Official Cern Page - http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/

So I'm a little bit of a physics fan (even though I don't understand quite a bit of it) and am really excited about tomorrow's test run of the Large Hadron Collider. For those that don't know, it's a giant 17-mile ring in which particles are accelerated towards each other on a collision course. The resulting collision could theoretically throw off or make "visible" certain particles that could better explain gravity, the big bang, etc. The discovery of a new particle/s or affirmation of theorized particles in the models for the "theory of everything" (the long sought after perfect equation that explains everything in the physical universe) could explain or reveal more dimensions in the current physical model of the universe. Anyways, this thingamajigger goes online soon and in October will go online completely.

In searching for articles about it I found this one. http://blogs.indystar.com/geek/2008/09/large_hadron_co.html
What you really ought to read are the comments left by the frightened people that think this bit of machinery will bring about the end of the Earth and maybe even the universe itself. I guess we will find out if this thing really spells DOOOOOOOM if we wake-up dead on Wednesday morning, heh. But seriously, this thing has a greater chance of becoming the largest technological flop ever rather than destroying the Earth with a micro black hole. I can't wait to see what they discover. Has anyone else been following this? I'm kinda typing this all on a whim, so if anyone has any corrections please let me know as I haven't done any real research on this. Rather, I've been reading articles and watching Nova episodes about it for a while now. Just thought this would be neat to discuss.

Interesting factoid - The computers hooked to this thing have a greater memory capacity than the internet as a whole. (I don't have the source for this as I heard it on an episode of Nova.)

I too am dorkily excited about the Collider.

They won't actually be colliding anything for a while.

I know, they're just flipping the switch and going through the warm up and cool down stages. But I'm still a little too excited about this!

I'm dorkily excited about the possible destruction of earth. I've already built miniature rocket to shoot my son into space with on Tuesday night.

Snap for me too... :geekgasm You know, I'm suprised we don't have one for that yet...

I like switching the r and the d in the name

You, sir, are the best dad ever. All my dad did when our home planet was destroyed was tell me, "Don't get any on ya."

last time my home planet blew up I got away, and crash landed in someone's garage. Now I spend most of the day watching TV, hiding from the neighbors and chasing the cat.

If I forget to tell you before the world ends.... It's been nice knowing you.

I got my shotgun and chainsaw (Doom style) ready when we open the portal to hell.

This has been my favorite headline so far:

If The Large Hadron Collider Produced A Microscopic Black Hole, It Probably Wouldn't Matter

uhh....


PROBABLY?????!!!!

Well, maybe. 'Ish.

Well of course it wouldn't matter. It would anti-matter.

BTW I'm adding "Want to see my hadron collider?" to my list of pick-up lines.

You collide her. You brought her.

As sciency as I am, I still question the wisdom of creating any device that *might* destroy the earth. I can't help but think of Dr. Longbore's attempts to determine the mass of the Higgs-Boson...

what do you think one of the main purposes of this thing is to do?

I think I remember someone saying in that crappy Germano-Canadian show Lexx that more planets were destroyed because some smarmy scientist was trying to determine the mass of a Higgs Boson particle than by nuclear war.

KA-BOOM'D?

OH NOES TEH CANADIAN SHOW WITH THE LESBO ALIENS SAID WESA ALLS GONNA DIE!

GERMANO-Canadian show.

And I think it was hot BI-sexual alien chick.

Oh, I know all too well.

so today is the big day

so when will they be firing this thing up?

Three hours ago

For all we know this thing could transmit a signal out into space and we will get a response.
"Look ok you dont have to shout! We will pay for the beef and lamb, but we aint payin compensation for the A.un.al probes"
or even worse..
"You have 6 hrs left to live unless the body of our brother L-Ron-Hubbard is handed back"

You mean I shot my son into space for nothing?!

Ooer that does sound like Masturbation.

They're not colliding anything yet.

Collide her? But I hardly even know her...

It does spell doom for the human race.


Or rather, knowing the people protesting and sending death threats are in the gene pool does..

See, I know it's actually not actually doing anything yet, but few people IRL realise that

See, the problem with people is that the vast majority of them are complete and utter morons who take everything they hear on TV, read in the STAR tabloid, and see on the INTERNET at face value and that it must be true and valid.

"Large Hadron Collired"? I don't get it...

I know right? NLTAG is soooooo dumb...

Well, yeah, this is why I hate the common public and think they should have voting privileges, the internet etc stripped away from them...

MAKE IT SO.

oh shi...

Is that from the episode where the Enterprise crew get abducted one by one?

THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!!

Are you sure? I only see three

I am disturbed by that picture. Mainly that it doesn't feature Marina Sirtis.

but you got to admit that patrick stewart is hott

Season 6 & 7 Marina Sirtis was WAY hot. Starfleet uniform FTW.

Aw hell naw. Cheerleader uniform FTW