Re: Nine more days...

Lachlan - KotU <hamfish(nospam)@gmail.com> wrote:

"CJ Dunnaway" <cj_dunnaway-news@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a 17-mile-long heavy particle
accelerator being built near Geneva (CERN). Once it's up and running, its
designers believe it will take particle physics to a new level. Its
critics think it may create a black hole that will swallow the universe.

The button will be pushed sometime on Wednesday, Sept. 10. You can watch
it all happen at www.cern.ch/lhc-first-beam

However briefly.

Well, given that there are black holes at the centre of every galaxy
(supposedly), I think the universe will be ok. Earth, on the other
hand.......

FWIW, this week's New Scientist reports that some astrophysicists have
worked out that there's an upper limit to the size of any so-called
black hole - although the definition of a black hole keeps on changing
so what you thought you knew about them is considered incorrect by most
of those who think they know what's really going on.

Anyway, apparently, this universe won't permit a black hole larger than
the size of about 5,000,000,000 - 50,000,000,000 suns. So there's no
need to worry about a black hole swallowing the universe - they can't
even get so big as to extend from here to Promixa Centauri.

(last thing I heard, ISTR they were apparently expecting to make black
holes in the LHC - but small enough that they stay inside the pipe and
evaporate almost immediately, chucking out the usual burst of radiation,
but that's what big particle physics experiments are for, emitting
radiation; then measuring it and doing lots of very hard sums to work
out what the hell the measurements mean. So many very hard sums that
they've had to develop new distributed computing protocols and set up a
new super-high-speed computer network with global reach 'cos it was
either that, or move the data around in trucks and aeroplanes
<http://lcg.web.cern.ch/LCG/>. Trucks is what they used before they got
the network installed and working. Yes, I know the LHC isn't running
yet[1], but they've they've been working on getting the detectors and
the data processing end of things functioning properly for some years
now. The coverage in Physics World is a bit more in depth and a lot
more reliable than you'll get almost anywhere else.)

Rowland.
(still not quite believing that they've built the damned thing - the
project started in the early 1980s when I was at high school and now I'm
past the age of 40 and - oh! It seems that they did get on and build
it! Now I'm waiting for modern physics to be turned upside down - I
hope it'll happen soon.)

[1] Beam commissioning starts in a few days, apparently:

<http://lhc-commissioning.web.cern.ch/lhc-commissioning/>

--
Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sorry - the spam got to me
http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk
UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
.

Loading