What is Digg?128 Comments
- robertvernam, on 08/21/2008, -1/+72"Scientists are pushing ahead with powering up the machine, shrugging off speculative fears that it could destroy all life on Earth by sucking it into a black hole."
I can't wait until they start smashing particles at full speed. This is far more exciting news than any political BS or Top 10 lists of the worst Top 10 lists. This could completely change our understanding of the most basic building blocks of life or it could destroy everything we've ever known. Amazing! - dafragsta, on 08/22/2008, -0/+54Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon. - NikoKun, on 08/21/2008, -6/+39I guess the media simply can't let this go... We have a greater chance of our planet being blown up by aliens, than of this thing creating a black hole.
- YodaJones, on 08/21/2008, -2/+35***** yeah. I'm ready. Push that button.
- bynarte, on 08/22/2008, -8/+39At least some countries are still trying to advance science and our understanding of the universe unlike America. Case in point: The republicans are still trying to paint Obama as a pointy headed professor type, whatever that means, as if being intelligent is a bad thing.
America. The only country in the world where being ignorant and stupid is a good thing!
Anyway. I hope someone sent CERN a whole crate of crowbars just in case there are unforeseen consequences or an unexpected resonance cascade. - rjsprague, on 08/22/2008, -0/+31I've been waiting for this for a few years. The physics behind all of this is incredible. I can't believe they've achieved such low temperatures in a structure so large. I wonder if it'll have sideaffects on the surface of the earth that it is sitting under. Anyway this is all very exciting.
- Adenosine, on 08/22/2008, -0/+24I heard micro-blackholes were actually not that unlikely, but if they made one it would evaporate quickly due to Hawking radiation , or something.
- bsander, on 08/22/2008, -0/+22The chances of the LHC creating an earth-swallowing black hole are about the same as it baking a delicious apple pie though.
- Kinneas12, on 08/22/2008, -1/+22Everyone have their crowbars ready? Half-Life 3 may come early.
- Zarokima, on 08/21/2008, -1/+21Well, it would happen near-instantaneously so you most likely wouldn't even have time to care about it. Plus the chances of it happening are incredibly small; it won't.
- MacSuxWindozSux, on 08/21/2008, -2/+18Oh I know this one! make a statement seem false by grouping it with a bunch of obviously false statements.
Lets see... The moon is cheese, ice is hot, Bush lied us into a war, smoking is healthy...
Optional: Accuse people you don't agree with of wearing tinfoil hats.
Under no circumstances mention any facts. Because if your argument is based on facts it can be proven wrong. - Titan615, on 08/22/2008, -2/+16All I want to say is did anyone realize that when we detonated the first nuclear weapon
the scientists thought that it had like a 15% chance of igniting the entire atmosphere
and killing all life on Earth?
The chances of the LHC creating a black hole that would expand to eat up the Earth
are far less than that, like thousandths of a percent.
Anyway its pretty crazy sh**. - xister, on 08/22/2008, -0/+13Stephen Hawking emits black hole killing radiation?
/joke - AmnesiacJack, on 08/22/2008, -2/+14More articles like this please.
- KublaiKhan, on 08/22/2008, -2/+14I'll be the first to make this inevitable comment (I'm calling myself "first" because the person above me hid a similar comment in a political diatribe):
I hope they have enough crowbars on hand. - zyklon, on 08/22/2008, -1/+12It's a little too black-and-white, isn't it? Understand life/destroy life. Dammit.
- 00gre, on 08/22/2008, -0/+11I prefer paying for this than for (some) stupid religious war(s) .
- astronomical, on 08/22/2008, -3/+13What are you basing your numbers on?
- cutright, on 08/22/2008, -0/+9One of my pet peeves is the severe misunderstanding of black holes that the general public has.
The black holes that would be created in these experiments wouldn't be nearly massive enough to create a gravitational pull strong enough to grow. Secondly, black holes pop in and out of existence all the time... this is no big deal. Gravity is still proportional to the object's mass, whether it's a black hole or not.
Let's suppose a black hole is created to a significant spatial extent. In order for this black hole to pull anything outside of the building that contains it would have to at least pull in the building itself, right? Let's think about this, the first part of the building to go would be directly above the black hole since this part would have the Earth's gravity plus the gravity of the black hole pulling it down. Maybe it's just me, but I'd argue a 10% increase in the Earths gravity wouldn't make a building collapse in on itself. In order for that to happen, you'd have to somehow amass 10% of the Earth's mass into this room. How do you propose we manage to get about 6 * 10^23 kg in one room? That'd be quite the trick. For those of you that think 10% might make it collapse. Let's just say the black hole generates 0.001% of Earth's gravity. You still need 6*10^19 kg in this room! I don't believe someone could destroy the Earth via a black hole alone even if they tried. In fact, you'd have to destroy at least 10% (probably much more than that) just to make the damn thing! Why depend on the black hole? You'd already be doing the job just to make it. - Adenosine, on 08/22/2008, -1/+10I love'd the scene: A scientist faced with the threat of destroying the Earth, and he just 'shrugs' it off... "meh.."
Well it was a good life, I guess. - Chairboy, on 08/22/2008, -0/+8So, you're saying there's a chance aliens will blow up our planet? Why isn't this being reported?!
- lukedamonkey, on 08/22/2008, -1/+9I'm ready to die in the name of science!
- johnnysaucepn, on 08/22/2008, -0/+8No, I think we already have one of those.
- inactive, on 08/22/2008, -0/+8Die Fiend
- inactive, on 08/22/2008, -0/+7$10 Billion vs $3 Trillion...yep it cost more...lol
- Spelvin, on 08/22/2008, -0/+7And how many people died building the LHC? Now which cost more?
- yournamehere, on 08/22/2008, -1/+8Cue Gordon Freeman
- natalic, on 08/22/2008, -0/+7WOOAAAH If you have never read "Age of the spiritual machine" they mention the anti-matter and matter war...And how matter won...Everyone should read the book...
- palehorse864, on 08/22/2008, -0/+6I never thought I'd see a resonance cascade, let alone create one.
- cutright, on 08/22/2008, -0/+6Additionally... sorry, I didn't mean to imply the gravitational pull would stop at the building (i.e. objects could collect around the building and potentially cause collapse). So considering that the whole object collection notion, I'd still argue the 0.001%M(earth) black hole isn't massive enough to do the job and still requires enormous effort to collect that amount of mass.
- xister, on 08/22/2008, -1/+6I find it wonderfully amazing (and a little frightening) that we're to the point in our technological advancement that this kind of concern would even be raised (however small the actual danger).
- jellygraph, on 08/22/2008, -1/+6Yes, scientists don't seem to care about killing themselves and annihilating the entire world with them. Nor do they, especially, grasp the complex knowledge and scientific reasoning that repeat doomsayer, pseudo-scientists have.
*sarcasm* - c31979839, on 08/22/2008, -0/+5is that why you continued reading?
- LostOnion, on 08/22/2008, -1/+6I thought it said super hardon collider.
- inactive, on 08/22/2008, -1/+6it should be: "shrugging off uneducated speculative fears"
- jellygraph, on 08/22/2008, -0/+5we might begin to understand the foundations of patricle physics, what makes matter in its most elementary form... what gives you mass.
listen to this podcast, they really break it down in laymans terms:
http://www.astronomycast.com/physics/ep-69-the-lar ... - smurfsahoy, on 08/22/2008, -0/+5It's actually a protective switch and then a button. You know, like the missile launchers in Top Gun.
And it's all on a joystick, too. - jellygraph, on 08/22/2008, -0/+4nothing moves faster than the speed of light.
- cutright, on 08/22/2008, -0/+4Ugh... see what happens. Stupid comments piss me off and instigate more stupidity. I didn't consider the 1/r^2. But even with that considered, radius of the Earth is about 6*10^6 m, a 10% increase is gravity 1 m directly above the black hole (from the Earth's gravity by itself), would still require about 10^13 kg. For those of you who don't have a feel for this number, its about 20 trillion pounds (at the usual Earth gravity).
Btw... does anyone know a good 12-step program to keep me off Digg? - Cybermaul, on 08/22/2008, -0/+4I'd much prefer the pie, not sure about the rest of you.
- fistikuffs, on 08/22/2008, -0/+4There is a fantastic 3 part documentary from the beeb called Atom which will go some way to showing the importance of this kind of research.
- bstock, on 08/22/2008, -0/+4..You've never seen Ghost Busters...... wtf?
- gofarhaveacigar, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3"As such preparations for the formal September 10th start date continue, the entire machine has
been successfully cooled to temperatures below minus 270ºC, a fraction of a degree above the lowest achievable temperature."
A fraction? 3 wholes isn't much a fraction. Lowest achievable temp is -273.12 deg C. I hate it when news articles over simplify science articles. A housewife probably isn't going to read this article, instead it will be science and engineering students. Why dumb it down? - mnsisgreen, on 08/22/2008, -1/+4I knew it, that's why when I flush now, the water spins the other way!
- gn0stik, on 08/21/2008, -1/+4Meh.. *shrug*
- xister, on 08/22/2008, -1/+4Well, you're right- you're not an expert... >_>
- EnnuiStudent, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3It's a good thing we have a plethora of knowledge on "black holes" to make such a claim.
- Zippo, on 08/22/2008, -0/+2Well, we haven't destroyed the universe yet. So far, so good.
- inactive, on 08/23/2008, -0/+2Ah, I do know a good 12-step program to keep you off digg: (Alcoholics Anonymous)^(-1). What this implies, is you have to remain hammered for the better part of the week, thereby completely disabling your hands from typing on digg. You know what they say, "if you pass out on the floor covered in your own vomit, it's unlikely that you'll debate particle physics on digg."
I think that's what they say? I don't know, I've been drinking (warning: the more you drink, the more you'll find yourself posting on political topics.) -
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