Large Hadron Collider

[mitchell65]

I have been reading the latest news on the above and pretending to myself that I can understand more than 2% of what I am reading. I thought members might like to read , inwardly digest and discuss the following just to keep the Chillout Room nice and light hearted. Here for your delectation is my latest offering;

As an example, if supersymmetric particles exist at the energies provided by the LHC, their cross-section (that is, the probability of their being formed) is expected to be relatively high and therefore the discovery is within reach in a relatively limited amount of time. On the other hand, the Higgs boson is expected to have a much smaller cross-section and therefore a longer data acquisition period will be needed to confirm its appearance (if it exists!).

At least I understood the last three words!

P.S. This thread does go well with my sig though, doesn't it?

 

[pebbly]

nice read there John, but im afraid it wont be back up and running properly til 2011/12 im waiting for us all to disappear into the black hole

 

[mitchell65]

nice read there John, but im afraid it wont be back up and running properly til 2011/12 im waiting for us all to disappear into the black hole

Come back Albert (Einstein) all is forgiven!
Whoops, just tripped over some "Hawkins radiation!"
Am shuting down now before things get out of hand!

 

[MilesAhead]

Hmmmmm, I'm still searching for the FreebieOn

You bombard any item with FreebieOns and get it for nothing!

 

[johnwillyums]

nice read there John, but im afraid it wont be back up and running properly til 2011/12 im waiting for us all to disappear into the black hole

Come back Albert (Einstein) all is forgiven!
Whoops, just tripped over some "Hawkins radiation!"
Am shuting down now before things get out of hand!

It's no joke Mitchell. The entire UK is gradually getting sucked towards the black hole they've created in Swizerland.

It's not too bad yet here in the north but Cornwall could be in Belgium by the end of the month.
Great beer but they eat mayo with chips and that's just wrong imo. Good luck

 

[pebbly]

nice read there John, but im afraid it wont be back up and running properly til 2011/12 im waiting for us all to disappear into the black hole

Come back Albert (Einstein) all is forgiven!
Whoops, just tripped over some "Hawkins radiation!"
Am shuting down now before things get out of hand!

It's no joke Mitchell. The entire UK is gradually getting sucked towards the black hole they've created in Swizerland.

It's not too bad yet here in the north but Cornwall could be in Belgium by the end of the month.
Great beer but they eat mayo with chips and that's just wrong imo. Good luck

:roflmao:

 

[Joan Archer]

Do you think they'll come after my side then, wonder if I should go join my son up in Scotland

 

[mitchell65]

It's is a very wide held belief among those in the know that when you get sucked into a black hole the gravitational pull is so strong that your feet go in first followed by the rest of your body which will be stretched to infinity. So if you measure your height every morning in stocking feet, then allow for the fact that as you get older you shrink a bit each day then if you are still getting taller then the black hole has got you. Start putting your affairs in order

 

[Tarka Dal]

A human body will die well before it reaches a blackhole. So nothing to worry about there!

 

[blackroseMD1]

On the other hand...you could come out on the other side of the black hole...maybe at Milliway's. If you do, I'll buy you a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

 

[Sanvean]

Higgs boson is the so called "god particle", basically a theorized particle that would "explain/connect" current theories concerning origin of mass.
This collider if powerful enough should answer the question if it exists or not.

What I find interesting is the research into darkmatter.

I love the theory and such, but I suck at math lol, so much for my science future.

 

[blackroseMD1]

What I find interesting is the research into darkmatter.

I agree 100%. Dark matter is what really drew me into paying attention to this in the first place, along with the possibility of learning much more about anti-matter and it's possible practical uses.

 

[mitchell65]

On the other hand...you could come out on the other side of the black hole...maybe at Milliway's. If you do, I'll buy you a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

Not possible, a black hole only has a centre, there is no other side, unless of course, you use a time warp then anything is possible!

 

[blackroseMD1]

Not possible, a black hole only has a centre, there is no other side, unless of course, you use a time warp then anything is possible!

Theoretically, it's not possible. However, science hasn't gotten to the point that they can say for certain that there isn't another side to a black hole. Without going into my own beliefs, we have no real evidence of anything when it comes to black holes and the width/depth/length/... of the universe.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Seems the "Dark Matter" concept is a "Fiddle" or "Fudge" factor.

Diagressing away from Physics for an instant -- imagine there IS such an entity but it's totally outside any observation we can make. If it has ZERO effect then to all intents and purposes then whether it exists or not is a moot point -- as far as we are concerned it DOESN'T exist.

We DO know that the one FIXED CONSTANT in the entire universe is the speed of light -- therefore our maximum observational view of the Universe is around 14 Billion Light years - scientists have reasonably proved that's the age of the Universe.

