Big day set for big-bang machine

Posted: Thursday, August 07, 2008 1:01 PM by Alan Boyle

Michael Hoch / CERN

The silicon tracker for one of the Large Hadron Collider's main detectors, the Compact Muon Solenoid, is installed in December 2007. The LHC's
startup is now set for Sept. 10. Click on the image for a larger version.

The countdown to the startup of the world's most powerful particle collider has begun with today's announcement that the first beam of protons will be sent all the way through the 17-mile-round Large Hadron Collider on Sept. 10.

A key phase of the final preparations for the $10 billion project begins this weekend, when Europe's CERN particle-physics center begins testing the last links in the high-powered chain of magnets that will eventually send beams shooting through the collider's ring with the energy of a bullet train. During this weekend's tests, low-intensity protons will be injected into a small section of the collider and zip around one-eighth of the ring.

The tests will grow in strength and complexity all the way up to "Red Button Day."

If the schedule holds, the collider on the French-Swiss border will make a splash at 9 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET) Sept. 10, a week after a federal judge in Hawaii begins hearing a motion to dismiss a civil lawsuit claiming that the device could destroy the world. Over the past few months, scientists at CERN (and the federal government) have laid out their case that a globe-gobbling catastrophe could never happen. Nevertheless, the court proceedings could provide a sideshow for the main event. Or they could be finished up by that time.

Here's the relevant section from CERN's news release about the startup:

"CERN has today announced that the first attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be made on 10 September. This news comes as the cooldown phase of commissioning CERN's new particle accelerator reaches a successful conclusion. Television coverage of the start-up will be made available through Eurovision.

"The LHC is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, producing beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, and around 30 times more intense when it reaches design performance, probably by 2010. Housed in a 27-kilometer tunnel, it relies on technologies that would not have been possible 30 years ago. The LHC is, in a sense, its own prototype.

"Starting up such a machine is not as simple as flipping a switch.

"Commissioning is a long process that starts with the cooling down of each of the machine's eight sectors. This is followed by the electrical testing of the 1,600 superconducting magnets and their individual powering to nominal operating current. These steps are followed by the powering together of all the circuits of each sector, and then of the eight independent sectors in unison in order to operate as a single machine.

"By the end of July, this work was approaching completion, with all eight sectors at their operating temperature of 1.9 degrees above absolute zero (-271 degrees C). The next phase in the process is synchronization of the LHC with the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerator, which forms the last link in the LHC's injector chain. Timing between the two machines has to be accurate to within a fraction of a nanosecond. A first synchronization test is scheduled for the weekend of 9 August, for the clockwise-circulating LHC beam, with the second to follow over the coming weeks. Tests will continue into September to ensure that the entire machine is ready to accelerate and collide beams at an energy of 5 TeV [trillion electron volts] per beam, the target energy for 2008. Force majeure notwithstanding, the LHC will see its first circulating beam on 10 September at the injection energy of 450 GeV (0.45 TeV).

"Once stable circulating beams have been established, they will be brought into collision, and the final step will be to commission the LHC's acceleration system to boost the energy to 5 TeV, taking particle physics research to a new frontier.

"'We're finishing a marathon with a sprint,' said LHC project leader Lyn Evans. 'It's been a long haul, and we're all eager to get the LHC research program under way.' ..."

CERN then lays out the accreditation procedures for journalists wanting to cover the startup, and notes that the event will be Webcast as well.

Red Button Day will be the big media day for the collider: The BBC, for example, plans to broadcast all day from CERN. However, it will take weeks more to get the proton beams in working order and bring collisions up to the 5 TeV level. That's why CERN has scheduled the big party for dignitaries (like French President Nicolas Sarkozy, for example) well after Red Button Day, on Oct. 21.

The collider isn't expected to reach its full power of 14 TeV until 2009 or 2010. As I noted earlier this week, that could leave a window for Fermilab's Tevatron in Illinois to steal some of the LHC's thunder - perhaps by making the first detection of the Higgs boson, the last fundamental particle predicted by current theory that has not yet been found. The Higgs boson (a.k.a. "the God Particle") is thought to play a key role in determining the properties of particle mass.

Even if the Tevatron finds the Higgs, it will be up to the LHC to study the particle in depth - and plumb other mysteries of the universe, ranging from the nature of dark matter and black holes to the possibility of extra dimensions in space.

