Inside the big-bang machine

Posted: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 5:46 PM by Alan Boyle

EIROforum / CERN

A hardhat worker is dwarfed by the inner workings of the Large Hadron
Collider's ATLAS detector. The collider is due to begin operation in 2008.

The future of particle physics is being built below ground, in a setting that's more appropriate for construction hardhats than lab coats. To get to the caverns where the world's most powerful particle collider is taking shape, you have to take an industrial-issue elevator down just one floor. But that floor is a doozy: It's about 100 meters below ground, roughly as deep as a 30-story building is tall.

The machines under construction in the depths are just as gargantuan: It's hard for any picture to capture the immensity of the ATLAS experiment's seven-story-tall, electronics-laden cylinder. You have to be there to get the full effect. So that's where we went today, and we've created three video postcards just to say "wish you were here."

ATLAS is just one of the four major experimental edifices placed around the 17-mile (27-kilometer) ring on the French-Swiss border - an underground tunnel that will be the home of the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC. Scientists from around the world have converged on CERN's facilities here in hopes of finding the answers to decades-old questions about the subatomic world.

Those scientists will have to wait longer than they expected to look for those answers: Like most construction projects, the LHC hasn't kept pace with the laid-out schedule, due to a nasty magnet accident as well as other hitches. The revised schedule calls for operations to begin next spring rather than this fall.

As a result, the construction crews building ATLAS and the other science structures have a little more time to finish their work - and at each of the three sites we visited today, the crews were clanging away. You'll have to bear with the background noise and the shaky shutter as you click through these home movies, but they'll at least give you some sense of the project's scale.

The first video postcard features Silvia Schuh, a researcher on the ATLAS experiment team, showing off the current state of the 82-foot-high (25-meter-high), 151-foot-long (46-meter-long) detector. The middle of the giant cylinder is almost totally hidden by scaffolding, but you can see the wedge-shaped elements that are designed to identify the track of muons as they zoom away from the proton collisions at the heart of ATLAS.

ATLAS is one of the LHC's two general-purpose detectors, and is expected to point to the existence of the long-sought Higgs boson (which is thought to create the field that gives particles their mass) as well as other weird particles that may be responsible for mysterious dark matter.

In the second video clip, Roger Forty, deputy spokesperson for the LHCb experiment at CERN, points out some of the components on the business end of his team's apparatus: LHCb is aimed at answering questions about why matter is so predominant over antimatter in our universe.

And in the third clip, Jurgen Schukraft, CERN spokesperson for the ALICE experiment, points out how a beam of heavy ions will come from a section of the 17-mile-round accelerator tunnel and plow right into his team's detector.

ALICE is designed to create miniature big bangs, enabling researchers to study the conditions that existed just an instant after the universe was born. Scientists say they've have already created such a primordial brew, known as quark-gluon plasma, in a liquid state. Schukraft and his team want to see if quark-gluon plasma might exist as a gas at higher energies. The ALICE experiment is one of the prime reasons why the LHC is called a "big-bang machine."

We have a couple of additional stops on our Big Science Tour on Thursday - including a look at the last of the LHC's four major experiments, known as the Compact Muon Solenoid, or CMS. The CMS team has had its challenges, reportedly leading some wags to refer to the project as "See a Mess." But we don't expect to see a mess during our visit - instead, we'll see still more signs of science under construction.

Previously from the Big Science Tour: The science behind the tour ... Living in the Web's cradle.

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Comments

I am very thrilled to know that Europeans are building the machine we should have built years ago in Texas ( SSC). They are leading the search for the ultimiate truth of the Universe.

kasi anantha (Sent Wednesday, June 20, 2007 8:50 PM)

The quality of the video is just awful, clip duration too short. The audio is useless. How can the world highest tech machine be shown by the a lowest tech YouTube clip?

To (Sent Wednesday, June 20, 2007 10:14 PM)

I wonder what they expect to see even though none of these kinds of collision products have ever been seen.
Or do they really have no idea what will be seen.

