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Dec. 7th, 2009 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
awakening_dreamshhhhh
LOL at that article though, you can tell they don't actually understand what they're writing about. >_>
A) It is not mimicking the conditions during the Big Bang. It is going through them. CERN has made sure to state this very explicitly. We are not staring at a fake universe, people. We have made one. If you're at a western and watching dudes ride horses, you're mimicking. If suddenly a unicorn rides out of the screen and say sorry, you can't ride on me, you're not a virgin - that's reality.
B) "The Holy Grail will be finding a theorised component called the Higgs Boson, which would explain how particles acquire mass. The elusive Higgs has been dubbed the "God particle"."
God particle? Yes, it has been labeled as such, but in an ironic sort of way. Holy Grail implies we want it. Um, no. Finding the Higgs Boson is considered the worst possible result that could come out of the LHC. But I'll go more into that later on. The scientists are perfectly fine with finding out the universe is decaying and will someday sooner or later die, as long as they don't find the Higgs Boson.
Anything else is the Holy Grail. What we already have is the Holy Grail. This is a never ending Holy Grail.
Saying the project is seeking to resolve any issues is wrong as well. There are 2700 particle physicists on this - over half of those who work in this specialty. Ask any of them if they think this is going to have some world breaking importance, and they'll tell you that once they're past the Higgs question, everything is cool.
Nothing is being solved or broken here that will affect anything. This is a completely useless machine if you want to save the Earth. Take this in mind: when they queried a scientist about whether there had been concerns over the black hole scuffles, first he explained that was impossible. Then he said that he didn't care. Because if the Earth, the galaxy, the universe or even reality as we know it had to be destroyed to prove they had built something amazing, so be it, they'd done their job. (Honestly, to a certain point, I don't disagree. But I'll go into that in another post). "We were excited when we flipped the switch last year and the [machine] worked as it should have. Plus, the world didn't end. That was nice."
The LHC exists simply as an extremely high tech toy where scientists can get off on it by hoping what they want to see comes about inside. As far as I know, they can do absolutely nothing at this point but follow the readings. That is the point of this machine, that is why this machine exists. It exists so we can watch how the universe was born and answer some very interesting questions.
You know what? I'm okay with that. I like that with all the wrongs and rights and arguments these days, we can still manage to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. It's amazing that they're pulling this off. It's even more amazing that they've been able to pull it off with 2700 minds inputting - and nobody has a higher rank than the other. They have teams and elect a leader for a fixed term, and the leader of each time and the director must each, seperately, try to convince the others that they want to do something.
It's not just amazing that because of the passion for this project, it managing to develop like this for 20 years and come out as something that has already caused a new Big Bang. It's unheard of.
I am never going to stop being amazed by this machine. If only Fermilab wasn't dismantling the Tevatron this year. I only hope the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider makes it. We don't just need one of these people, We've got to keep our co-existing ones; which, while smaller, can still help to compare data. RHIC is not expected to live past the decade. Tevatron has already been set for the dismantling. I know that we have the hypothetical Very Large Hadron Collider, but that's going to take us decades more of work, and how do we decide what resources go where? Personally I think a system of the LHC and many smaller ones around the world like RHIC would be best. Not that they're asking me.
Even with something like this, politics leaves a taint. But I am going to focus on the positive and on the fact that we're already getting close to confirming the existing of quark–gluon plasma and not leaving it as a grand possibility. (Some believe it exists and we need to test it's properties. Some believe we only have the properties and need to put it together. Even others believe that this is all hypothetical and all we have done so far is create a map of the possibilities. I'm in the latter group. Pat goes with his own flow and thinks we have enough properties to start, but we certainly haven't found all of them - just that we can't find the rest if we sit around and waste time observing maps of it.)
My question is - if they confirm the HIGGS and therefore complete the Standard Model, what happens them? Does the experiment stop? Because if we find the HIGGS, we have proven the Standard Formula is correct. But we already know that it is not. It is the equivalent of proving Batman can breath in space. If HIGGS comes out of this, physics can't focus on anything anymore except going back to the beginning. If we find the HIGGS, we're back in Newton and apple territory, people. If the Standard Formula is right, it is the only thing that is left correct. It would render everything we know as wrong. This is no exaggeration - that is how devastating it would be to confirm it.
I'm pretty scared they'll find the HIGGs as a result, but my brother and I agree, as we track this thing from a civilian perspective - even that idea is awfully exciting!
God, I am glad I am alive today to be able to see this happen.Over here, we feel it is the luckiest streak ever to have been born at this time with these circumstances and this knowledge.
tl;dr, I am completely smitten.
