Particle smasher? Wot det eniwej?
Today the Large Hadron Collider was turned on, and it worked. The scientists at CERN, in Geneva, have been working on it for about 14 years and so far it’s cost about €5 billion. A lot of money, but it’s probably the most important experiment in the history of humanity, and the discoveries that could be made through it are beyond imagination. That’s why about 8,000 scientists from 80 countries are busy on the project. It will also give an insight into what went on during the Big Bang, at the exact moment of the creation of the universe, but that is not the main aim of the experiment.
Anyway, The Times published this article about it from Reuters. The article is detailed and explains everything about the particle accelerator in simple English. Still, here are some of the comments from the comments-board below the on-line story.
apgrech (3 hours, 9 minutes ago)
Is it so important to learn about the big bang that happened a few million years ago? I think it would be more fruitful if scientists and politicians prevant a big bang in the future and use the money to help poor people. I personally don’t care how the universe came about but I care about how the future of the world I’m living in will be.
L Micallef (5 hours, 16 minutes ago)
Ramon, you are right. Not only that, but now they also risk the entire world’s life. The Universe expanded rapidly and if they re-create the scenario the experiment might go out of hand……
Ivan Camilleri (5 hours, 17 minutes ago)
I couldn’t agree more with you Ramon……But as you said, poverty comes as a second compared to such “non-sense”. I believe God created the universe & that’s that! But apparently we have people around the world obsessed with such ( i repeat ) “nonsense” !!!! Who cares what happens when two particles collide? Is it more important than trying to find solutions to attack poverty & war around the world? I wonder……
Tonio Galea (5 hours, 20 minutes ago)
What is the probability that this experiment fails and all the money wasted? I guess it’s very high. That would be a shame.
Ramon Zammit (5 hours, 53 minutes ago)
The 10 billion Swiss franc ($9 billion)…could have fed a lot of people with that money, preventing them from dying and provide them with shelter…oh well science is more interesting it seems.
Ivan Camilleri (4 hours, 9 minutes ago)
I too am grateful towards science & the fruits we reap from the discoveries made. But in such a huge funded project were something or a lot of things can go wrong ( i read this from the official CERN statement ), i tend to be a bit cautious. The problem i have with advanced scientists ( apologies beforehand if you may be one of them), is that some of them try to prove a diametrical opposite picture other than what the Bible teaches in matters which happened thousands & millions of years ago!! I don’t even agree completely with your view that science can change the world with new discoveries. Granted, we are living a much better life with such commodities around us but do you really think that this world is heading towards a brighter future? All i see nowadays is just wars emerging here & there, deploying thousands of troops, equipped with latest technology weapons & “sat navigated missiles” which may well TOO be the result of scientific research…….what do you think?
It’s incredible, isn’t it? There are people around us, who were processed by the Maltese education system, who think that technology is some kind of miracle sent down from heaven, and not the net result of centuries of human achievement and still a work in progress. For example, to their minds the computer is not the product of hundreds of years of human endeavour and scientific research. Oh no, it’s something that happens when you put several pieces of plastic together and plug them into the wall. And then they make fun of Africans because “they dance to bring rain”. What’s the difference between dancing for rain and praying to stop poverty? There isn’t any difference, because it’s the same kind of magical thinking.
The irony is that they are posting their inane remarks by virtue of the World Wide Web, which was invented almost as a by-product by a scientist who was working on the particle accelerator at the time: Tim Berners-Lee. So the Internet as we know it today, and that includes The Times website, is the result of all this “nonsense” experiment in particle physics.
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A famous quote by Albert Einstein may shed some light on the subject of CERN’s experiment and the blokkerż’ comments: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
Faced by a scientific achievement of this magnitude I stand in awe. I am unable to comment and will take Abraham Lincoln’s advice ” It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt “
Humanity will always fear the unknown. However, had not the earliest humans ventured out their caves to explore and hunt, then we would not have arrived where we are today. Courage to pursue unknown paths is a must if humanity is to progress and evolve further. After all humanity started when groups of apes gathered the courage to venture out of the safety of the forest in search of food and new territory.
The LHC project will propel scientific understanding regarding the universe and bring us closer to the point of reaching out for the stars! Such is humanity’s destiny.
Any bets that the first uses will be military ones? I wouldn’t mind too much if the Big Bang met the Iranian leadership and beamed them up to the next level of the universe, wherever that is…
http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/
@Mariop
Some of the scientists that worked on the LHC are in fact Iranians.
I’ll have to read Dan Brown’s book again! Was it Velocity?
These comments on the Times are hilarious. It didn’t even occur to me to check if anyone was commenting on this story. I’m surprised no one managed to connect the story to the “illegals”.
(Daphne – They did. If the money spent on research had been used to solve Africa’s problems instead, they wouldn’t be coming to Malta.)
The comments in The Times prove the point that the price of free speech is that we have to listen to so much stupidity.
Talking of the cost of the experiment; it does not seem to cross the cavity in between their ears that money went into the pockets of workers who may have done good deeds in turn. Isn’t that how it works?