Thomas Ashby, Calgary (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 12:40 AM)

Yes, you're right, To ... I did say this trip would be a bit of an experiment, and I'd have to say the idea of putting together quickie video postcards was an experiment that failed. Sorry about that. It's pretty noisy and cramped down there, so I guess that's why you don't often see video that's shot off the cuff down at the LHC level. And of course you can blame the videographer as well. ;-) I'm going to take stock today (with the thunder and lightning crackling outside like a "Frankenstein" movie), but I'm pretty sure I'm going to resist the urge to inflict my snapshots on you (so as to head off the torch-and-pitchfork parade to my door). You can look forward to great imagery by folks who do this for a living when we present our full package closer to the time of the LHC's start of operations.

Alan Boyle (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 12:41 AM)

The Higgs almost sounds like a focal lens for the translation of the underlying unified properties of nature into its seemingly separate elements or particles. Mass being made up of a “Field” is a very far reaching thought. The size of the thing is just stupefying and I saved that top photo last time I saw it here on the log. I had no idea what to expect in a collider. You of course imagine a fairly narrow tube most of the way around but if you were to ask me yesterday I would have thought a detector might have been no larger than my closet. Um… If not table top… Ha-ha! 17 stories eh? Just a little bit different I should think! One of the things I love about aviation and other manufacturing fields is the factories where they assemble them. I love to look at all the big ‘assembly jigs’ as they call them that are blue-railed multi-level work platforms that surround the aircraft. Such jigs are quite complex and often even rotate that body so that workers can work at a more comfortable angle. I see a lot of that industrial intricacy in your videos and appreciate the engineering that goes into all that!

Chris Eldridge (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 12:55 AM)

Thomas, the big thing that they're hoping to see is the Higgs boson (named after Peter Higgs, one of the physicists who first proposed its existence). A boson, by the way, is the technical term for a particle that has a spin value that's an integer (like the photon) rather than a half-spin (like the proton or electron). If you're not involved in the particle physics game, don't worry about the distinction.

This particle is thought to be responsible for the phenomenon of mass. To quote the LHC FAQ: "According to the theory of the Higgs mechanism, the whole of space is filled with a 'Higgs field,' and by interacting with this field, particles acquire their masses. Particles that interact strongly with the Higgs field are heavy, while those that have weak interactions are light."

The particle behind the Higgs field is the only particle predicted by the Standard Model that has not yet been observed, and physicists hope that the LHC will find it because of the high energies the collider can achieve. If they don't find the particle, that could mean there's something fundamentally wrong with the way scientists think the subatomic world works, even though that understanding has worked very, very well over the past century (as seen by how well things like TVs, microwave ovens and PET scanners work).

Other things the scientists will be looking for are "supersymmetric particles" - partner particles that have been theorized to exist for every currently known particle. If the theory is correct, the LHC should see the first evidence for the existence of those particles. If they're found, that could help answer mysteries about the "dark matter" that appears to be more abundant than ordinary matter, even though we can't see it directly. It could also hint at the existence of extra dimensions. Extra dimensions, by the way, could provide an explanation for why the LHC doesn't find the Higgs boson, if that turns out to be the case.

Another big goal is to learn more about why matter is so dominant over antimatter in the visible universe. The physicists at the LHC hope to study the decay process for a type of particle known as the B-quark, as well as the B-antiquark. If they can document differences in the way they decay, that could shed more light on the observed asymmetry between matter and antimatter (and maybe give some ideas to a future Scotty on "Star Trek").

We'll delve into all this and more (mini-black holes and quark-gluon plasma, cosmic-ray energy and so forth) in the full package that we're here gathering information for.

Alan Boyle (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 12:55 AM)

Maybe with this Collider Scientists might prove the existence of the graviton, the theoretical particle that forms gravity and String theory.

Spyros Solomou (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 6:35 AM)

Awe! We can be such a fantastic species!