We can't possibly know if the Universe is actually bigger than that as there is no way of measuring or observing distances greater than that. So are we correct in saying that's the actual SIZE of the Universe or are we wrong.

I like a lot of the new theories -- but "adjusting the facts" to fit the theory or introducing spurious unmeasurable items to make the theory work seems much too like cheating to me.

As an old Sceptical Engineer I want to be able to BUILD or DETECT something before I believe it exists.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[blackroseMD1]

As an old Sceptical Engineer I want to be able to BUILD or DETECT something before I believe it exists.

Cheers
jimbo

I can completely understand that. Seeing is believing, as the saying goes. Which kind of goes along with the point that I was making...mitchell65 said that it was impossible to go out the other side of a black hole because a black hole only has a center. My question is: Who has gone in and confirmed that as absolute fact? No one. Therefore, as seeing is believing, I choose not to believe that there can't be an alternate universe/dimension/whatever on the other side of a black hole.

You mentioned the maximum observational view of the universe. That is the furthest that we know of. In our fallible opinion, the universe is ~14 billion years old. We can't prove that it isn't older than that, as of now. There is always the chance that the universe is billions of years older than we think, and that this universe is just a microcosm inside a much larger universe.

Anyway...I've been up for 42 hours at this point doing research, and my bed is calling to me very much. Thanks for the interesting conversation.

 

[mitchell65]

Hi Jimbo
I think we need to always use the term "Observable Universe" rather than just "Universe". It could be argued that "Our Observable Universe" is an even better phrase to use. But isn't that just the whole joy of the subject that lends itself to so many differing interpretations of the same thing. The term "dark matter" was coined as it best described the undescribable. The gravitation effects within the "OU" was such that it suggested that there was much more mass within the OU than first thought. The calculated number of galaxies only amounted to about 5%, I think it was, of the mass that was needed to produce the detected gravitational effect. So "Dark matter" was invented.
When Jimbo says "As an old Sceptical Engineer I want to be able to BUILD or DETECT something before I believe it exists"
That's fine until you start looking at the large and small ends of the Universe. The normal laws of physics no longer obtain when you get deep into Quantum Mechanics and as for the so called "Arrow of Time" no laws at all exist.
In science we must always be prepared to make assumtions and then try to prove or disprove them. That's how Neptune was discovered by the Cornishman John Couch Adams , he was studying an unusual gravitational pull on the planet Uranus and worked out the theory that there was an unknown body exerting the pull. By mathmatics he worked out where the object should be and then went on to prove his theory by actually observing Neptune.
So there's the great advantage of this subject, we can all hold different views but at the same time agree to disagree with each other. The one thing to remember is we MUST all respect other viewpoints as no matter how bizarre the view seems to be we know so little of the subject that anything is possible.

 

[mitchell65]

Goodnight Blackrose and thanks for your interesting input!

 

[blackroseMD1]

Hi Jimbo
I think we need to always use the term "Observable Universe" rather than just "Universe". It could be argued that "Our Observable Universe" is an even better phrase to use. But isn't that just the whole joy of the subject that lends itself to so many differing interpretations of the same thing. The term "dark matter" was coined as it best described the undescribable. The gravitation effects within the "OU" was such that it suggested that there was much more mass within the OU than first thought. The calculated number of galaxies only amounted to about 5%, I think it was, of the mass that was needed to produce the detected gravitational effect. So "Dark matter" was invented.
When Jimbo says "As an old Sceptical Engineer I want to be able to BUILD or DETECT something before I believe it exists"
That's fine until you start looking at the large and small ends of the Universe. The normal laws of physics no longer obtain when you get deep into Quantum Mechanics and as for the so called "Arrow of Time" no laws at all exist.
In science we must always be prepared to make assumtions and then try to prove or disprove them. That's how Neptune was discovered by the Cornishman John Couch Adams , he was studying an unusual gravitational pull on the planet Uranus and worked out the theory that there was an unknown body exerting the pull. By mathmatics he worked out where the object should be and then went on to prove his theory by actually observing Neptune.
So there's the great advantage of this subject, we can all hold different views but at the same time agree to disagree with each other. The one thing to remember is we MUST all respect other viewpoints as no matter how bizarre the view seems to be we know so little of the subject that anything is possible.

Well said Mitchell. When it comes to our observable universe, I think the agree to disagree thing is the best idea, seeing as how we don't have the ability to go out and prove most of the points we are making. Theories are what make science interesting.

 

[johnwillyums]

Personally I believe that the earth was created six and a half thousand years ago by a wombat stood on the back of a turtle that was stood on the the back of an elephant.
I have no truck with this obviously ridiculous science nonsense:drool: