The start-up of the Large Hadron Collider has been widely reported in the media; for an explanation, you could do worse then this introduction and this quite good interview with Paul Davies on Lateline last night.
If you remember your high-school physics (and that’s basically all I remember…), you might recall protons, neutrons, and electrons, the components of atoms. The Large Hadron Collider takes protons, uses enormous magnets to accelerate protons two within a hair’s breadth of the speed of light, and smash them into each other, and watch what comes out (there are four different detector experiments).
As discussed by Paul Davies, the first major goal of the LHC experiments is to observe the Higgs boson, a particle that is fundamental to what’s called the “Standard Model” of particle physics. Apparently, the existence of this particle is key to the model’s explanation of how mass works; without it, the Standard Model falls down. As Davies explains, in some ways it would be much more exciting if the Higgs Boson wasn’t observed, because it would mean that the Standard Model is wrong; the theoretical physicists would have to come up with something else.
In other news, biologists are also up to some interesting tricks – making artificial life. Or, almost doing so. A team led by Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School is making considerable progress in assembling, from scratch, a self-replicating molecule. Self-replicating molecules, otherwise known as life. As the post on Wired magazine’s science blog explains:
Protocellular work is even more radical than the other field trying to create artifical life: synthetic biology. Even J. Craig Venter’s work to build an artificial bacterium with the smallest number of genes necessary to live takes current life forms as a template. Protocell researchers are trying to design a completely novel form of life that humans have never seen and that may never have existed.
If they succeed, I await with interest to see what creationists make of it…
“Protocellular work is even more radical than the other field trying to create artifical life: synthetic biology”
Woulda thought A.I. deserves a guernsey there too. Won’t somebody think of the robots?
Just in case the world does get sucked in a hole (…now, there’s a hole in the sky) thanks Robert for your always stimulating sciency business posts.
I await with interest to see what crackpot doomsayers make of it. They’ll have trouble topping the LHC doomsayers, that’s for sure. Nothing like a killer strangelet to ruin your day (and destroy the Universe).
Seriously though, despite the widespread media coverage of the first protons to make a complete lap of the 27 km long LHC due to take place today, it’s going to be a long time before we get any actual results. They aren’t even set to ramp it up to 14 TeV until March next year.
Very exciting, though. And good to see such widespread coverage of fundamental scientific research.
A couple of good features at New Scientist (subscriber only) from last weeks issue:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg19926711.300-large-hadron-collider-the-wait-is-over.html
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19926711.400-large-hadron-collider-extreme-machine.html
Whatever happened to the promised nuclear-powered cars with huge tail fins?
Folks have probably seen it before, but:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM
If this is indeed the Great
Grey gooblack hole disaster, I’ve enjoyed talking to y’all. Regards.Robots? What about the humble computer virus! There’s self-replication if ever I’ve seen it. Electricity is people too!
This, of course, is what is so idiotic about the science-as-religion crowd, including the AGW-as-religion people. It fundamentally misunderstands the scientific mindset. If someone came along with a solid proof that climate change has been caused by something else (or merely proof that carbon dioxide is not involved), not only would they be famous but an entirely new area of research could be created, depending on the nature of the proof. There would be more research to go around, not less. While I suspect that the originators of the meme understood that all too well, a surprising number of people seem to drink the global-scientific-conspiracy kool-aid.
Wondering if the LHC has destroyed the world and you haven’t noticed?
Go here to find out…
Oh but Dr Fish, here’s an update!
Oh, but haven;t you heard? THIS is the real reason they’re smashing photons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt1Yo610lG0
More to the point, Andos is right. I think the first collision is due for October 21 (all things going to plan, which, if the history of the LHC is anything to go by, may not happen), and then they’ll gradually ramp it up.
So we now have a bizarre world-wide panic because a physicist in Europe *turned on a light*!!!! Gotta love the rationality of the human species sometimes.
Anyway, anyone interested in the science behind the LHC and string theory, etc, should check out The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene (either the book, or the tv series, which can be watched online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html or on Youtube starting here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz8JbD3PSec&feature=related )
Helen at 1pm,
me too, auf wiedersehen!
Perhaps Paul Davies can tell us if any of us will squeeze through the associated wormholes and reconstitute LP on the other side?
We used to call out, “Hey, Dron!”
but it was just short for Drongo.
It seems to me that theoretical physics is looking more and more like a degenerating research programme.
A couple of centuries ago it was the most insightful and productive discipline in science. These days it seems to require ever more grandiose multi-billion dollar facilities in order to answer ever more obscure theoretical questions.
Possibly, ambigulous, but as I understand it all our posts would have to be done in reverse order – “the last shall be first and the first last”.
“A couple of centuries ago it was the most insightful and productive discipline in science.”