For further background on the LHC and other frontiers of physics, check out the following dispatches - and stay tuned for our upcoming big-picture look at the big-bang machine:

From Europe's CERN physics lab: Toiling in the fields of physics ... Inside the big-bang machine ... Living in the Web's cradle ... First the Web, now the Grid ... Inside the antimatter factory.
From Fermilab in Illinois: Suspense on a subatomic scale ... Inside the subatomic race ... Building the future of physics.
From Oak Ridge National Laboratory: America's fusion future ... Under the neutron microscope.
From the ITER project: Fusion when? ... Fusion's fortress.
From Canada's TRIUMF lab: Inside the supernova machine.

Update for 3:30 p.m. ET: U.S. researchers involved in the LHC project are planning several media events to mark the LHC's first beam, including a "pajama party" at Fermilab. Check out this listing at the US/LHC Web site.

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Comments

Alan Boyle, you rock. Great explanation, I actually understood. Thank you.
Isn't 'the war' costing us around $1B per day? I think I read that. Even if it's remotely true, without getting into the rights or wrongs of either, frankly this research seems like a bargain.

Mav, Ventura, Ca (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:00 PM)

Who was the GC for this job? I wish it was me. Great article and very important work. I'm all for it. Now what happened to that Super-collider that was being built in TX. Understand it's just a ring in the ground, now.

Paul Dembinski, Woodstock, Vermont (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:04 PM)

"I got to simply ask "why". What difference does the knowledge of subatomic particles even do for us? I understand man's quest for knowledge but dumping billions into a system and a science that provides no real-use benefit seems like a gross waste of time, money and resources."

Oh, let's just start with the medical implications. Non-invasive procedures that save thousands of lives, cures, an understanding of more fundamental subatomic layers which can lead to cures of diseases and new inter-body mechanical healing devices. Then we go on to a greater understanding of energy consumption and formation, billions spent now could lead to trillions saved later, along with countless numbers of lives. Why would we ignore something with strong potential so that we can only focus on one problem. There's many problems and many people working on them. Meanwhile, to ignore potential advances is only opening the door for MORE problems. Learn all we can and apply it for betterment, and this has the potential to unlock many doors.

Beckwolf (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:08 PM)

"Counter to what those of religious and right-wing philosophy want to tell you, science generally works on the basis of peer review."

Hold on there, religious and right-wing philosophy? So I take it you buy into the stereotype that religion is a determining factor in political affiliations? For the record, I'm a pro-choice, scientific advancement, gay rights, atheist Republican. Political parties are only about the best business model to enable all financial stations in a country to function. Religious philosophy I agree with you on, but there IS NO scientific right-wing philosophy outside of proven business models. You're simply repeating old stereotypes created by one group in an attempt to discredit the other. My fiance is an atheist, and I hold science as THE fact finder, proven ideas being the only truth.

Beckwolf (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:12 PM)

those who lack vision deserve to fall into the hole.

No pun intended?

Paul Dembinski, Woodstock, Vermont (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:12 PM)

Can we stop with the religion bashing, please. As a Christian fundamentalist, I happen to believe that science is a good thing and the experiments with the collider are a very worthwhile and noble endeavor. My personal OPINION is that the Bible tells us Why God created and science tells us How God created. (I'm still ticked that Bush 1 killed the project during his administration.)

Those that argue that we should shun science only alienate the very people we need to stay a technologically advanced nation. Those that trash God only alienate us (techie Chjristians) that would like to vote funding for scientific research.

thanks.

Lester, Winston-Salem, NC (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:14 PM)

It amazes me how the media has convinced people that right-wing conservative religious people are all nuts. Almost all of our scientists from before 1900 were Jesus-freaks. Isaac Newton wrote more on religion than on science! Check out Pastuer, Pascal, the dude who invented anesthesia after reading about Adam and Eve, etcetera. Religion and science are not exclusive. In fact, God is the master scientist. There are at least 100 things now known to exist, that if just one of them was just a little different we would not even exist. This includes the existence of the moon, the distance from the sun we are at, the existance of Jupiter, the age of the universe, the atomic weight of protons and electrons, etcetera. The odds of life just happening with out intelligent design, according to an athiest scientist, are greater than 1x10 to the 62nd power. That is the number of atoms in the universe and widely held to be the threshhold of possibility. In other words, it is impossible for humans to exist on earth just by random chance. The big bang theory is not any sort of argument against God. One bumper sticker is more accurate than some want to believe. "God said it and BANG there it was!"

The only reasons you, the reader, have to be mad at me for giving my opinion is a lack of understanding of the immense love God has for you and a fear God will punish you for ignoring Him your whole life.

