Return of the Large Hadron Collider

Kitty Pryde

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Well, I'm withholding judgment until we catch a dude from the future creeping around the LHC with a sonic monkeywrench messing stuff up.
 

Lhun

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Does this thing worry you?
Heh. I couldn't believe when i actually met someone in real life who was worried about the LHC. I mean, everyone knows people are weirded out about all kinds of stuff on the internet, but for real?
But no, the LHC panic is mostly just silly attention grabbing, the whole idea of it being dangerous is even more stupid than the grey goo idea.
 
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Zoombie

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Jcomp

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I won't be worried until someone comes out with an Extra-Large Hadron Collider.
 

MargueriteMing

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Heh. I couldn't believe when i actually met someone in real life who was worried about the LHC. I mean, everyone knows people are weirded out about all kinds of stuff on the internet, but for real?
But no, the LHC panic is mostly just silly attention grabbing, the whole idea of it being dangerous is even more stupid than the grey goo idea.


Well, the actual risk is they create a singularity. In other words, a mini black hole.

They wouldn't be able to contain it, unless they collided charged particles (charge is conserved) and used magnets to keep it from falling.

If it did fall, it would be so dense it would pass through matter. Any nucleus that got close enough, however, would fall into the black hole.

You would have to consider it basically in orbit about the earth's center of mass. So it would fall in an ellipse, gaining mass as it sucks in more matter.

Eventually, though, as it gets bigger and bigger, the earth will collapse into it. Shooop! No more earth, just a bunch of xrays.


Personally, I think we should build a REALLY BIG ONE, but on the moon, around the equator of it. If we made a black hole there, the moon would vanish from the night sky, although its mass would still be there, in orbit, so it wouldn't affect our tides.
 

sassandgroove

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But wouldn't it eventually suck in earth anyway? If it keeps taking on mass at the moon, it would eventually take on our mass, right?
 

Jcomp

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Personally, I think we should build a REALLY BIG ONE, but on the moon, around the equator of it. If we made a black hole there, the moon would vanish from the night sky, although its mass would still be there, in orbit, so it wouldn't affect our tides.

But then how would werewolves know when it's time to transform?
 

Sophia

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But wouldn't it eventually suck in earth anyway? If it keeps taking on mass at the moon, it would eventually take on our mass, right?

Black holes behave like 'normal' objects beyond a certain radius, with the amount of gravitational attraction they exert due to their mass falling by the inverse square of their distance from us. It's only within that radius that they behave like what we normally think of as black holes, pulling everything in. I can't remember the little formula for calculating that radius, but for the mass of the Moon, I don't think it would reach us on Earth.
 

Lhun

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If it did fall, it would be so dense it would pass through matter. Any nucleus that got close enough, however, would fall into the black hole.
Not very worrying. A sub-nuclear sized black hole would take a loooong time to grow to dangerous proportions. And by looong i mean: "We'll have all the time we need to fix that problem after we stopped our sun going red giant."
And that is assuming Hawking is wrong about black hole evaporation. If he isn't, the thing just pops within a timespan after creation that's just about as short as the time it'd take to swallow the earth is long.
Heh, funny picture. Unfortunately though, basic energy conservation prevents gray goo from happening. Which really is unfortunate, because it means that self-replicating universal fabricators don't work either, and those would be wicked cool. And of course, totally anti-capitalistic. Only a pinko commie bastard scientist would build something that'd mean free anything for everyone without paying for it. :D
Addendum:
I can't remember the little formula for calculating that radius, but for the mass of the Moon, I don't think it would reach us on Earth.
Since black holes are of course denser than normal matter, collapsing an object into a black hole will never affect other objects that were in orbit before. ;)
The Schwarzschild radius is in the area of m*10^-27 meters. The moon only has a mass of 10^22 meters. Even the sun only has about 10^30 kg.

On a totally unrelated note: why the hell does my spell checker suggest "Schwarzenegger" as the correction to "Schwarzschild"?
 
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Cranky

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Heh, funny picture. Unfortunately though, basic energy conservation prevents gray goo from happening. Which really is unfortunate, because it means that self-replicating universal fabricators don't work either, and those would be wicked cool. And of course, totally anti-capitalistic. Only a pinko commie bastard scientist would build something that'd mean free anything for everyone without paying for it. :D

Well, shoot. If they could break the laws of thermodynamics to make this thing, I think you could sign me up as a pinko commie bastard scientist. If you'll count clinical psychologists as scientists. Hey, they do research! :D

ETA: Not that I'm a clinical psychologist. Not yet. Just for clarity's sake, thought I should add that.
 
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thothguard51

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They must not have turned it on yet because we are all still here. Well we are, aren't we? I better go check... I will let you know when I get back...
 

