NationStates Jolt Archive

Horizon (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/listings/programme.shtml?day=today&service_id=4224&filename=20070501/20070501_2100_4224_23072_50)

Horizon

Tue 1 May, 9:00 pm - 9:50 pm 50mins

Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/horizon/

November 26 2007 promises to be an important day in the history of science. In a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the France/Swiss border, the most complex scientific instrument ever built will be put to use in one of the most ambitious experiments ever undertaken. The instrument is the Large Hadron Colider (LHC). The experiment is nothing less than a rerun of the big-bang.

In a worst case scenario, this leap in to the unknown could trigger a black-hole powerful enough to devour the entire earth. But thankfully the 5,000 or so scientists behind the project believe the chances of this happening are virtually zero.

Instead, by revisiting the beginning of time they hope to unravel some of the deepest secrets of our universe. Within these first few moments, the fundamental building blocks of the universe were created. The hope is that if we can grasp how these were formed, we can understand anything and everything around us.

The search for these 'fundamental particles' has occupied scientists for decades but there remains one particle that has stubbornly refused to appear in any experiment. The Higgs-Boson is so crucial to our understanding of the universe that it has been dubbed the 'God particle'. The God particle explains how matter arises.

But science on this scale doesn't come cheap. Over the 20 year lifespan of the experiment it is estimated that $6 billion will be lavished on the search for the God particle and other sub-atomic phenomena. If it is successful the LHC could open the door to a complete understanding of the world around us and even yield the ultimate goal of physics - a theory of everything.

So 27th of November it is then!

I am waiting for the fruitcakes to start on this and try and stop the machine.

Personally I'm very happy to see the experiments go ahead.

Here's hoping for a Europe imploding micro-singularity. That'd be fun.

Horizon (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/listings/programme.shtml?day=today&service_id=4224&filename=20070501/20070501_2100_4224_23072_50)



So 27th of November it is then!

I am waiting for the fruitcakes to start on this and try and stop the machine.

Personally I'm very happy to see the experiments go ahead.

I, for one, welcome our new particle overlords!

That 6 billion dollars would be better spent on the war.

It's like something out of a Bond flick...

Personally, I'd rather they not mess around with any experiment that has any chance of destroying the entire planet by engulfing it into a black-hole.

But then, I'm a "don't tempt fate" kinda guy.

Boy, the media just loves to make people afraid of science, doesn't it?

Y2K, anybody?

I, for one, welcome our new particle overlords!

You calling me a fruitcake :p

I mean luddites of course.

I always said that the French would destroy the world.

Here's hoping for a Europe imploding micro-singularity. That'd be fun.
Isn't that a bit of a contradiction in terms, considering a singularity by definition has no physical 'size'? or does micro- refer to the amount of mass condensed into the singularity?

You do like your OTT thread titles, don't you? :p

I expect something similar to the events at the start of The Science of Discworld to occur. Although I doubt we'll have a fat man wiggling his fingers in the fledgling universe.

You do like your OTT thread titles, don't you? :p

I expect something similar to the events at the start of The Science of Discworld to occur. Although I doubt we'll have a fat man wiggling his fingers in the fledgling universe.

Yeah...I like the dramatic;)

I for one would love to be there when the fire the beastie up....

Hang on if this works will another universe be created? Could be a possibility.

Awesome. The potential of this knowledge is so massive that I for one will be very excited to see its results. Hopefully it will unravel the secrets of the early universe and push our knowledge of cosmology and physics to a whole new level.

And maybe it will help us one day create or access other universes as well...

Boy, the media just loves to make people afraid of science, doesn't it?

Y2K, anybody?

What about Y2K?

Hang on if this works will another universe be created? Could be a possibility.

No.

what if it all goes horribly wrong and nothing happens thus wasting 6 billion of potential!

Isn't that a bit of a contradiction in terms, considering a singularity by definition has no physical 'size'? or does micro- refer to the amount of mass condensed into the singularity?
Actually, a singularity does have "size" properly speaking (i.e., the event horizon). That could be on the order of microns given the appropriate mass.

Details of the risk study: http://doc.cern.ch/yellowrep/2003/2003-001/p1.pdf

what if it all goes horribly wrong and nothing happens thus wasting 6 billion of potential!I can think of worse ways to waste 6 billion.

