, but that's another story ...)

I'd have thought a tavern ... a tattoo parlour ... or in the arms of a woman of ample proportion and easy virtue was a good place to start ...

As ever, follow it all on the good old BBC ...

Thomas
 
I have to agree that if you're going to go looking in the wrong place, there are probably more interesting wrong places to look. :p
 
Hi Wil —

I think you've raised a valid point ... and one that I'm still uncertain about.

wil said:
I remember reading the same about the US in space and landing on the moon. We were afraid their eyeballs would pop out, that our bodies couldn't take the speed and on and on.
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My question is, what was the actual return on the investment in the Space Race? Next to nothing, other than Teflon and those Bodyform mattresses. (One of which I have, it's brilliant.) It was all about a 'race' after all, beating the Reds, and once you won it, interest began to wane. Apollo 13 wasn't even going to be televised, until they had their little mishap.

wil said:
Oh the same was said about the automobile as well...
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Yes, we had the same with the train ... fears that people would disintegrate at anything like 30mph ... but the investment in transport systems has paid off, hasn't it? It's invention has changed the shape of the modern world (whether for better or worse is a matter of opinion).

The truth is I love the CERN experiment, I love science for its own sake, but I think there is a viable argument to be had in the world. I'm just not quite so sure how to express it.

Put closer to home, at what point does my hobby impact on the quality of life of my family? Now the CERN experiment doesn't, but on the other hand, few countries have that kind of budget to speculate with, and fewer still have that kind of money to gamble, in the face of their domestic needs.

If we're so awash with money we can invest in projects like this ... why can't we invest in caring for our neighbour?

+++

Pinpointing the momentary existence of a theoretical particle will not forseeably alter your life or mine in any meaningful fashion (unless the black hole/teleporter), whereas the car ...

In universities in the UK now, the research labs receive funding from the business and industrial sector, not from government. The result is that the freedom to research is slowly being limited to researching those issues which will be of a commercial value to the investor, so they will only fund research that can be demonstrated to benefit their bank balance.

This kind of thing is tragic ... in spite of everything I've (light-heartedly) said, it seems to me that all too often fantastic discoveries come out of left-field ... how many products do we have today that were the result of fortuitious accidents?

I'm all for CERN. I wish I was there. If I had the option of being present there, or at a Grand Prix, I think I'd find CERN more exciting.

Just look at this:
"Roberto Saban said that in order to obtain high magnetic fields with a modest power consumption, the LHC's magnets are required to be "superconducting". This is the property, exhibited by some materials at very low temperatures, to channel electrical current with zero resistance and very little power loss. This requires cooling the magnets to a temperature of 1.9 Kelvin (-271C; -456F). Six out of eight sectors are currently at their operating temperatures; cooling of the remaining two should be completed in the next few weeks.

That's a degree or so above absolute, isn't is ... I mean, that's just not cool, that cold!

I love it. It's what being human is all about! But so is caring for my neighbour.

So there's the question, I suppose ... can it be validated? With the poor areas of New Orleans in the same sorry state they were the day after Katrina, for example ... is it not responsible to say, "Higgs Boson can wait ... this is urgent."

Thomas
 
Who knows where science leads? It is that realm of the unkown we continue to penetrate and delve into.

The space race will eventually lead us to colonizing other planets, finding other resources to exploit, developing things in zero g's that we have issues with on earth.

This experiment's results and those that lead out of it are to me sort of like you can count how many seeds are in the apple but not how many apples in the seed. Gotta plant it to try, gotta take the trip to see...

Yeah, money, eliminate poverty, eliminate starvation, cure cancer. No utiopia as I see it there will always be the bottom of the pile.

Give everyone who doesn't have a million dollars a million dollars, and for a percentage in ten years you'll have to do it again. Give everyone a college education and a percentage won't see the worth of going.

Is that the skeptic in me or the 80/20 rule simply playing out?
 
wil said:
Who knows where science leads? It is that realm of the unkown we continue to penetrate and delve into.
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That's the big one, isn't it ... and we can pretty well be sure if we ain't at least attempting to look, we ain't gonna find it.

I'm a fan of Prof. James Lovelock ... an independent and a maverick, he proposed the Gaia hypothesis ... done some amazing stuff with linear motors and gyroscopes ... microwave ovens and detecting CFC's ...