Chet Twarog (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 7:25 AM)

This is SO amazing. I've been reading up on this for a good month now (blew my mind initially!), and I have to admit I'm very anxious for spring to roll around next year.

There's so much that could result from this...

Matthew "Floyd" Clough (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 9:05 AM)

Amazing! A location where the top physicists can work to help the future of planet Earth. I do hope this work will lead to the creation of a new space propulsion system that will be based on Zero Point Energy. Then humans will journey deep into space as a space-faring society.

Tony Webb Wilmington, North Carolina (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 11:06 AM)

This is a photo of those assembly jigs I mentioned:

http://www.a400m-countdown.com/galerie/06_FAL/hd/04.jpg

It is from the A400M1 military transport to replace the C-130 and is one of my favorites. I just love the intricacy of all the ladders and safety railing not to mention the thought that has to go into the whole process! Thus, seeing those videos and the 'guts' of the machine are indeed way cool!

If I was the engineer, I might consider the entire underground facitliy as a possible emergency shelter just in case the world above decides to do some big bang experiments of their own. All it would take is just some backup wells for water, some extra bathrooms, and some ventilation modifications. Just a thought... most things should have as many additional purposes as they can whether geared for doomsday or not.

Chris Eldridge, HBG PA (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 11:51 AM)

Thanks Alan for your answer. Interestingly, cosmic ray (particle) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_rays energies are far greater than any man-made energies. How they are accelerated in the universe is totally unknown.

Thomas Ashby, Calgary (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 11:56 AM)

Thomas, there are a couple of LHC connections to cosmic ray observations. First, one of the smaller experiments known as LHCf will be analyzing the particles produced close to the proton-proton collisions to test models used to estimate the primary energy of cosmic rays. Also, the detector teams will be using muons produced by cosmic rays to check out their muon detectors in advance of beam start-up. By the way, this Web site claims that you can make your own muon detector to spot cosmic rays:

http://www.cosmicrays.org/

Alan Boyle (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 1:32 PM)

Too bad it won't have near the power output of the SCSC. 7 TeV versus 20 TeV. No telling what could be discovered with such an increase in power.

Todd, Natchitoches, LA (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 2:30 PM)

The sad thing is that so many Evangelicals in the US would have our investigation of nature begin and end with: God created the universe. The reality is so much more enlightening, and awe-inspiring. They're the ones missing out on all the fun!

Mark, KC, Mo (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 2:39 PM)

Picure that eh? A muon detector in "your" backyard! Thanks. You sure are a trooper in bringing space science to us.

Thomas Ashby, Calgary (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 3:27 PM)

[...] If anything, Evangelicals are excited about the science being done at the LHC. In one point, Mark is correct in that Evangelicals would have our investigation of nature begin with: God created the universe. I think it is incredibly exciting to be looking deeper into this complex, fascinating universe He has created for us to explore.

Mike Moss, Alexandria, VA (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 3:51 PM)

Does anyone wonder if this machine will accidentally spark a new big bang that will tear our Universe to shreds? Or maybe it might open a portal to another dimension, say H.ell? Comeon, I'm not evangelical, but the nature of this massive machine seems pretty scary to me.

Mephistopheles, Oberon's Dream, AL (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 4:08 PM)

The only way to get good at something is to do it and keep doing it. Anyway, these are amazing times we live in. So much BS going on and so much really cool stuff.

TheFallibleFiend@hotmail.com, LORTON, VA (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 5:07 PM)

20 vs 7 Tev?? Is that what the Texas super colider was capable of? It was cancelled when the republicans came to power in congress. Too bad it wasn't the space station they cancelled instead. Has even just one science paper been written based on experiments from that thing?

Chris Eldridge, HBG PA (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 5:16 PM)

Thanks so much for the clips Alan. Yeah, they are a bit sloppy but it really captures the "feeling" of being there during the actual construction of the LHC.

I know I'm a fool, but for a moment I could imagine I was seeing actual footage of the construction of the DEATH STAR! LOL ;-)

Red Pill Junkie, Mexico city (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 7:18 PM)

On Mephistopheles' post: I believe it has been stated that there are already cosmic rays that have more energy than the LHC will be capable of. This means that events of the energy densities that will be attempted have happened numerous times in the history of the universe, yet the universe is still stable. Thus, I believe that it is unlikely that we will "damage" spacetime. Once we can exceed the energy densities in a supernova, then it will be time to worry about such things.

Phil, Newark, California (Sent Thursday, June 21, 2007 10:20 PM)

Actually, I think the collider was cancelled in 1993, shortly after Bill Clinton took control of the White House, and while the Democrats still controlled both houses of Congress.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider

The article does seem to suggest that Clinton may have tried to prevent the cancellation, or at least spoke favorably about the project.

Lancaster, CA (Sent Friday, June 22, 2007 1:59 AM)

Since we have "No" Grand Unified Theory as yet, and probably will never be able to know the "Big, Big Picture" of whence everything from time to matter originated, including the "singularity" we speak of, like we even know what a singularity is. Would it not be prudent to at least have a solid understanding of the implications of creating a Quark Muon Gas at such high energies, and wether or not it may self perpetuate and maybe cause a "Real Big Bang,"? Most great minds would like to believe we do not live and exist in "Flatland," I think it's More likely than not.

David Landi, Warwick, R.I. (Sent Saturday, October 27, 2007 3:17 PM)

?Why are you even going to worry about whether it "self-perpetuates" or "causes a 'Real Big Bang'"? Neither you, me, nor anyone else you ever met or even ever heard of, will be around to lament, a micro-instant afterward....so what's the problem? Think of the big picture...you won't have to pay your mortgage or even put up with overly long stays by your mother-in-law. Please clue me in to who's going to be tear-struck....and why..... And should one simply "need" something to worry about, go worry about some binary neutron stars a few thousand light years away spiralling into each other sometime before your 2009 Fed Income Taxes become due!

Doug Gluntz, Benicia, California (Sent Tuesday, October 30, 2007 2:50 AM)

Apparently this thing can also possibly create a black hole which could swallow up the world in less that a second. :)

Bob Smith (Sent Tuesday, November 06, 2007 12:21 PM)

All you people are saying is not possible. The amount of energy needed to achieve black holes (and other exotic cosmic creations of such destructive capabilities) is far beyond what this collider can create. I think Doug is correct. The real fear should be in a supernova occurance a few hundred to thousands of light years away. Something like that would cook us all in ratiation. This collider is only one of mans greatest inventions. Human truly are an amazing species. We should revel in our abilities to create such things.

Robin Briggs, Washington DC (Sent Monday, January 07, 2008 10:08 AM)

I believe that LHC will produce mini black holes that will not safely evaporate away. Several reasons. First the idea that mini black holes will evaporate is cavalier wishful thinking. Would we accept such assurances from a biotech lab? Suppose the lab reported revolutionary benefits of conducting an experiment where they insert small pox genes into an influenza host--with the solemn assurance that any and all samples will immediately be destroyed. Would we just let them waltz on ahead? I think not.

The other reason I believe that the mini black holes will be stable is because I am advancing a revolutionary new model, the Dominium, that suggests that mini black holes will stay stable as voracious matter compacting beasts. Debate has been hot and heavy on my Scientific American blog. I invite anyone to come on over and join the “fun.” Just go the SciAm.com, click on “community”, and then search under my name “Hasanuddin” You wouldn’t believe some of the harsh words that my detractors have against me. The funniest thing is that the people with the harshest words adamantly declare that they have never read the model. Go figure? Of those who have read the model, they have nothing but positive things to say…though they all hope that I am wrong about the stable mini black-holes, or, if I am right, that LHC can be stopped in time.