And this lark about a black hole forming. I'm pretty sure that even if one did form it would collapse very quickly as there wouldn't be enough matter to sustain it. I mean we can create rockets that can produce greater force than the gravitational field of the earth, then why would we not be able to creat a system that could withstand the gravitational pull of a a mass significantly less than the earth. Once the black hole was starved of matter then it would emit more energy than it was taking in mass and thus collapse.

Actually, a singularity does have "size" properly speaking (i.e., the event horizon). That could be on the order of microns given the appropriate mass.

Details of the risk study: http://doc.cern.ch/yellowrep/2003/2003-001/p1.pdf

Hmm... thanks for the link. :)

I can think of worse ways to waste 6 billion.

And this lark about a black hole forming. I'm pretty sure that even if one did form it would collapse very quickly as there wouldn't be enough matter to sustain it. I mean we can create rockets that can produce greater force than the gravitational field of the earth, then why would we not be able to creat a system that could withstand the gravitational pull of a a mass significantly less than the earth. Once the black hole was starved of matter then it would emit more energy than it was taking in mass and thus collapse.

I learned from a documentary once a black hole is created it can never be destroyed. And all black holes are collapsed already so if they fail we're literally flushed out of existence.

I learned from a documentary once a black hole is created it can never be destroyed. And all black holes are collapsed already so if they fail we're literally flushed out of existence.

And that is completely and totally wrong.

And that is completely and totally wrong.

And how do you know? Where is your warrant?

And that is completely and totally wrong.

Proof? How is it wrong? Do tell, I'm a tad concerned about the earth being crushed smaller than Fred Phelps brain. I'd like to understand so I don't waste my doomsday supplies.

Proof? How is it wrong? Do tell, I'm a tad concerned about the earth being crushed smaller than Fred Phelps brain. I'd like to understand so I don't waste my doomsday supplies.

Black holes "evaporate" after awhile. Wikipedia, because I'm too tired to find anything better. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Evaporation)

Ok, Ill make sure I dont schedule anything that day.

And Ill also make sure all my bills fall in the day after that one. If the universe is going to explode I dont want to care about them anymore.

Black holes "evaporate" after awhile. Wikipedia, because I'm too tired to find anything better. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Evaporation)

Did you read the "there is still a debate" part of it? :confused:

Did you read the "there is still a debate" part of it? :confused:

There's debate on just about everything in science.

So we MAY create a "black hole" the size of an atom which MAY, at most, last a picosecond...

Yeah...I'm shaking in my boots...

what if it all goes horribly wrong and nothing happens thus wasting 6 billion of potential!

Better than wasting $6 billion on farm subsidies or new ways to kill people...

Black Holes suck! :mad:







:D

I'd better keep the bills paid up then...

If a black hole does form, it would only have as much gravitic pull as the particles that made it. The chances of a black hole capable of devouring our planet spawning from this experiment is pretty much the exact same as the chance of a black hole spontaneously materializing for no reason at all and doing the exact same thing.

That is to say: I wouldn't sweat the singularity, folks.

my physics may be flawed in this belief, but even despite that, they will succeed in sucking a few random air particles in, which would eventually give it the ability to incorporate more and more matter into it -unless it itself dissipates due to the lack of 'food' which, at its size, is entirely possible I'd reason.


We'll see when it happens! :P

"What could possibly go wrong?" - The scientific research staff at Black Mesa.

Did you read the "there is still a debate" part of it? :confused:If you read further down the article then you would read the evaporation theory is why they are conducting the experiment. If they didn't believe that theory to be true then they wouldn't bother with the experiment, because there wouldn't be any chance of observing a Boson-Higgs particle.

So 27th of November it is then!

I am waiting for the fruitcakes to start on this and try and stop the machine.

Personally I'm very happy to see the experiments go ahead.

:) CERN rules! :)


And remember that they invented the Web! (not Internet, the Web)

"What could possibly go wrong?" - The scientific research staff at Black Mesa.

Today's weather report. 20% chance of portal storms. :p

If a black hole does form, it would only have as much gravitic pull as the particles that made it. The chances of a black hole capable of devouring our planet spawning from this experiment is pretty much the exact same as the chance of a black hole spontaneously materializing for no reason at all and doing the exact same thing.

That is to say: I wouldn't sweat the singularity, folks.

Allelujah! At least, someone who understands physics!
Jolly good, old chap.

Yeah...I like the dramatic;)

I for one would love to be there when the fire the beastie up....Heh, NSGs resident drama queen... or one of...

Black Holes suck! :mad:







:D

I like how the French originally objected to the term "Black Hole" because they felt it obscene. Well that'll teach them for giving us the double entendre. :p

Heh, NSGs resident drama queen... or one of...

Not queen please...piss head/loonatic/teller of non PC jokes/dramatic yes....queen no ;)

Ohhh.....look......beer!

That 6 billion dollars would be better spent on the war.

wich one?

Mummy, please stop the bad men from asploding out planet.


I WANNA SEE AN APOCALYPSE BEFORE I DIE DAMNIT!

Today's weather report. 20% chance of portal storms. :p

The Administrator has assured us that nothing will go wrong.

Not queen please...piss head/loonatic/teller of non PC jokes/dramatic yes....queen no ;)

Ohhh.....look......beer!You are so a queen, you only have to pause to listen the voluptuous, melodic tones of your voice to think so.

I guess I can work with piss head and/or loon/lunatic/looney.

Black Holes suck! :mad:







:D

Properly speaking, black holes pull, not suck.

Properly speaking, your mother pulls, not sucks.

:D

:D

Of all the mothers you could have insulted, you picked the mother of the guy with a poo cannon.

Here's hoping for a Europe imploding micro-singularity. That'd be fun.

I would rather have a strangelet that gradually gobbles everything up.

Or, an accidental change in the Planck length would be nice, and we all disappear in a cloud of quarks.

I would rather have a strangelet that gradually gobbles everything up.

Or, an accidental change in the Planck length would be nice, and we all disappear in a cloud of quarks.

How about a strangelet which causes a massive earthquake?
That'd be even nicer.

Of all the mothers you could have insulted, you picked the mother of the guy with a poo cannon.

Not to mention several squadrons of trained scrotum-seeking attack weasels. :D

I WANNA SEE AN APOCALYPSE BEFORE I DIE DAMNIT!

You're almost guaranteed to see the apocalypse before you die. Of course, your death would be on the order of nanoseconds later, but still. <.< >.>

Black Holes suck! :mad:
:D

Sadly nothing actually sucks in physics (matter physics). It is always pushed from the higher density to the lower density.

Edit: Damn, beaten by a person arguing the gravity point of view.

Damn you Ifreannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn..........

As long as they haven't actually said, out loud, "What could go wrong?", we should be okay.

As long as they haven't actually said, out loud, "What could go wrong?", we should be okay.

Now we know they're going to say that....

The Administrator has assured us that nothing will go wrong.

Yessssss I have assssured the Adminssstrator that nothing will go wrong
-G Man.

THE COMBINE ARE COMING! :eek:

Any organisation that results in the foundations of beautiful inventions such as the internet deserve our full support :D

Will they invent the supernet next :eek: interdimensional networking?

Any organisation that results in the foundations of beautiful inventions such as the internet deserve our full support :D

Will they invent the supernet next :eek: interdimensional networking?

That's coming after the quantum computer....

That's coming after the quantum computer....

What happened to that one that some Canadians were supposed to have made? I remember Vetalia talking about it when I posted my story about a computer destroying the entire multiverse...

What happened to that one that some Canadians were supposed to have made? I remember Vetalia talking about it when I posted my story about a computer destroying the entire multiverse...

They demo'd it....

http://news.com.com/Start-up+demos+quantum+computer/2100-1008_3-6159152.html

The Canadian company on Tuesday gave a public demonstration of Orion, its quantum computer, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. D-Wave said it is going to try to sell computing services to corporate customers in the first quarter of 2008.

The actual demo...

We view these machines as probability distribution generators," Rose said. "We want to build an actual physical embodiment of a hard math problem."

Right now, Orion is a "proof of concept," a demonstration of what the final product could look like. At the demonstration, Rose had the system come up with answers to Sudoku problems and, in another demo, seek out similar molecules to the active ingredient in the drug Prilosec in a chemical database. The computer found several molecules that shared similar structural elements with Prilosec, but the molecule that matched it closest was the active ingredient in another drug called Nexium. Plucking out Nexium demonstrated the system's accuracy, the company said. Nexium is actually a mirror image of the molecule in Prilosec that AstraZeneca invented to extend its patents.

In another example, he ran a seating chart program where each guest had particular seating requirements. (Cleopatra could not sit next to meat eaters. Genghis Khan eats meat, and so on.) The system came up with a seating plan with a minimum number of violations of protocol.


