Large Hadron Collider

[DotCommunist]

Richard from Reading cuts to the heart of the matter:

listen no one cares anymore about the big bang at the end of the day and quite frankly i am annoyed with the fact that all this blah has been government funded so im paying my taxes so scientist can play with toys and try and blow up the world (if anything does go wrong) leave the world alone. rather than concentrate on what people think of the big bang concentrate on knife crimes and gang teenagers, with that money the government could of changed a few things in this day and age its rubbish !
richard, reading

 

[Voley]

Well said, richard in reading

 

[Fruitloop]

Richard from Reading cuts to the heart of the matter:

listen no one cares anymore about the big bang at the end of the day and quite frankly i am annoyed with the fact that all this blah has been government funded so im paying my taxes so scientist can play with toys and try and blow up the world (if anything does go wrong) leave the world alone. rather than concentrate on what people think of the big bang concentrate on knife crimes and gang teenagers, with that money the government could of changed a few things in this day and age its rubbish !
richard, reading

He said 'could of', therefore his argument is invalid.

 

[fredfelt]

I've put a request to Switzerland and ask for them to return any socks, torches and drugs that I have lost and that will undoubted emerge from any black holes they make.

 

[xenon]

He said 'could of', therefore his argument is invalid.

And he tells us he's reading. Must be Peter and Jane.

 

[LJo]

im paying my taxes so scientist can play with toys and try and blow up the world
richard, reading

I reckon he's just jealous. I can't think of a more fun job in the entire universe than playing with toys and trying to blow up the world. Unless it's Bond Villain.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

It could prove that Darwin was wrong, there was no big bang and God does infact exist. Now wouldn't that upset a few people.

Hugh, Norfolk UK

I hope that's a troll, I really do.

 

[damnhippie]

Richard from Reading cuts to the heart of the matter:

listen no one cares anymore about the big bang at the end of the day and quite frankly i am annoyed with the fact that all this blah has been government funded so im paying my taxes so scientist can play with toys and try and blow up the world (if anything does go wrong) leave the world alone. rather than concentrate on what people think of the big bang concentrate on knife crimes and gang teenagers, with that money the government could of changed a few things in this day and age its rubbish !
richard, reading

ace!

richard from reading is failing to realise the consequences of this:

- government eradicates knife crime
- bereft of weaponry, the yoof start building crude back yard atom smashers to shoot particles at rival gangs
- tiny black holes everywhere
- WHAMMO Walworth Road is sucked into oblivion

 

[DotCommunist]

In what way could this possibly benefit mankind? What difference does it make if we know how the world started? With that £5bn they could ended half the worlds poverty.
Josh, Oswaldtwistle




Josh fails to comprehend the scale of world poverty

 

[LJo]

It could prove that Darwin was wrong, there was no big bang and God does infact exist. Now wouldn't that upset a few people.

Hugh, Norfolk UK

Take THAT, Dawkins!

 

[kyser_soze]

I hope that's a troll, I really do.

No such thing on HYS...

 

[madamv]

I think they're only making the particles go round in big circles so far, and today the LHC is operating at about 10% of its potential speed. Its a bit of a a let-down really, a bit like starting up your new car but not taking it off the drive.

All they are doing at the moment is increasing the speed over the coming weeks to check it all works. Actual particle collisions are not scheduled to happen until mid-October sometime.

Meanwhile, here are some "interesting" factoids:

The LHC contains two primary experiments: Atlas and CMS (the "Compact Muon Solenoid"). Both of these experiments are essentially cameras recording collision events.

Once fully operational, the LHC will produce up to 600 million collision events per second. The Atlas experiment contains 100 million read-out sensors.

The vast amount of data produced is equivalent to an electronic copy of the Encyclopaedia Britannica per second. Bear in mind this is a 32-volume reference book made up of over 44 million words and 23,000 images.

This is obviously unmanageable. Therefore, 99.9995% of all the data has to be discarded, meaning "only" 200 events per second are actually recorded onto disc. The decision of what to keep and what to discard is decided by computers - 1000 processors running in parallel - based on 10 criteria. This decision is made in less than 2 microseconds.

Even this reduced recording capacity will generate petabytes of data per year. Based on the fact there are over 31 million seconds per year, if the LHC was run for 10 years it would generate more data than has been written or spoken by man since he appeared on Earth.

The magnet in the CMS experiment is over 6 metres in diameter. That is big enough to accomodate a blue whale for an MRI scan. The iron within the magnet - more, incidentally, than the Eiffel Tower is made up from - was supplied by the Russians. It comes from decommissioned battleship shells.

Woah.... you're really brainy

 

[laptop]

It could prove that Darwin was wrong, there was no big bang and God does infact exist.

How would it do that, then?

Ay, yes.

Bets on a Bible Code-stylee "hidden message analysis" of the raw data appearing by 2012?


In a few thousand petabytes of data, you should be able to find absolutely anything you choose to look for.

And if it's not there, there'll be a conspiracy theory about the data thrown away, and demands that it all be recorded... regardless of the possibility that this would require turning the entire mass of North America into hard drives...

 

[Pingu]

the big magnets are oxford blue in colour cos one of the project directors went to oxford.

anyone else any other useful yet irrelevant snippets?

for the geeky. the data is stored on approx 15 clusters running Oracle on Linux - originally had about 300 Tb of what is known as "hot data" i.e. data that is easily queryable.

for those who think this is a lot.. it is, but its by no means the biggest.