Todd in Dayton Ohio (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:25 PM)

"if the upcoming experiments at the Large Hadron Collider somehow spawn tiny "black holes", then could bits of information travel through spaceime virtually instantaneously through a cosmic pipeline or portal and arrive somewhere in what to us is far distant space where they interact with information that will not become readily available to us based on our current levels of technology"

Contrary to science fiction stories, black holes do not SEND anything, they break them apart. A black hole would simply take a signal you try to send through and break it apart into nothing, that's their entire purpose. This is why John Titor's claim is so easily debunked, he never traveled in time through a tiny black hole, but simply made up a science fiction story based upon other science fiction stories, while claiming this one to be based in reality. An object attempting to pass through a black hole would be broken down into the most basic of components, and then essentially eliminated. The questions remain on HOW it breaks them down into nothing, even light, but the idea of it being a portal is mere fantasy. Besides, banging protons together until they break apart so we can look at the pieces doesn't create large black holes, it creates short lived proton pieces, the "explosion" causing the breakage potentially breaking apart forms of energy resulting in small antimatter pockets, which would break down any matter it comes in contact with, a basic representation of the energy eating of a black hole, meaning it would kill a person who touched it versus transport them through time or any such nonsense.

Daniel (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:35 PM)

> Einstein was wrong about a great many things,
> he rejected much of quantum physics. There
> really is no current university teaching
> Einstein without also including Higgs and a
> great number of other greats since Einstein.
> There has been no purge, and the only theories
> that might get you kicked out of a university
> are ones that embraced only Einstein and
> rejected what came after him (i.e. particle
> physics, quantum theory, and string theory)

Show me where I can major in plasma cosmology. I'd like to go to that school.

Have you heard of Halton Arp and what happened to him for attempting to explain an enigmatic observation that disrupted the redshift paradigm? Did you hear what happened to Stephen J. Crothers when he apparently disproved the mathematics that are presented in textbooks to prove black holes? To this day, we still await an explanation for why he is wrong. What do you think happened to Wallace Thornhill when he properly predicted that more than one distinct flash would occur with the Deep Impact Mission? Was he congratulated on his successful prediction? What about Kristian Birkeland? He was an outcast scientist that turned out to be dead on in his primary premise. But, are you familiar with his terrella experiments that bear striking resemblance to modern-day astrophysical observations? When Hannes Alfven reconstructed the terrella experiment and tried to finally show it to Sydney Chapman, Birkeland's prior nemesis, Chapman just refused to look at the experiment. I find that to be a pretty good description of what is happening in science to this day.

It matters little if we call it a purge. The fact is that people who propose alternative, competing paradigms to the Standard Model are frequently sidelined to the fringes of the scientific community -- regardless of how good their arguments in fact are. Their inability to procure funding and get peer reviewed is not testament to the strength of the Standard Model; it is instead a symptom of a larger problem of premature consensus and scientific social dynamics.

> Counter to what those of religious and right-
> wing philosophy want to tell you, science
> generally works on the basis of peer review.
> Even if your theory sounds whacky today, as
> long as you are published and reviewed,
> eventually the truth of your equations will
> come to light. There is room for personal
> opinion, but eventually truth wins out. It
> scares a lot of people because humans
> generally fear change, but change comes no
> matter how you try to stop it.

Peer review is nothing more than an organization of people. We should not attribute god-like status to it. Those people can and do make mistakes, and even ethical violations (this is in fact proven by studies). Don't forget that it is researchers who attribute causation to their observations. It is the scientists themselves who decide what does and doesn't qualify as a legitimate inference. If the consensus is that the universe is dominated by gravity rather than electromagnetism, for instance, then any inference that points to electromagnetism (like plasma filaments) when gravity can be "made to work" through some contortion of mathematics will be *ignored* and never considered. And this is how good ideas can quite easily become marginalized and buried.

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:52 PM)

"in short, if this experiment works, it will prove once and for all that the "big bang theory" is not a theory at all, but what actually created the universe. it will be interesting to hear what religious folks will have to say about that fact, seeings how it disproves the "intelligent design" theory that some think should be taught in our schools"

We've already proven the big bang, two or three years ago, and the two scientists who did received the Nobel Prize. Might want to check it out, it's some interesting information. Most powerful telescope in the world was used to see farther than ever, and therefore farther back in time, all the way to the aftermath of the big bang going back to where the "explosion" was too bright and nothing more could be seen. The big bang HAS been proven, but naturally the attention it received for such a huge discovery was absolutely negligible. You'd think that proving something so big would be something talked about all over the world, but while it doesn't disprove that some version of a god-thing didn't make the Big Bang happen, the media seemed rather reluctant to make much mention of it. Heck. one paper gave it one small paragraph in the very back section, how's that for respecting science and facts?