Why don’t they ask all religiuos leaders to sell all their belongings and follow Christ? Why don’t they do it themselves?
After hundreds of years of preaching what we can see is poverty in many parts of the world and riches in churches, religious people preaching the word and people drowning trying to cross the sea in makeshift boats.
For all their bible-bashing it looks like they are afraid to meet their creator.
But I dare say that humanity will go to heaven not because of religions but in spite of religions.
(Daphne – I quite agree with that last sentence, though banning religion causes as many problems.)
It was in Angels & Demons I think.
May I also point out the incredibly large misconception that “creating the conditions of the big bang” is a huge difference to “creating a new big bang”. The reason the big bang could expand in the speed it did was due to the enormous matter being created/introduced/whatever in one small location. To recreate that scenario would mean to squeeze all matter in the universe into the collider and then letting go of it.
Not quite feasible.
@ A Camilleri – no, it was Angels and Demons.
@ John Meilak – now we’re really in the s**t
One might hazard an educated guess of the breakdown of costs as follows:
€ 10,000,000,000 is the total cost of the experiment (+/-)
30 years is the time taken from the beginning of CERN
250 days assuming that workers/scientists do not work on weekends (??)
8 hours a day as working hours for workers/scientists (??)
6500 workers/scientists where involved in the experiment
((((€ 10,000,000,000/30 years)/250 days)/8hours)/6500 CERN employees)
= € 11.01 per hour
The only flaw is that not all workers/scientists worked from the beginning of the experiment, but then again the actual cost of the accelerator has to be deducted from the main amount.
Not included also are the great benefits for humanity especially in medicine gained as new technology, like CAT scanners etc., whilst reaching this stage of the experiment.
(Daphne – What exactly is the point of this mini-accounting exercise? The expenditure doesn’t have to be justified.)
Daphne,
No it doesn’t. There can never be a price on knowledge. Without it we might still be living in caves.
The point is that even if one calculates the costs, I would say they are quite miserly in relation to the knowledge gained and the technological by-products gained on the way.
Perhaps we can take some consolation from the equally moronic comments on the BBC news forum on the subject.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/
A couple of gems from the discussion:
well i think it is perthetik coz ure putting every 1ns life in danger
will, liverpool
i think its a waist of money spending billions of our pounds on some contastrafy that at the end of the day could BLOW UP THE WORLD !!!!
Andrew, Cardiff
(Daphne – Hilarious.)
Seems like the biblebashers are still theatened by science. And Malta has a disproportionate amount of them! Coincidentally, I left a comment to that article yesterday on the times website using the word “biblebashers” and the moderator thought it too offensive. Nevermind that it’s these same biblebashers who need a good bashing to dissolve themselves from one terrible disease … chronic Catholicism … and by this term I’m not mocking anyone who beholds the Christian faith. Faith and science can live side by side. Catholicism and science apparently cannot …
I have to add that after reading the comments in Swedish newspapers I want to praise the Maltese commentators. I’m ashamed that in my home country we have so many gullible morons that have nothing better to do than making a huge fuss and put one of the most important experiments in human history in a bad light. You are not alone Malta.
(Daphne – Yes, ignorance is universal, and strangely, it’s people like that who rush in to speak their minds.)
Particle physics gives me a hadron – The mentality of the people posting those comments is akin to the greater part of those posting comments on http://www.timesofmalta.com. Sadly, the “English” is probably much worse!
“The expenditure doesn’t have to be justified” – u mela, money no problem – why kill off an old milching cow?
But could £2 million have been enough for a better job? We might find out sooner than it will take them to publish the results:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20080910/tuk-uk-lab-challenges-swiss-project-6323e80.html
Please , Please , Please people, don’t ever mention Dan Brown and his rubbish books written to make a quick buck in the same sentence, nay paragraph as this level of atomic physics. The experiments that are being done are recreating what happened a thrillionths of a second after the Big Bang happened.
I stand to be corrected, in his book Dan Brown talks about destroying the Vatican with canisters full of anti-matter. But no-one can imprison anti-matter, by definition. If even an infinitesmally small amount of anti-matter comes into contact with matter, the world will cease to exist. Has anyone ever seen the original Star Wars, where that Death Ray Machine destroys that planet? That would be us!!
Dan Brown’s gullible readers are in the same league of readers who believe that Danielle Steel and Catherine Cookson and other writers of that ilk who think that they are reading “good” books.
Particle physics gives me a hadron – The mentality of the people posting those comments is akin to the greater part of those posting comments on http://www.timesofmalta.com. Sadly, the “English” is probably much worse!
Particle physics gives me a hadron – The mentality of the people posting those comments is akin to the greater part of those posting comments on Maltese newspaper sites. Sadly, the “English” is probably much worse!
“The expenditure doesn’t have to be justified” – u mela, money no problem – why kill off an old milching cow?
But could £2 million have been enough for a better job? We might find out sooner than it will take them to publish the results:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20080910/tuk-uk-lab-challenges-swiss-project-6323e80.html
Kev, the two projects have very different aims. The lab in Boulby attempts to discover a kind of particle called a WIMP; the Large Hadron Collider attempts to confirm or reject the existence of the Higgs boson, a.k.a. the God particle.
Either way, the CERN project has resulted in many inventions and discoveries, most often as by-products of research. The routing equipment designed to handle the large amounts of data produced by the Large Hadron Collider, for example, is being used to distribute that data all over the world. The network – called ‘The Grid’ – is the first incarnation of what will probably replace the Internet.
Previously, most great inventions and discoveries only happened during wartime or as a result of it (e.g. aerodynamics, radar and sonar, programmable computers, magnetrons and microwave ovens, the Jerrycan, synthetic rubber, penicillin, etc), because that was the only time that governments thought it wise to invest in research and development. With CERN, things have changed: countries are collaborating to invest in research, and the results are even better, because not only are we making new discoveries, but we’re building peaceful relations between nations too.
@ Matthew – I’m not discrediting its achievements and potential, but it is also a milching cow.
Kevin Ellul Bonici: What is a milching cow?
(Daphne – I think he means a milch-cow.)
Frankly, I do not see the point on such an unbelievably expensive experiment – just to disprove the existence of God! Even if the Big Bang theory (and it is still a theory!) is proved right, can these expensive scientists explain who created that sub-particle, which we are led to believe eventually created living organisms. Science will never accept God and unfortunately in many ‘progressive’ countries, school children are being spoon-fed such illusive theories as facts.
(Daphne – Is there a virtual wall I can knock my head against? This is not being done to ‘disprove’ the existence of God. I was unaware that anyone had previously proved God’s existence, anyway.)
Just a minute – Dan Browne’s books might not be High Litritcher but there are some of us who enjoy switching off our brains…
What is a milching cow?
(Daphne – He means a milch cow. This was a cow kept expressly for milking (milch is Old English), but in contemporary usage, it just means a source of easy income.)
edgar:
“Frankly, I do not see the point on such an unbelievably expensive experiment – just to disprove the existence of God!”
So what you are saying is that you have no idea what the experiment is all about and you still stick your head out making a fool out of yourself.
Then you continue with your evidence of ignorance:
“Even if the Big Bang theory (and it is still a theory!)…”
Yeah, just like the theory of gravity, or theory of evolution, or theory of relativity are theories. Is that supposed to discredit them somehow? Do you even have a clue what a scientific theory is? This is what creationist ignoramuses sprout all over their pseudo scientific literature and then believe they actually have a strong case.
“Science will never accept God and unfortunately in many ‘progressive’ countries, school children are being spoon-fed such illusive theories as facts.”
Of course there are scientists who don’t accept god (Richard Dawkins is probably the strongest name coming to mind), just as there are scientists who are devout believers (Ken Miller, Francis Collins etc). The Big Bang theory is not taught as a “fact”, it’s taught as the best and most fact based theory we have explaining the origins of the universe. Noone knows for certain that it is the correct theory, in fact you don’t have to investigate a great deal to realise that very few scientists feel comfortable dealing with facts and certainty, and that for good reasons.
Take 10 minutes to look up the amazing discoveries being given to us by Cern in the past and then come back complaining of the expense. Its costs are in the same range as the Olympic Games and while I don’t see the Olympic Games as a waste of money, I think what these scientists are achieving is vastly more important.
(Daphne – Thanks. He really needed telling. These are the ‘all things come from God’ people who don’t even realise that they would be living in caves and dying at 30 without the work of the scientists they despise. In fact, Maltese people were living in caves and dying at 30 just a couple of centuries ago.)
“Just a minute – Dan Browne’s books might not be High Litritcher [sic] but there are some of us who enjoy switching off our brains…”
I have to agree with this. When reading his books it’s obvious of the tremendous lack of quality, bad writing, poor characters etc and yet I have read all of them and actually enjoyed it.
I find them to be intellectually dishonest and yet entertaining. Puzzling books actually.
(Daphne – A perfect description of the Labour Party and its leader.)
Oh man I couldn’t continue reading the comments about the LHC. The stupidity of the people who left comments on timesofmalta.com is just too much to handle. What the hell is this country?
(Daphne – Apparently, the BBC website is just as vulnerable to inane comments, and it’s even worse, because they’re written in text-message language.)
Funnily enough a quick look at some of the comments to the article report on the LHC by the British newspaper The Times are rather similar to the comments on the Maltese newspaper ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4722261.ece ) The only difference is that the majority of the British seem to be in favour of the scientific experiment.
I guess it’s not just the Maltese who are complete dumb shits.
I`ve just read the above comments, and similar ones relating to comments on The Times Online. And these are people who are capable of using a computer so, presumably, are educated.
It seems a number of Maltese are inane, incredible, hilarious, dumb etc etc.
Do any of you realise that these same people vote in our Elections and are presumed capable of choosing our future ?