If you do chose to join in the discussion, please read the model first. You can download the half-version for free (instructions are within the threads of my SciAm blog) or you can purchase the full book (the paperback is more complete) at online bookstores

Hasanuddin, Dot Mass (Sent Friday, February 22, 2008 5:32 PM)

"Europeans are building the machine we should have built years ago in Texas (SSC)."
That is true. They also built the VLT telescope,and are building the ITER fusion reactor.
All this while US Science is going down the drain, with money wasted on the scientifically useless Space Shuttle and ISS Space Station (and the war...).
Just look at the science budget of the last 6 years.
It's a shame, but more than that it's a tragedy! And since the US national debt is still growing fast, the worst is still to come. It's all very sad.
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/prev09p.htm
http://brillig.com/debt_clock/faq.html

Pierre Charland, Iselin, NJ (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 9:24 AM)

As a believer in 'In the beginning God' I find the recent discoveries concerning dark matter facinating and I cannot wait until this experiment proves what we've known all along, there had to be a designer, the first cause.

Gene R. amsterdam, NY (Sent Friday, March 28, 2008 7:37 PM)

This is all quite interesting. I have just started reading the biography of John Archibald Wheeler. It's like watching all back to the future movies at once. I am reading one minute of them discussing nuclear fusion and wondering about photons and quarks and ten minutes later I am reading how they trying to see the spread of the matter and antimatter in a collider. Wheeler, Bohr and Einstein would be proud. I agree the time of answering some of these energy questions aren't so much based on how long it will take to figure out as how long it will take to fund the progress to get to fusion power you can harness.

Robert Poole, Frankfort, Kentucky (Sent Wednesday, April 02, 2008 11:04 PM)

I dont understand this whole thing.. When the big bang is recreated are we all going to die? Are we going to feel the high temperatures? I just want to know what is going to happen to us.

Melissa, Miami, Florida (Sent Monday, June 02, 2008 7:07 PM)

What I'm wondering is if this "experiment" is going to be set for December 21, 2012???? Gee- I watched the TV program (advertisement)for this big bang wonderment; what looks to have cost a few billion-trillion (wonder who did the funding?) What really got me was when asked if this experiment to find the Helix? would have any bad effects, this young female physicist could not say a solid NO! The young man spokesman, was one of the best salesman I have ever seen in my life! I am all for understanding our Universe etc: and so on. But, when it comes to NOT knowing the consquences completly- I would say whoa! get your pens out and calculate a lot more before you jeopardize every living thing! What I see is alot of people wanting to get the Nobel prize. But, what good would it do if no-one is around to pat them on the back? This go for it attitude really stinks! I may sometimes think it would be great to do certain things, but I don't put others in the path of danger for my ego- who are these people anyway, who or what gives them the right to make these decisions? If people are afraid they have a right to be and moreover, those fanatics need to be brought to the table and checked out before it is to late. Why would we really need to duplicate a big bang-will it bring peace to our world-will it end starvation-will it heal the diseases-will it do anything that is worth all the uncertainty of just doing it?! I am just one person, one voice, and I don't have a good feeling about this at all. Just when I thought science was heading in the right direction it does a 360 and goes totally nuts! I did'nt hear one good thing that this experiment would-could produce! Just things of vast uncertainty. If it would even produce mini-black holes do we know for certain they would be dispersed-no. Would those containers really be able to contain a big-bang? who knows for sure-certain-without a doubt???? If one of those show people in charge can answer these questions logically- then I might listen, but still NOT want this experiment to go forth. They said this helix is like God's fingerprint-well, just why do we need God's fingerprint? Let it rest, let it continue to be mystery! I don't like the attitude of "well, if doesn't work we will all be blown away in a millisecond anyway" how stupid! Maybe your life is crappy, but even if I have bad days I would certainly love to stick around and watch my grand-babies, children and our planet actually make it out of the junk our scientists in the past have created. Just remember one thing, it isn't called the big bang for nothing sweetie! Listen, study up and be aware of what a few have in mind! Love and peace to all! This may sound trite, but don't be sucked into their black-hole!