LOL at that article though, you can tell they don't actually understand what they're writing about. >_>
A) It is not mimicking the conditions during the Big Bang. It is going through them. CERN has made sure to state this very explicitly. We are not staring at a fake universe, people. We have made one. If you're at a western and watching dudes ride horses, you're mimicking. If suddenly a unicorn rides out of the screen and say sorry, you can't ride on me, you're not a virgin - that's reality.
B) "The Holy Grail will be finding a theorised component called the Higgs Boson, which would explain how particles acquire mass. The elusive Higgs has been dubbed the "God particle"."
God particle? Yes, it has been labeled as such, but in an ironic sort of way. Holy Grail implies we want it. Um, no. Finding the Higgs Boson is considered the worst possible result that could come out of the LHC. But I'll go more into that later on. The scientists are perfectly fine with finding out the universe is decaying and will someday sooner or later die, as long as they don't find the Higgs Boson.
Anything else is the Holy Grail. What we already have is the Holy Grail. This is a never ending Holy Grail.
Saying the project is seeking to resolve any issues is wrong as well. There are 2700 particle physicists on this - over half of those who work in this specialty. Ask any of them if they think this is going to have some world breaking importance, and they'll tell you that once they're past the Higgs question, everything is cool.
Nothing is being solved or broken here that will affect anything. This is a completely useless machine if you want to save the Earth. Take this in mind: when they queried a scientist about whether there had been concerns over the black hole scuffles, first he explained that was impossible. Then he said that he didn't care. Because if the Earth, the galaxy, the universe or even reality as we know it had to be destroyed to prove they had built something amazing, so be it, they'd done their job. (Honestly, to a certain point, I don't disagree. But I'll go into that in another post). "We were excited when we flipped the switch last year and the [machine] worked as it should have. Plus, the world didn't end. That was nice."
The LHC exists simply as an extremely high tech toy where scientists can get off on it by hoping what they want to see comes about inside. As far as I know, they can do absolutely nothing at this point but follow the readings. That is the point of this machine, that is why this machine exists. It exists so we can watch how the universe was born and answer some very interesting questions.
You know what? I'm okay with that. I like that with all the wrongs and rights and arguments these days, we can still manage to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. It's amazing that they're pulling this off. It's even more amazing that they've been able to pull it off with 2700 minds inputting - and nobody has a higher rank than the other. They have teams and elect a leader for a fixed term, and the leader of each time and the director must each, seperately, try to convince the others that they want to do something.
It's not just amazing that because of the passion for this project, it managing to develop like this for 20 years and come out as something that has already caused a new Big Bang. It's unheard of.
I am never going to stop being amazed by this machine. If only Fermilab wasn't dismantling the Tevatron this year. I only hope the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider makes it. We don't just need one of these people, We've got to keep our co-existing ones; which, while smaller, can still help to compare data. RHIC is not expected to live past the decade. Tevatron has already been set for the dismantling. I know that we have the hypothetical Very Large Hadron Collider, but that's going to take us decades more of work, and how do we decide what resources go where? Personally I think a system of the LHC and many smaller ones around the world like RHIC would be best. Not that they're asking me.
Even with something like this, politics leaves a taint. But I am going to focus on the positive and on the fact that we're already getting close to confirming the existing of quark–gluon plasma and not leaving it as a grand possibility. (Some believe it exists and we need to test it's properties. Some believe we only have the properties and need to put it together. Even others believe that this is all hypothetical and all we have done so far is create a map of the possibilities. I'm in the latter group. Pat goes with his own flow and thinks we have enough properties to start, but we certainly haven't found all of them - just that we can't find the rest if we sit around and waste time observing maps of it.)
My question is - if they confirm the HIGGS and therefore complete the Standard Model, what happens them? Does the experiment stop? Because if we find the HIGGS, we have proven the Standard Formula is correct. But we already know that it is not. It is the equivalent of proving Batman can breath in space. If HIGGS comes out of this, physics can't focus on anything anymore except going back to the beginning. If we find the HIGGS, we're back in Newton and apple territory, people. If the Standard Formula is right, it is the only thing that is left correct. It would render everything we know as wrong. This is no exaggeration - that is how devastating it would be to confirm it.
I'm pretty scared they'll find the HIGGs as a result, but my brother and I agree, as we track this thing from a civilian perspective - even that idea is awfully exciting!
God, I am glad I am alive today to be able to see this happen.Over here, we feel it is the luckiest streak ever to have been born at this time with these circumstances and this knowledge.
tl;dr, I am completely smitten.