[ALAN ADDS: Here's the story we ran on that Nobel Prize, which we splashed at the time (of course):]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15113168/

Beckwolf (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 10:00 PM)

There is always a part of me that sees such need and poverty in the world and wonders at the wisdom of dedicating enormous resources to pure research ... but that is only momentary. Read your history. The quality of life for even the average world citizen improves (assuming their respective leaders allow it, and sometimes even when they do not). The forces that drive poverty and despair such as we observe are not caused by failure to assign resources .. no matter how much we spend, poverty remains, and will be a curse of our world for many years to come. I like to think that slowly, like the darkness, it will also pass.

The particle accelerators and other 'frivolous' experiments of times past are the reason we can sit here in front of this PC .... you know, the 5 year old PC more powerful than a Cray II ... none of our electronics would be possible without such science. I try to imagine what may come from this work in 10 or 20 or 50 years and it does boggle the mind. Open the book of gravity, and the price of oil becomes, meaningless.

The voices of those wearing self imposed chains of ignorance slowly fade, too .. though often after causing much suffering. This is especially true when they are in positions to imposed their ignorance on others .. before Hitler, there was the inquisition, after all …. all done ‘for their own good’.

Knowledge is always a good thing .. and the more we gain, the fewer places darkness has to hide.

Stephen, Dallas, TX (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 10:09 PM)

14 years, 17 miles and 10 billion dollars, just looking at the pictures I think they got their moneys worth. Science aside, the engineering genious it took to coordinate and team assemble those components brings me to my knees in awe. I'd pay a premium price just to walk around it!

N. E. Root, Kokomo, Ind. (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 10:37 PM)

A certain core of people, we'll leave names alone, want to be able to finally identify that which they assume made life, as we know it, here on earth... It is both part of an effort to again Prove Creationism or Darwinism... As for the things it will produce, future energy and the ability to disrutp earth magnetism, hopefully, in a petri dish... The odds of changing the laws of physics are very high indeed, so are the chances of understanding the higgs bosson, so where to from there you ask...well, if Gods Particle is proven, I am sure they will say, we discovered this and it now means we are free to be atheists...
Think again...

Moxy M (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 10:39 PM)

Alan - as usual you concisely explain the generalities so well that most of us "get the point" while the rest of us, as Stephen Leacock wrote "gallop madly off in all directions." The Large Hadron Collider should have your picture on the wall.

Chris Reeve is persistent in his advocacy of the electric nature of the universe, maybe rightly so, but one cannot dismiss all the other theories of creation that the mind of Man has conceived, especially when those theories work.

In contrast, instantaneous space travel and time travel are so illogical that they must be classified as fantasy. The first requires impossibly accurate and persistent measurement of distances involved, while the second would mean that either all "events" are predetermined and that we can dip into that stream of happenstance wherever we choose (but since it has never happened in the past, that means it will never happen in the future) or that a "new" alternate universe automatically springs into existence with every breath we take that we didn''t take in our former existence, and that would require an infinite amount of energy to be available at all times. Whew!

And some people have difficulty with the concept of God! I guess they have less difficulty visualizing strings vibrating in eleven dimensions as the basic fact of reality. As for me and my house, the simplest explanation for anything is the best.

Des Emery, St. Thomas, ON, Canada (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 10:46 PM)

This is the coolest science project ever. I talk about it all the time to my friends, but nobody knows what I'm talking about. I'm no physicist, but I am very interested in the concept. There has to be other dimensions out there, because when they smash these two particles together, the total weight is more than when they started. It in sense rips open a whole, and a little bit of energy or matter creeps out. I can dig it.

Jonas McNair, Aspen, Colorado (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 10:47 PM)

Bring it on(line)

What we learn, we learn.

BTW, to the person who asked - if the device was to malfunction and the beam "got out" and struck you, the consequences would not be pretty.

(The damage to the unit would be rather severe too)

The proton beam is accelerated around the "track" by focusing magnets. A microwave oven (or transmitter) works on the same basic principle, except that it is accelerating electrons.

The reason for the ultra-cold is that to get the magnetic flux necessary to make it work, you need superconductors, otherwise the resistance of the wire used to make the magnet precludes getting a high enough flux and the wire would burn up if you tried. A superconductor has essentially zero resistance, but they only work when very, very cold.

The vacuum is necessary because the beam must remain "on track" and hitting molecules of air interferes with that (you don't want collisions until the target is struck)

Put all this together and you wind up with a very complex device in which all the pieces have to work together.