... interestingly he's pro nuclear power:
I knew this to be a nightmare fantasy wholly without substance in the real world (disposing of nuclear waste) ... One of the striking things about places heavily contaminated by radioactive nuclides is the richness of their wildlife ... Wild plants and animals do not perceive radiation as dangerous, and any slight reduction it may cause in their lifespans is far less a hazard than is the presence of people and their pets... I find it sad, but all too human, that there are vast bureaucracies concerned about nuclear waste, huge organisations devoted to decommissioning power stations, but nothing comparable to deal with that truly malign waste, carbon dioxide."
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So maybe looking to dispose of carbon dioxide might be a better search than for the Higgs bosun, which will unlock nothing. All it will demonstrate is that heavy particles very rapidly break down into lighter ones ...

Then again, Lovelock believes 80% of the global population will be dead within this century...

wil said:
Give everyone who doesn't have a million dollars a million dollars, and for a percentage in ten years you'll have to do it again.
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True ... true ...

wil said:
Give everyone a college education and a percentage won't see the worth of going.
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Yeah ... I know ...

Thomas
 
I've just listened to a Stephen Hawking interview on the radio.

He has a $100 dollar bet that the experiment will not find the Higgs Boson, which is a shame, 'cos' he stands to win a Nobel Prize if he loses (in his own words "I'm not holding my breath".)

What he did say, among some fantastic comments, was that science for the sake of pure science, which is for the sake of knowing, is something that defines us as a species ... I would further argue that the day that such seeking is limited to immediate commercial or material gain, is the day we give up our humanity.

Again, that some of the most esoteric 'science for its own sake' has, it later transpires, had a profound impact on the development of our culture ... something else which cannot be quantified ... in short, if we did not practice pure science, we would not be the world we are today.

Spending of such experiments — CERN is $5b and 20 years — is still less than one tenth of 1% of the world GDP ... that's nothing ... as he said, any less, and we would not be deserving of the name 'human' ...

There was lots more ... the BBC will have the interview online ...

Roll on, Big (Bang) Wednesday!

Thomas
 
juantoo3 said:
I mean, one of the potential risks is opening up a black hole? NIMBY, thanks. ;) :D
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Tao_Equus said:
Och aye!! The end of the world is nigh!! Why is it religionists seek to find any excuse to herald ye olde end of days?
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I beseech thee forthwith to end ye heresy! For those of whom the knowledge is foretold; bearing ill omens bourne of that unrighteous sect known herewith as science; shall send forth such foul and blasphemous lies and cover not their shame, all the while falsely accusing ye righteous believers! The righteous believers know the end is not by some fell hand of human creation, but by the stayed hand of Divine providence through many and divers sufferings. It is evil that pretends that all false rumors of fell ends of days are the cause of the believers only.


Dunno Tao...I heard it from a science type...no Bible involved. Of course, I've heard a lot of potential "end of days" fear mongering from science types in the media through the years. The BOMB, Asteroids wiping out the earth, Y2K, killer bees, global warming...need I continue? The religionists I know of know there is a preset and distinct pattern foretold...and little of which is in most doomsday plots I've ever heard of.

IOW, with all due respect, I think your aim is amiss... ;)
 
AndrewX said:
Oh. I figured it was a joke, lol.

So this is dangerous and bad news, but the Philadelphia Experiment wasn't?

Hmmmm.
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Hey Hey Hey! AndrewX, you're back. You disappeared at around.....was it the end of last year or beginning of this year? I forgot. If that's an invalid question, then sorry, I may have got the wrong person.

But assuming you are who I remember you being, I remember having a discussion with you about Theosophy when you mysteriously disappeared. There was a suggestion by an unnamed person that you were on self-imposed exile.

I have to say, I disappeared for a while myself. I don't know who came back first. Was it you or me?

But anyway, good to see you're alive.:)
 
Tao_Equus said:
Och aye!! The end of the world is nigh!! Why is it religionists seek to find any excuse to herald ye olde end of days?

tao
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I've heard rumours that there have been death threats......

But I assure you, killing scientists who want to experiment with black holes or are about to bring about the end of the world is not a part of my religion. I'd have you know, I'd be a willing participant in the research if I had the experience and qualifications! What would increase my enthusiasm is a promise of a large salary, generous material benefits, everlasting fame and my name printed in textbooks for centuries and generations to come.:D

But even if it does bring about the end of the world, that wouldn't be so bad as I wouldn't know what hit me.
 
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