 

[danny la rouge]

Added: Wednesday, 10 September, 2008, 12:56 GMT 13:56 UK

I was reading the other day that the chief scientist on this insaine project calculated the chance of destroying the earth at approx 5m - 1. Now would someone please tell me if this is an acceptable level of risk when it could destroy the planet. As I understand it there is less chance of being in a plane crash, to me that is far too probable to even start this project. And as for the money side of things, yes it is disgusting as is the amount of energy wasted on this but it wont matter after!!!

John, Hove

I'm assuming John in Hove is scared to use his toilet, since he has a 1 in 173,972 annual risk of being injured by toilet cleaner.

 

[LJo]

How would it do that, then?

Ay, yes.

Bets on a Bible Code-stylee "hidden message analysis" of the raw data appearing by 2012?


In a few thousand petabytes of data, you should be able to find absolutely anything you choose to look for.

And if it's not there, there'll be a conspiracy theory about the data thrown away, and demands that it all be recorded... regardless of the possibility that this would require turning the entire mass of North America into hard drives...

Don't ask me, ask Hugh from Norfolk, UK.

(He might also be able to tell you why my quote thingy isn't working, if he has such an insight into the workings of the universe. Also what is causing my oven to make a horrible grinding noise.)

 

[xes]

I reckon they should just

 

[danny la rouge]

Don't ask me, ask Hugh from Norfolk, UK.

A lot of humorous replies to Hugh of Norfolk would be good.

For those who missed his insight:

It could prove that Darwin was wrong, there was no big bang and God does infact exist. Now wouldn't that upset a few people.

Hugh, Norfolk UK

 

[MikeMcc]

the big magnets are oxford blue in colour cos one of the project directors went to oxford.

anyone else any other useful yet irrelevant snippets?

for the geeky. the data is stored on approx 15 clusters running Oracle on Linux - originally had about 300 Tb of what is known as "hot data" i.e. data that is easily queryable.

for those who think this is a lot.. it is, but its by no means the biggest.

Generally the colour coding is a hang over from the colouring used on the CAD package! Hence at Diamond the dipoles (for bending the beam) were green, the quadrapoles (for focus and de-focusing the beam)were red, the hextapoles (for steering teh beam) were yellow, and the insertion devices were purple.

 

[berniedicters]

I've put a request to Switzerland and ask for them to return any socks, torches and drugs that I have lost and that will undoubted emerge from any black holes they make.

Um, no. Nothing emerges from black holes, not even light, and especially not socks. The clue's in the name.

What you're thinking of are the (hypothetically possible) white holes that operate like inverse black holes. But sadly, even if those exist, your socks will emerge as violent bursts of radiation, not socks Oh, and at some unspecified point in time, too.

(((bigphil's socks)))

 

[berniedicters]

for the geeky. the data is stored on approx 15 clusters running Oracle on Linux - originally had about 300 Tb of what is known as "hot data" i.e. data that is easily queryable.

Cor. And I used to think that a 27Gb database was a biggie.

I wouldn't want to be in charge of the backup media of that little lot, though. No wonder it cost £5bn - most of that will be tape cartridges.

They are going to back up all this data, aren't they?

 

[DotCommunist]

Um, no. Nothing emerges from black holes, not even light, and especially not socks. The clue's in the name.

What you're thinking of are the (hypothetically possible) white holes that operate like inverse black holes. But sadly, even if those exist, your socks will emerge as violent bursts of radiation, not socks Oh, and at some unspecified point in time, too.

(((bigphil's socks)))

If we get the black hole that sucked in his socks, then vibrate the white hole end up to near C, his socks will will pop out in the past.

voila

 

[fen_boy]

Um, no. Nothing emerges from black holes, not even light, and especially not socks. The clue's in the name.

Admittedly my knowledge of this sort of thing is patchy, but I thought black holes were constantly spewing out fuckloads of radiation (hawking radiation?).

 

[Cid]

the big magnets are oxford blue in colour cos one of the project directors went to oxford.

anyone else any other useful yet irrelevant snippets?

for the geeky. the data is stored on approx 15 clusters running Oracle on Linux - originally had about 300 Tb of what is known as "hot data" i.e. data that is easily queryable.

for those who think this is a lot.. it is, but its by no means the biggest.

If you stored all the data (I think from 1 year) on CDs the stack would be 20km high.

 

[kyser_soze]

Nothing emerges from black holes

Well, errm, akershally that's one thorny little issue the LHC will sort out, and also the reason for the luddites to get all scared. In theory bloack holes lose information in the form of Hawking radiation; the LHC will (possibly) proove this by generating micro-black holes and watching them evaporate...

 

[fractionMan]

When little pairs of teeny tiny things miraculously appear right on the event horizon and the negative one falls in and the positive one falls out blacks holes get a little bit smaller.

Aparently.

 

[laptop]

But they have to be smaller than anyone's socks.


Much smaller.

 

[kyser_soze]

Oh yeah, and apparently every black hole made shaves some time of the lifespan of the universe.

I read that somewhere OTHER than a sci-fi novel.

 

[Bonfirelight]

i just hope no demons or reverse vampires come through the inter dimensional portals that will no doubt be created.

 

[danny la rouge]

Reverse vampires? They blow blood into your veins, which sucks the life out of themselves?