Jeanne Rutledge (Sent Monday, July 21, 2008 8:52 PM)

Kinda scary and cool at the same time. This sounds like it could be used as some real life death ray. I hope them scientists don't make a mistake and blow up the whole world on accident. Like the some cheesy end of the world movie or something.

Denney, Westland, MI (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:07 PM)

Just wondering…. Is it possible to relocate this device so that the black hole is created just under the capital building? While congress is in session of course so it might suck the whole lot of em' into some alternate universe. Hmmm... there may be a good use for this pork barrel spending after all.

Doug, Las Vegas, NV (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 12:59 AM)

i think somethings are meant to be left alone,thats whats wrong with this world today is man putting his business where it dont belong,that has gotten us trouble many of times and we never learn.

sherri florida (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 11:35 AM)

Although I respect people's concerns over this project, they have to be aware of the amount of research and knowledge that these folks had to work with. These are specialists with access to knowledge and resources far beyond your university-grade instruction. The fear of a mini-black hole that can be created is ridiculous - if such a phenomenon occurs, keep in mind the comparison if its density and matter to that of it's surroundings - it will exist on a very miniscule scale.

Kris Opala Brooklyn, NY (Sent Saturday, August 09, 2008 1:17 AM)

What time are they firing the thing up? I want to know If I need to feed my cat or not.

Dave (Sent Monday, August 11, 2008 6:55 AM)

A black hole is stable and can only disintergrate at saturation point, i.e when it has absorbed enough matter to reach saturation point.after that it will supernova.blackholes big or small are hungry for matter and energy and will absorb anything around and grow.Lets hope the LHC experiment won't produce any blackholes because there are there to stay.

Ignatius,Bournemouth,Dorset UK. (Sent Monday, September 01, 2008 2:25 PM)

jeez if this goes wrong I will find thepeople and kill them, I mean I'm just starting my GCSE's I have my whole life ahead of me! I am a little scared although My dad doesn't seem to think anything bad will hapeen and he is really into to science and stuff like that so I believe him and everyone else who says this won't go wrong!

Hana (Sent Thursday, September 04, 2008 12:06 PM)

If somethings happens.. Why try to beat the nature.. this is very riddicilous. Ive never seen such a mistake, So what if we find out what happened? There is still a RISK!

RF (Sent Friday, September 05, 2008 6:46 AM)

Well, if something does happen then we won't know so what's the fuss?
I think that it's a good thing we want to find out how 'matter' and such other things were formed and started out, but do we really have to know because i feel half the world couldn't give a damn about how the world started and would rather live than know some clever things that they won't even understand. Would they really want to risk their lives for that? I don't think so

Liam Bailey (Sent Friday, September 05, 2008 3:29 PM)

if it fails i will be a millionaire because i put £1 on it failing, so i will be £50,000,000 to the better but what to do with it?
oh, i'll be dead in some black hole somewhere without my money... i just wasted £1

Ronny Shorter Folkestonelol (Sent Friday, September 05, 2008 3:32 PM)

Who knows what will come from this. Who knows what 'work' means from this. If work means creating black holes and new dimensions, who will know that it worked? No one, we'll all be dead, non existant. It is an impressive idea to prove that it was actually the big bang that created everything and all religious beliefs is nonsense. But I think there should be some things left in the world, some things to be kept a mystery. Lets just hope no one and nothing is harmed.

Abigail May (Sent Saturday, September 06, 2008 10:12 AM)

Or, we might all just die?
Chance of a Black Hole?
Perhaps that's a good enough excuse not to try this?
I don't even know what the point of this contraption is, I just heard "Black Hole" and ran for the hills...