What we will learn from it is another matter - there are lots of hopes, including the Higgs Boson as mentioned, but no guarantees.

Basic science like this doesn't come with guarantees. But it often does come with huge rewards for human understanding of the universe and the applications that come from that understanding change our world. Many of the advanced things you and I enjoy today in various fields are a direct result of basic scientific research.

IMHO, its worth doing.

Karl, Niceville FL (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 11:30 PM)

We can throw all our garbage in the black hole. That will be the answer to our solid waste problem.

Anne Birmingham AL (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 11:39 PM)

This is an absolutely amazing scientific endevour! The potential of new knowledge is incredible & I can hardly wait till the LHC is up, running at full power. Hold on....

Ron Thompson, Spokane, Washington (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 11:57 PM)

what are the millitary uses for this and who will be the first to utilize them?
Nobody puts this much money into something unless they gain something back-POWER

Rob, Boston, MA (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 12:08 AM)

For the price of a couple weeks in IRAQ, the planet gets to work together to make profound discoveries about our Universe. This is one liberal who wishes more of his tax dollars went to things as useful as the LHC. As for the zero-sum folks who think that every proton in the LHC takes a bottle away from a baby, I hope you are writing hundreds of comments decrying the waste in IRAQ for every one worrying about the cost of the LHC.

Scientifically Literate Liberal, Berkeley, CA (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 1:21 AM)

Military personnel armed with state of the art earth weapons on standby a safe distance from accelerator should be waiting to repel malevolent aliens from anor world / dimension coming thru with advanced weaponry to destroy this primitive race called homo sapiens. Or maybe the black hole it creates by obliterating and displacing matter will suck in the accelerator itself and wake us all up to the dangers we know nothing of, but rush blindly towards at almost the speed of light.

futuresoldier (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 1:44 AM)

What will the LHC provide?
How do we define knowledge? -How many numbers we can add together?
How do we define quality of life? -Owning a computer?
If surrounding oneself with expensive technological items could provide happiness there wouldn't be wars. George Bush and his buddies could just sit on his ranch and play playstation.
Advances in medicine are great! -if you can afford them. And even if you have health insurance your provider will do their best not to pay for your care.

Mav is right, the financial cost of the war in Iraq alone is much more that of the LHC. Not to mention the suffering caused.
The people fighting the war in Iraq are probably not too concerned about the LHC.
The people building the LHC are probably not too concerned about the war in Iraq. Although indirectly, technological advances purchased from scientific research do help us make more effective killing machines.

Can there be a grand unifying theory that can be understood intellectually? What can we gain from this theory that we don't already have?

Let them play with their collider. We can't explain the meaning of these actions rationally.
Words fall short.

Tom Phillpotts, currently residing in Guangzhou, China (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 2:14 AM)

the sad thing about this machine is that if it discover's that the big bang theory was quite possible then that completely shatters any religion out there then what happens when they give up hope because religion gives hope of an after life so in this life they conduct themselves in a respectable manner, then when they give up hope I see a lot of trouble think about it all of the religious people on the planet start doing what ever the hell they want because they relize this is the only life they have all their dreams all the women they never did anything with cause it wasn't christian and also the drugs and crazy violence! this isn't gonna end up good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Daniel, Dry Ridge , KY (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 3:54 AM)

The idea of time was invented by man so he would have a concept of past and future, neither of which really exist. It is always NOW and always has been NOW.
These "scientists" will tinker with physics and their mega-machines until one day they will somehow either
blow up the earth or set in motion a chain of events that will ultimately destroy it. The processes referred to here should be outlawed worldwide. Doesn't anyone in the scientific community feel concern that something might go out of control during this experiment (which is what it really is)?

Norm White Escondido, Ca. (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 4:44 AM)

"It's this kind of science that lets us assume that we'll be not having to store nuclear waste for 10,000 years ... we'll find ways to transmogrify the waste into water or other harmless benficial substance before too long."

Matt Staben (Sent Thursday, August 07, 2008 8:10 PM)

The means already exist for this. Breeder reactors can convert nuclear waste into either fissionable or useful non-/low-radioactive material. However, they can also convert normal radioactive fuel into weapons-grade plutonium... which is why almost all of them have been closed down/decomissioned.