The computer itself--which is cooled down to 4 millikelvin (or nearly minus 273.15 degrees Celsius) with liquid helium--was actually in Canada. Attendees only saw the results on a screen. Still, it was the largest demonstration of a quantum computer ever, Rose said.

And the end result hopefully...

By the end of the year, however, D-Wave will have a 32-qubit system. It plans to begin to rent out time on its computers to corporate customers in the first quarter of next year, said CEO Herb Martin. Customer won't have to learn special programming techniques or other tricks to take advantage of the service; sending a problem to D-Wave will be similar to outsourcing it to any other company. Later, D-Wave may lease or sell computers, Martin added.

They demo'd it....

http://news.com.com/Start-up+demos+quantum+computer/2100-1008_3-6159152.html



The actual demo...



And the end result hopefully...

Cool. I'll admit I was really skeptical at the time and didn't think they could do it, and when I heard no more of it or a demo I assumed that my thoughts had been vindicated.
Meh. The BBC should've reported it. I'd've seen it then.

Cool. I'll admit I was really skeptical at the time and didn't think they could do it, and when I heard no more of it or a demo I assumed that my thoughts had been vindicated.
Meh. The BBC should've reported it. I'd've seen it then.

I want to see Horizon do an episode on this.

/correcting thread drift *ahem* :)

I was not exactly a skeptic as I knew about QC research but I was surprised it turned out to be successful. Well as far as we know. Once it gets both widespread commercial use and more scientific validation would I say we are truly on the way...

And what a magnificent place it could be if the technology can be miniturised. ...make our current technology look like flint stones compared to a blow torch.

Of course the problem is making it small. Is it even feasible?

For the moment I will rely on my trusty PIII ;)

I want to see Horizon do an episode on this.

/correcting thread drift *ahem* :)

I was not exactly a skeptic as I knew about QC research but I was surprised it turned out to be successful. Well as far as we know. Once it gets both widespread commercial use and more scientific validation would I say we are truly on the way...

And what a magnificent place it could be if the technology can be miniturised. ...make our current technology look like flint stones compared to a blow torch.

Of course the problem is making it small. Is it even feasible?

For the moment I will rely on my trusty PIII ;)

Why would anyone want to correct thread drift? 0_o
Pentium III, is that? :)
I'll rely on traditional computers, unless they can build me a supercomputer with several hundred petabytes of storage space.*
*Oh, and preferably have it a triple-boot of Windows 98SE, Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. :D
That way I get the advantages of Microsoft's massive software base and the power of Unix-based Linux.

Horizon (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/listings/programme.shtml?day=today&service_id=4224&filename=20070501/20070501_2100_4224_23072_50)



So 27th of November it is then!

I am waiting for the fruitcakes to start on this and try and stop the machine.

Personally I'm very happy to see the experiments go ahead.

cool.

So anyone else think Al Gore will claim this in the next few years?

cool.

So anyone else think Al Gore will claim this in the next few years?

?

Why would anyone want to correct thread drift? 0_o
Pentium III, is that? :)
I'll rely on traditional computers, unless they can build me a supercomputer with several hundred petabytes of storage space.*
*Oh, and preferably have it a triple-boot of Windows 98SE, Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. :D
That way I get the advantages of Microsoft's massive software base and the power of Unix-based Linux.

Yeah...me trusty stinkpad of nearly 6 years:)

My other machines are all PII and PIIIs as well...really don't see the need or super powerfull PCs as I don't really play games.

?

Al Gore invented the web.....:rolleyes:

Yeah...me trusty stinkpad of nearly 6 years:)

My other machines are all PII and PIIIs as well...really don't see the need or super powerfull PCs as I don't really play games.

I don't want a supercomputer to play games. :D
I want one to continue my studies of various aspects of mathematics and physics easier and quicker.

Al Gore invented the web.....:rolleyes:

Ah...

I don't want a supercomputer to play games. :D
I want one to continue my studies of various aspects of mathematics and physics easier and quicker.

Ahh...yeah...well possibly as a flight sim ;)

I'm afraid you got me on the science side...I'm not yer academic type....but I do like learning about science...but if you come at me with a quadratic equation I will run away like a running away type person....

Ah...

Yeah...*ahem*

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

Al Gore invented the web.....:rolleyes:

He never said that. He said he helped with the funding that turned ARPAnet into the Internet, which he did.