Titch, Derbyshire, England (Sent Saturday, September 06, 2008 3:50 PM)

OK granted we may be able to prove theories such as the String one and they want to find another dimension or they want to see dark matter or w/e but man ffs, this thing does its job properly and it can create enoguh energy to make a mini blackhole no? and from what ive read blackholes grow and grow no? and if this thing goes wrong it can create a blakchole no? now i'm sorry, i may only be 16 but risking basically everything on this planet/in this universe to prove a "theory" is utter ridiculous no? <--- notice the NO pattern :/
so they basically want to recreate what made an ever expanding, radiation filled, infinite-sized and unstable universe... in metal bucket a mere 100m under France -.- even you boffins must admit , this aint guaranteed not to simply rip a in this universe and kill us all? Think about it, something so powerful that millions of years later it is still messing up... its not the best idea to do it again, 100m under rock when it can make enough energy to simply demolish.... EVERYTHING ... I am completely against this thing... messing with the unknown is a big mistake MARK MY WORDS!
The guy who said "what happens if i connect these 2 wires" or "what if this engine made things move" knew that what they were doing couldn't vaporise everyone and everything... but these guys know that there is this chance here... personally i would rather not know... "once everything is known and wonderment is gone, life is meaningless"
I am not Catholic, infact i am not religious in any sense of the word... but my God I am gonna be praying on Monday Night... i do hope these scientists get this thing right, i really do...

Danny Neely, Liverpool, UK (Sent Saturday, September 06, 2008 7:02 PM)

BUMP!

What I'm wondering is if this "experiment" is going to be set for December 21, 2012???? Gee- I watched the TV program (advertisement)for this big bang wonderment; what looks to have cost a few billion-trillion (wonder who did the funding?) What really got me was when asked if this experiment to find the Helix? would have any bad effects, this young female physicist could not say a solid NO! The young man spokesman, was one of the best salesman I have ever seen in my life! I am all for understanding our Universe etc: and so on. But, when it comes to NOT knowing the consquences completly- I would say whoa! get your pens out and calculate a lot more before you jeopardize every living thing! What I see is alot of people wanting to get the Nobel prize. But, what good would it do if no-one is around to pat them on the back? This go for it attitude really stinks! I may sometimes think it would be great to do certain things, but I don't put others in the path of danger for my ego- who are these people anyway, who or what gives them the right to make these decisions? If people are afraid they have a right to be and moreover, those fanatics need to be brought to the table and checked out before it is to late. Why would we really need to duplicate a big bang-will it bring peace to our world-will it end starvation-will it heal the diseases-will it do anything that is worth all the uncertainty of just doing it?! I am just one person, one voice, and I don't have a good feeling about this at all. Just when I thought science was heading in the right direction it does a 360 and goes totally nuts! I did'nt hear one good thing that this experiment would-could produce! Just things of vast uncertainty. If it would even produce mini-black holes do we know for certain they would be dispersed-no. Would those containers really be able to contain a big-bang? who knows for sure-certain-without a doubt???? If one of those show people in charge can answer these questions logically- then I might listen, but still NOT want this experiment to go forth. They said this helix is like God's fingerprint-well, just why do we need God's fingerprint? Let it rest, let it continue to be mystery! I don't like the attitude of "well, if doesn't work we will all be blown away in a millisecond anyway" how stupid! Maybe your life is crappy, but even if I have bad days I would certainly love to stick around and watch my grand-babies, children and our planet actually make it out of the junk our scientists in the past have created. Just remember one thing, it isn't called the big bang for nothing sweetie! Listen, study up and be aware of what a few have in mind! Love and peace to all! This may sound trite, but don't be sucked into their black-hole!

keith, Palm Beach, FL (Sent Monday, September 08, 2008 11:42 AM)

well if i'm dead by this time next week then i leave all of my worldly possessions to my dog.
or do they get blown up too?
D: aw mannn.

grace, northampton, england (Sent Monday, September 08, 2008 4:24 PM)

Im only 12 but i am curious what will happen if it all goes wrong i mean how do we know that it is 100 percent safe. mabie it can destroy the earth how can we be sure i dont think their is much point in it really
thx 4 reading

Katherine 12 middlesbrough England (Sent Tuesday, September 09, 2008 10:34 AM)

well i just hope we haven't paid for this pointless experienment through our taxes.. wat a waste of money!

Damien, England (Sent Tuesday, September 09, 2008 10:40 AM)

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