Zoombie

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Heh, funny picture. Unfortunately though, basic energy conservation prevents gray goo from happening. Which really is unfortunate, because it means that self-replicating universal fabricators don't work either, and those would be wicked cool. And of course, totally anti-capitalistic. Only a pinko commie bastard scientist would build something that'd mean free anything for everyone without paying for it. :D

Stupid laws of thermodynamics...
 

Albedo

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*obligatory large hard-on collider joke*

I don't think universal fabrimacators would mean free anything. They're not universal transmuters, so rare earth and precious metal feedstocks would remain pricey.
 

Perks

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I don't like that 'Hadron Collider' rearranges to 'Holier Caldron D'. Sounds like a Da Vinci Code occult thing gone wrong in runs A,B, and C.

Something wicked this way comes.
 

benbradley

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8524024.stm

So, what near impossible incident will shut it down this time? Time Travelling sabateours again?

or is there something to worry about:

http://www.cracked.com/article_16583_the-5-scientific-experiments-most-likely-to-end-world.html

Does this thing worry you?
Ahem...
Well, I'm withholding judgment until we catch a dude from the future creeping around the LHC with a sonic monkeywrench messing stuff up.
Read "Einstein's Bridge." The novel is about the Texas SuperCollider thing, but Congres defunded it before it was built again. The book tells the whole creepy story.
The world didn't end the first time they used it.

'nuff said.
But it was only up to half power the first time.
I'll be in my bunker....











get it?
Huh? Archie Bunker?
*obligatory large hard-on collider joke*

I don't think universal fabrimacators would mean free anything. They're not universal transmuters, so rare earth and precious metal feedstocks would remain pricey.
You don't need transmuters. Just a gazzillion-to-the-gazzillionth power nanoseparators that would separate and sort seawater molecules (seawater has, among other things, gold).
Plus, there's the IP costs...
There's Creative Commons for the so-far-uncommon things like repraps. [generalization]The Chinese don't honor our IP law anyway.[/]
I don't like that 'Hadron Collider' rearranges to 'Holier Caldron D'. Sounds like a Da Vinci Code occult thing gone wrong in runs A,B, and C.

Something wicked this way comes.
If two things are anagrams of each other it Really Does Mean they're the same thing. A numerologist told me this, so it must be true.
 

benbradley

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Heh, funny picture. Unfortunately though, basic energy conservation prevents gray goo from happening. Which really is unfortunate, because it means that self-replicating universal fabricators don't work either, and those would be wicked cool.
I used to not be able to spell self-replicating universal fabricator, but now (ever since puberty), I are one!
Addendum:
Since black holes are of course denser than normal matter, collapsing an object into a black hole will never affect other objects that were in orbit before. ;)
The Schwarzschild radius is in the area of m*10^-27 meters. The moon only has a mass of 10^22 meters.
The Moon's mass is THAT MANY meters? Hmm... I'm wondering if that's some form of synesthesia.
 

Lhun

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There's Creative Commons for the so-far-uncommon things like repraps. [generalization]The Chinese don't honor our IP law anyway.
Not to mention that IP ceases to exist the moment you have von Neumann replicators.
Who's going to enforce it? Governments no longer have a monopoly on force if everyone can grow an ICBM in their backyard. (and an anti-ICBM laser)
Who's going to produce it? You want to *pay* people to develop IP for your company? With what?
Who's going to need it? People who can just grow a couple of supercomputers in their backyard and let them design whatever they want with a few evolutionary algorithms? (and better than any human designer at that)
Basically, von Neumann nanomachines instantly produce a post-scarcity society, which makes all traditional methods of resource allocation obsolete. Even though elements are not transmutable (barring fusion, which would also be theoretically possible) they are in plentiful supply. Given 100% efficiency, we'd have to have a MUCH bigger population than a few billion to have all raw materials that are easily available (i.e. the solar system) in constant use.

On an unrelated note, i'm with the Chinese on the matter of IP law. It only makes sense if it's a give and take situation, but since the Chinese would pretty much be only paying for western patents, and not get any money from the west for Chinese patents, why should they honour it?
 
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Lhun

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The Moon's mass is THAT MANY meters? Hmm... I'm wondering if that's some form of synesthesia.
Heh, didn't see that. Since i've installed this spell checker, i've noticed that i make a lot more mistakes that aren't typos. I've become to lazy to check the text that's not underlined. :sleepy:
In case anyone's interested: the relevant (because basic) SI unit here is kilograms. (not tons)
Hm, come to think of it, i think that's the only SI unit where the standard has a prefix. Well, i guess that's not going to be corrected anymore.