Information Junkie (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 4:50 AM)

What if it proves nothing, but a way to create a new weapon to threaten an intimidate our enemies. Perhaps creating a type of reaction that disstablizes our gravitation and causes our planet to be molecularized

M.D. Ostring (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 5:03 AM)

I am greatful that are world has such knowledged individuals hard at work, for the benefit of all. Not everyone has the ability to understand the concepts of what is happening in our universe, But I am sure glad that there are people intelligent enough to try and figure it out. After reading all the comments written here against the LHC, I think it is sad how some people can be so ignorant towards our great scientist who are trying so hard to accomplish great things. When people put others down it is because they wish they could of done what they are doing. I wish all the employees of Cern much luck and hope that you all accomplish what you set out for. I am going to watch, listen, and most of all read everything that is happening along the way. What would we do without such people who push beyond the comprehension of others. I saw a program a few months ago on television about Cern and I thought the place was incredible. Maybe when the project is done Cern will allow schools and interested people guided tours of the facility. I know that I would love to see that place up close. P.S. there are many people who so not get basic chemistry, so it is understandable that they would not get what is going on. Lots of luck to you all!

Re (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 5:03 AM)

In response to:
"if this experiment works, it will prove once and for all that the "big bang theory" is not a theory at all, but what actually created the universe. it will be interesting to hear what religious folks will have to say about that fact, seeings how it disproves the "intelligent design" theory that some think should be taught in our schools." by Josh in Spokane

You are missing the point of the intelligent design theory altogether. It is not a theory that says a theory in science is flawed, it simply is the case that whatever science discovers is only an answer to the method the designer used to create this universe. Even in the big bang theory many scientists believe that the big bang ocurred "out of nothing." That is exactly what the intelligent design theory has claimed for thousands of years. God created the universe and all that is in it "out of nothing." How He did it is what scientists have been trying to figure out for years! The Bible is not a science book, it is a book about the salvation history of God's interaction with human beings. Therefore, any scientific discovery does not threaten my faith!

Greg, Cambridge, Ohio (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 5:08 AM)

I'm thinkin' once they get this thing going, we won't be waiting too much longer for anti-grav cars and teleportation. I just want to be able to teleport to anywhere in the world in an instant, wouldn't that be nice...

Todd, Las Vegas, NV (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 5:35 AM)

Ok, Q/a, who is paying for all this? taxpayers an also if it blows up,could it destroying our world or parts of like the A-bomb did, many years ago?

CC Stevenson (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 5:37 AM)

So... how much time, exactly, do I have to live? This might sound crazy, but I have been planning to live past October 21st for quite a while now.

Max Robins, San Antonio, Texas (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 6:07 AM)

Hummm ... yet another attempt by scientific man to disprove God and HIS creation.

Dakota Pendray (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 6:31 AM)

some of you stated that the machine will help
with energy problems or may be improve human conditions.of course those are necessary but for that amount of money is absurd, money should also be used to cure all of society ills issues like hunger, education, health jobs,crimes, poverty etc. without a healthy society the society is doomed when societies are doomed the world is doomed. so to be fair divide the money half and half one for advancement and the other for society issues. the end

zaw han (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 6:39 AM)

Kinda weird that they picked 24 hours before the anniversary of september 11th to do this thing.

They should really do it on a different date.

Anne (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 6:52 AM)

The Mayans, incredible astronomers and creators of a calendar as accurate as ours, predicted the end of the world on December 21, 2012--their calendar stops on that date. Even the greatest seer in history, Nostradamus, could not see anything beyond that date. And this device goes to full power in 2010? Hummm, makes one wonder. How ironic, if it does come to pass, that man's hubris will be his own undoing.

Tigertom31 (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 7:33 AM)

Go for it, gentlemen and ladies! Not that you need MY "official okey-dokey".

If not for folks like you we'd still be sitting on our haunches in front of the cave hoping lightning would strike a nearby tree so we could cook the meat for a change.

Anne David, Dallas, Tx. (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 7:34 AM)

Yes my god i did read about john titor...this is too strange....he said all this but his dates are off by 3 years lol....kinda saps any real time travel truths....

Ronald Wentz jr leonardtown md (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 7:35 AM)

why not? an experiment like this can end up producing information concerning things that were not even considered at the time of development. nobody can predict the many outcomes of something like this.

some of these posts are really sad when people complain about the money spent on this project as compared to world hunger. that's like saying henry ford should not have invented the "assembly line" so he could have used that R&D money to stop world hunger. bell should not have invented the telephone so THAT money could have gone for food. and edison was a FOOL for spending all that time and money on a lightbulb...he should have been gardening and feeding people! wow, lot's of "worried and hungry" people out there!

i'm just glad to hear about projects like this because it shows that science still transcends politics and human emotions. i remember years back comments made saying how absurd it was to think that people would have computers in their house. what if we all listened to those people???

tweeker (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 7:52 AM)

in spite of all the big important words flying through this string of comments, I'll say the same thing i tell my kids on a regular basis...Sometimes "I Don't Know" and "I Don't Have a Clue" are perfectly acceptable answers!