Que? Biology, pure maths, medicine…
Name a science that wasn’t more “productive” a couple of centuries ago. The answer to your dilemma might just be that questions answered only lead to more difficult questions.
derrida,
are you into time travel and acausal posts, then?
or just thinking about “last days” and the heavens?
No “dilemma” here FDB.
However it still seems to me that mathematics, biology and medicine are still a damn sight more “productive” these days than physics is.
Perhaps you’re right about the increasing difficulty of the questions, if by “increasing difficulty” you mean increasingly obscure, less insightful, and more expensive to answer.
I’m not saying the question whether the “Standard Model” is correct is of zero interest, but I think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask whether the question is really so important that such vast expenditure is required to answer it.
Tim: what do you think the theory of, say, semiconductors is based around? Or nuclear fusion and fission?
Without 20th-century physics, we’d all be scratching around with our slide rules trying to figure out where the sun’s energy comes from.
And I second FDB’s comment about hard questions.
A chemistry professor from Tubingen University (Germany) was interviewed on Radio National today expressing concern that the Large Hadron Collider experiment could produce man-made ‘black holes’ which, like a chain reaction, could exponentially begin ’swallowing’ matter in compliance with chaos theory. He sounded plausible and listed two other theories that needed resolution before this venture kicks off in his view. He wasn’t opposed per se, just expressing caution..the precautionary principle if you will. Off to dig that shelter now.
pablo, your shelter will be absorbed along with everything else.
I heard him too, and he sounded slightly unhinged to me.
I’m sure even the good people at CERN would be unable to supress a teensy frisson de la terreur.
Robert, my reference to two centuries ago could be easily substituted by, say, seventy years ago. The theoretical advances that underpinned the technological developments you mention were achieved at a small fraction of the cost of today’s vast experiments, and expanded our understanding to a far greater degree.
I’ve just been dumped with some urgent work so I procrastinating and waiting to see if the world still exists after 5:00pm.
Yes David I know its pointless. I’m reassured that you reckon Prof Otto Rossler is ’slightly unhinged’ and what would a chemist know about physics anyway….
This is what’s going to happen!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hJQ18S6aag
Bugger. Back to Word wrangling.
I have to add my condemnation, Tim.
The LHC cost US $10 Billion and employs 6000 scientists.
That is a tiny fraction of what is spent on things like weapons development.
These experiments have the potential for huge discoveries with applications we can’t even think of now.
You are very short-sighted.
The source of that quotation was none other than Ernest Rutherford, who discovered it in the first place.
I wouldn’t be making claims of “no practical use” for these experiments quite so hastily.
A really good link, to become an Instant Expert on the Large Hadron Collider:
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn14606
I highly recommend it.
Tim,
Another thing you’ve got to remember is that a lot of these big expensive experiments develop instrumentation that otherwise wouldn’t be seen.
I don’t have ref’s at hand but mass spectroscopy, optical spectroscopy and a whole heap of other modern diagnostic tools used to be in similar classes of expense (just look at a picture of the “Calutron” used for isotope separation and compare it to a modern mag-sector instrument).
I can walk into any one of several hundred customer sites across Australia today and look at everyday stuff being tested using gear that 50-years ago cost millions and today costs 30k.
Even if I just look at a basic ft-ir spectrometer using a michelson interferometer, I see a techniques which was once used to try and test a theory (proven false) about the “ether”. A century later it is now being used every day of the week to check if a factory has contaminants in the polymers they make.
Sorry mate, but I can’t wait to see the kinds of odd-ball instruments that will come out of this massive experiment. Not to mention the ongoing exploits in sub-atomic theory and what that might mean for the world as we know it.
Can anybody tell I’m excited
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/the-bosons-that.html
Try this site People.
Some pretty strong responses to my comments out there! Some even bordering on the personal (talkin’ about YOU Andos). Hey – nothing wrong with a bit of passion about pure science – but is it really passion for science, or is it passion for a really BIG technamalogical toy?
FWIW I think some of you were reading things into my comments that weren’t there. Robert – I never mentioned anything about the LHC or any other experiment having “no practical use” so I’m not sure where that came from.
Andos, I don’t really see how military expenditure is relevant to my comments – the world spends an untold fortune on useless and destructive stuff every day – we’re talking about scientific research.
I was just making the observation that theoretical physics seems to deliver progressively less ‘bang’ for substantially more ‘buck’ as the years go by. Now maybe the LHC will turn that around, but then again maybe it won’t.
Stave H, thanks for the interesting stuff about scientific instrumentation – I wasn’t aware of any of that.
Hey Tim,
Talking of big toys, sorry but Saturn V is still the benchmark for me
Would’ve loved to have seen one of those suckers lift off…
Anyway…apologies for the (beer-induced) derail but the following is a classic example of how a massive project can later on produce a significant instrumental breakthrough:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron
Which in turn has led to modern hi-res mass-spectrometry (yes I understand a lot fundamental work was done before this but it really did help perfect the setup).