David , Bonney Lake, Washington (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 8:00 AM)

Alain
I’d like to ask you something.

Have you ever worked in any industry where the word “Safety” has to be proven (i.e. aerospace, military, railways, etc)? Well if you did, you would be surprised to find out that assumptions are not allowed unless they can be quantified to what many would be consider as absurdly low levels of 10E-12 to 10E-16 failures before those systems can be used in a fault-tree or failure mode (FMECA) analysis.

Now go and ask any of CERN's physicist’s to show the probability reports of something going really wrong that is not based on any ASSUMPTIONS. For your information both Theories of Relativity are based on assumptions and I’m not even mentioning M theory and Super-Symmetry which are even worse.

For consideration we are not talking about a door falling off of a plane in flight or of a projectile getting stuck in a cannon, we are talking about the entire planet, where there are absolutely no mitigating systems that can called upon if something goes wrong.

I am a 100% believer in science, but I am convinced that the direction of CERN in rushing into this are aware of all the facts, in fact they themselves have reported that this new toy will help them uncover new aspects of physics that were previously unknown.

It only takes one unknown BAD aspect to potentially destroy the Earth. Ask yourself, have CERN quantized (pun intended) that probability without the use of any assumptions?

If CERN’s failure calculations were put to the same level of scrutiny that other human safety related industries must follow, I am sure they would FAIL. The problem here is that most physicists are not trained to perform failure mode analysis especially at the level were the entire planet may be at risk.

Philip J. Calamatas (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 8:05 AM)

When has believing in God made one person better than another? We are all flawed human beings. But to try to use intellect to bring down someone else's beliefs is beyond ignorant. Do not claim to be more intelligent than others while simultaneously belittling them for their beliefs. You can believe in and worship a machine, and we will believe in and worship our Lord.

And the answer to all of this is not more science. Our society is falling apart because of science. That is why people are losing their jobs and leaving their families and dieing of new cancers. We keep hoping we can create more science to fix the problems that science has given us.

We need more social interaction and understanding.

I dont not want to be on lfe support for 50 years to further a hollow life, these advances in the name of 'science' do not help me. There was existance before these fancy machines, but their may not be existance after - because we ARE human, and their WILL be errors, large ones.

Who will be saved in the end?

You can say what you like - you can defend it in blogs. But why would you have to defend something if it was a life changing, fantasic, perfect idea? It would have already spoken for itself.

Enlightened, US (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 8:09 AM)

The Entire Universe? (Thomas Baker)
The OBSERVABLE universe by definition is what we can SEE.
Science limits itself, again, by definition, to the studying of and making discoveries in the observable universe. If it can't be observed or does not produce observable effects, Science does not mess with it. Science does not tell or deal with what is outside the observable universe. The universe may,indeed, be infinite, but the observable universe is not infinite due to the finite speed of light. What, if anything, is beyond the observable universe is not a true scientific topic. Mathematics (Philosophy) may construct a theory that yields an infinite universe, but Science keeps hands off until it sees scientific observations that verify the theory. Currently, string theory is not accepted as Science, even though it has much mathematical beauty (and some garbage that makes trouble), because there is no physically observable evidence verifying it.
Bona fide Scientists do not say that the observable (visible) universe is all that there is; they do say, however, it is all that Science treats. Of course, just because Science does not treat something does not mean that that something does not exist. Some Scientists (their bona fides being compromised) make such UNSCIENTIFIC claims of non-existence, but one must remember that they are not speaking scientifically when outside the realm of Science and may need to be reminded that they have strayed from their professional area (area of expertise).

Carlton Kamuela, Hawaii (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 8:17 AM)

I am a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer and 21+ years of service put me all over this globe. I have seen starving children in just about every country so I tend to agree with those who question the sensibility of spending tens of billions of dollars on projects such as this. This is even more wasteful than the space program. At this point in time the human race cannot seem to use their intelligence to clean up and save the one planet we know for sure we can live on and yet they spend hundreds of billions on a program to try to get into space and find another planet we MIGHT be able to live on. Instead of spending those hundreds of billions of dollars on improving our one home world and bettering manking you people who like to show off your level of intelligence convince governments to waste money on your projects that provide no real tangible benefit to mankind. Perhaps if you were to get out and see some of those starving children, senior citizens living with no proper health care because their government failed them, children who cannot go to school because their parents cannot afford to send them, then you might actually start to use your 'intelligence' for something really worthwhile.

Drew A. Solberg, Sr., Bovey, MN (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 8:27 AM)

The antimatter bomb this project will create is going to make atomic bombs look like tinker toys.
If you don't think this is to make another bomb FOLLOW THE MONEY. Defense spending is another word for "Bomb Making".

Scott Howell, Drexel Hill, PA (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 8:28 AM)

I love the "catastrophe could never happen" bit... Anyone remember the Titanic? It could never sink either...

micah, Tulsa, OK (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 8:31 AM)

I was also thinking along another line with this supercollider project. I have read that the scientists involved only think they know what will happen when they start smashing hadrons together with such intense energy. They do not know for sure. Therefore I tend to submit the same poser as so many others - why are you willing to take a chance like this with the entire world? Can you really say for certain that it will not be the start of the end? At the very least can you say for certain there will not be a very large, catastrophic explosion causing the deaths of a large number of people? The older I get the more amazed I am at the utter lack of common sense displayed by so many 'intelligent' people.

Drew A. Solberg, Sr., Bovey, MN (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 8:34 AM)

PLEASE!!! I believe in the big bang, God said bang and it was done, all this crap is nonsense, just let us live ans why worry about what were made of, according to God we are made of dirt, Ashes To Ashes, Dust To Dust. Just let it be and stop wasting money on this.

Tammy, Asheville, North Carolina (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 8:52 AM)

Alan:

Chris Reeve is quite perceptive. Please also note that PET and MRI were not developed by particle physicists, but by medical physicists. Particle physicists just like to take credit for anything done in physics.

Now, do you want to do a wager as to whether they actually obtain a circulating beam anytime soon? Or is this just more CERN hype for gullible "science journalists" to obtain positive PR for CERN, to keep the taxpayer money flowing to them.

Keep in mind that it took RHIC about 2-1/2 months to obtain a circulating beam after they first introduced beam into their machine. It takes a long time to adjust each magnet so that the beam is threaded through the entire length. And, the LHC is six times longer than the RHIC.

Where are your articles on the AMS-2, which has been built but not launched. It has the capability of determining the LHC safety, in that it will search for strangelets. If we can be certain that strangelets exist in nature, then we can know that it is safe to make them in the LHC. Otherwise, we might be making strangelets with Lead-Lead collisions for the very first time. Those types of energetic collisions do not occur in nature, as all high-E cosmic rays are protons or He, despite what hype you might hear about cosmic rays being the same as the LHC.

Some of us are not on the bandwagon for a reason.

[ALAN ADDS: I've known Walter for years ... I should note that Walter is one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit brought against CERN and the Department of Energy (plus Fermilab, NSF, etc.). I've referred to the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is several articles, going back to the days when the AMS prototype flew on the shuttle back in 1998 (those articles are no longer on MSNBC ... back then, unfortunately, we weren't as good about keeping articles around as we are now.)

[Here are some of the recent articles that refer to the AMS:]

Space station science gets squeezed
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14489184/page/2/

House adds extra shuttle flight in NASA budget
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25251027/

The shuttle's long goodbye
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/08/1187609.aspx

The space of shape to come
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/30/1234682.aspx

Walter L. Wagner (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 8:56 AM)

Hey Josh in Spokane, you should do a little, okay, a lot more research. Intelligent design fully embraces the reality of the Big Bang. As far as what's being taught in schools, evolutionists have managed to push their religion quite well despite it being bad science. Tree of life, transitional forms, irreducible complexity - strike three. I could go on, but it would probably be over your head. You believe, or don't believe, whatever you like because it fits your lifestyle and provides lack of acccountability. So you think. Seriously, do some objective research.

Micah, Illinois (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 8:56 AM)

I just hope it leads to a technology that would be undescribably cool...like light-sabers or a new medical advances like super-fast hair removal. These are the kinds of "scientific improvements" that will be elucidated by the LHC, its the same thing we as a spoiled human race have always done with these "great" advancements. No real good doctor ever actually needs a PET scanner, because in the end it probably won't effect the prognosis for the patient anyway. I personally think the Amish have it right you work hard and then you die. And for the people who mock those scientists involved in this research, it's what they're good at. You might be good at building houses, healing people or fixing cars, they like to run subatomic particles into eachother at breakneck speeds and see what happens. But hey, who dosn't like a good demoltion derby. I say kudos to anyone who works for a living. I guess what I'm trying to say is let a person do what they love, don't spend so much time tore up over something you can't fix and go say hi to your neighbor you don't even know.

Sariph, Kentucky (Sent Friday, August 08, 2008 9:04 AM)

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