A hell of a lot of work on carbon dating and CO2 sources can be done this way.
Probably paid for itself many times over just in these fields…
/derail
Thanks to Robert for starting this post and to everyone for the great links!
Tim. My only suggestion is read more.
The likely answers to come from the LHC include minor things like
“How do we create a black hole”
“How do we manipulate gravity in a meaningful way”
“What the hell is holding everything together”
Some of these involve either potential better and cheaper ways to produce energy (admittedly probably a century or more in the future), or in fact whole new areas of understanding that we don’t currently have access too.
To suggest that science (high energy physics or otherwise) was more productive 2 centuries ago, or indeed even 70 years ago, and used less money is wishful thinking. A little over two centuries ago certain parties bankrolled world wide expeditions (James Cook, Vitus Bering, Robert FitzRoy (the beagle), Christopher Columbus) to gain knowledge of the universe, and while not bankrupting any nations these were not cheap endeavors. The LHC isn’t going to bankrupt anyone either.
As for recent advances in physics. Superconductors. Hypersonic travel. Battery density. Extraplanetary interference astronomy.
You people are crazy. This is going to create a huge black hole and swallow us all. Run for your lives.
I thought the Higgs boson was some sort of googly.
“how do we create a black hole?” is a question I’d rather not know the answer to.
Just because a question can be formulated, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wise to seek the answer.
Other examples: “What would happen if you left Ms Palin and a moose in a small cage without any food for 20 days?”
“Can alligators mate with boa constrictors?”
“How terrified would suburbanites be, if 10 naked Peter Costellos jumped out of a big cake at his book launch in Chadstone?”
How do they know the hole will be black and not just say dark navy blue?
I’ve heard only lefties & cockroaches are going to survive!
David:
Having a foreign accent does not constitute being unhinged.
Everyone:
There are things that could go very wrong with the Large Hadron Collider. Those concerned with it have been supremely arrogant and downright reckless …. and no, that doesn’t mean that they haven’t explained themselves adequately either. A bit of caution and responsibility would have been nice; fat chance of that with the Masters of the Universe.
Sorry but “trust me, I’m a scientist” is no better than “trust me, I’m a weight-loss expert …. or an investment guru …. or the savior of the nation’s jobs”.
It isn’t like there haven’t been any atom smashers before. I work just down the road from one (though in that case it isn’t a collider – just a imaging accelerator).
There seems to be the impression that the LHC is a new thing, which it is, but only in the way that a car that can go 500 kmph is a new thing compared to the old car that could only go 490 kmph. The track that the LHC is in wasn’t excavated for the LHC – it used to have another nearly as powerful collider in it that was used for a decade or so before being decommisioned to build the slightly more powerful LHC.
Or in other words not terribly reckless or arrogant at all
Odd, the same people who resist any alteration to greenhouse CO2 emissions unless there can be shown a 100% risk of catastrophic climate change, are now “worried” about an experiment that has next to zero chance of violating the first law of thermodynamics, creates more energy than went into it making an earth swallowing black hole.
Also some extreme religious types, who generally welcome doomsday things, love nuclear bombs, are uncomfortable with this experiment.
I can only guess that the answers worry them – possibly find out stuff that may put their prejudices in peril. Graham, it’s sub-particle physics, you’ll probably be OK.
What gives you the idea that it’s “the same people”, Dave? Most of the people I know, although they’re not the caricatures you present, believe in climate change because of the sound science behind it, and consequently believe that LHC doomsayers are t***s (so to speak) to a piece.
There are so many Gordon Freeman jokes going around about this.
Tony D: that’s awesome.
To expand on KoopaTroopa’s statement: not only are much higher energy collisions common in nature, the Earth is bombarded millions of times a second by higher energy particles than those to be produced by the LHC.
Still here.
I find it a little arrogant to think that a machine engineered by us could end the Universe (or the Earth) when there’s so much crazy stuff going on out there… this doesn’t even come close.
xkcd is conCERNed.
Peter Hollo, I apologise for my dud english – I meant to explain exactly what you experienced – ie those how follow sound science accept the fact that CO2 climate change evidence is strong, but also, as Paul Davies explained, if black holes are created then the same theory that creates them will see them decay almost instanteanously – ie there is only good science to come from this. (like steve h, I’m very exited and can only see good from this research).
Conversly, those that do not accept the science of thermodynamics regarding CO2, and the very real chance that climate tipping points may be exceeded, also accept the hocus pocus that this research could be earth destroying.
I find it preplexing that some are not excited by this gear. And as expenditure was mentioned before, all this for less than the cost of 1 submarine or a few aircraft. And the spin offs regarding detection technology, supercooling etc etc. Great stuff!!
Again, sorry for my poor explanation, but what you said more eloquently than I, is what I was trying to say
OK Andos, I’ve taken up Veltyen’s suggestion and read your New Scientist link. I concede that it is a very interesting experiment, and there might be some life in theoretical physics yet.
I admit to having become somewhat cynical about ‘big physics’ in recent years after reading a fair amount on the infinitesimal progress of programmes like fusion energy and gravity wave research, as well as the role of a certain generation of physicists (and their attitudes) in promoting climate change denial. It was perhaps unfair of me to tar the LHC researchers with the same brush.
“Having a foreign accent does not constitute being unhinged.” – Graham Bell
No, but saying we’ll all be sucked in because of “chaos theory” certainly does. When any popularist uses that term you should metaphorically reach for your Browning – usually they have no idea what it even is.
“the Earth is bombarded millions of times a second by higher energy particles than those to be produced by the LHC”
I used the more encompassing ‘in nature’ because some (chemists with foreign accents no doubt) have been proposing that cosmic ray collisions in our atmosphere do in fact cause microblack holes. However their low interactivity (they’d be uncharged) and huge velocity sees them carried through the earth harmlessly without our noticing.
The problem with this theory is that much larger/denser objects (white dwarfs etc), from which cosmic ray products would have insufficient momentum to escape, are pelted just as regularly as we are to no apparent effect.
Graham Bell, I don’t assume that anyone with a thick German accent is unhinged. I was, however, concerned about his apparent inability to distinguish between “theorem”, “theory” and “hypothesis”, along with his confused-sounding ideas about the nature of proof and disproof.
His concerns struck me as being about as plausible as the ones everyone had about Kahoutec (sp?) smashing into the earth 40-odd years ago.
… all this for less than the cost of 1 submarine or a few aircraft – DaveMc
.
Absolutely – in the big picture the cost of the LHC is trivial.
.
We have truly bizarre priorities. Imagine the discoveries we could be making in all sorts of fields, and the problems of the world that could be addressed, with just a fraction of the US “defence” budget of about $A800 billion every year.
Definition of a “Quickie” It wont hurt did it?
Marlon – you own this thread!
Only when I larfed
Well the Giant Particle Smashing Thingy has claimed its first victim. It’s a sad little illustration of India. After all India’s a major contributor to CERN. Stuck halfway between the Dark Ages and the post-Enlightenment. She swallowed pesticide. I’d much rather get sucked into a black hole – much more painless. I think.
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Talking of being stuck halfway between the modern and dark ages does anybody remember that around 15 years back the US congress knocked back funding for a much bigger collider? A congressman asked if they’d find God with it. The answer was that they might find the bosun. Guess that wasn’t spectacular enough. It’s funny how these people with ‘faith’ need proof.
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Oh America you are stuck between the ages. And, unlike India, you’re pointing backwards.
I should add that despite my glib bollocks I’m really thrilled about the LHC. We might be getting all sorts of bits of tasty stuff. It’ll be for inner space what the Hubble is for Outer Space.
.
I’m spacey man. Far out.
I remember the American version – think it was called the “Superconducting Supercollider”. You ask me, the problem was all in the name. If they’d called it the “Cosmic Ass-kicker” or the “Superconducting Commiebasher” Congress probably would have funded it.
Cheers, Tim. No hard feelings.
The Superconducting Supercollider was doomed from the start; to keep down costs, they tried to squeeze it into a ring which was too small for the energies that they wanted to use. Then they couldn’t afford the hugely powerful superconducting magnets to make it work in that smaller ring… cost blow-outs leading to the project never being completed. The LHC designers learnt from that.
For some info on international research into fusion energy:
The International Tokamak Experimental Reactor
http://www.iter.org/a/index_nav_1.htm
Scheduled to produce first plasma in 2016.
For some info on international research into gravity waves:
The Laser Interferometry Space Antenna
http://lisa.nasa.gov/index.html
Projected to launch in 2013.
Admitedly, that research is a few years away yet but I wouldn’t call it infinitesimal.
Adrien @56: “Well the Giant Particle Smashing Thingy has claimed its first victim. “
No. The huge beat-up of a piece of nonsense by ignorant, sensationalist journos killed her. And the lack of any equally loud public dissemination of the Voice of Informed Common Sense.
How very sad.
“There are things that could go very wrong with the Large Hadron Collider. Those concerned with it have been supremely arrogant and downright reckless ….”
Oh come off it. What things that could go very wrong? Based on what science? What are the risks, and what is their basis in the actual science?
Andyc: Absolutely true, it’s very tragic indeed, and journalists certainly have a lot to answer for.
The lab now has 2 cameras on line .
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http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html
Lol it’s all good, they sent Gordon his crowbar