Earth to be consumed by black hole

[Tom Slick]

Here is a video to explain it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM

[docrowan]

I consider myself something of a science geek, but I have trouble with the massive cost and power consumption of this thing. Seems like a collosal waste of resources to me. We could put this money into so many other areas of research - field studies of diminishing habitat, planetary exploration, solar activity, etc. Instead of learning more about the behavior of sub-sub-atomic particles in extraordinarily extreme conditions, it seems there is so much more to learn about the ordinary behavior of systems and objects that have a daily impact on life on this planet.

[crokett]

Chris,

I feel the same way. There is a lot more that could have been done with that money than attempt to find particles that may or may not exist.

[cgallery]

I'm actually impressed that they spent so little building it. Not normalizing the cost, but holy cow did you see that thing?

[sparkeyjames]

I consider myself something of a science geek, but I have trouble with the massive cost and power consumption of this thing. Seems like a collosal waste of resources to me. We could put this money into so many other areas of research - field studies of diminishing habitat, planetary exploration, solar activity, etc. Instead of learning more about the behavior of sub-sub-atomic particles in extraordinarily extreme conditions, it seems there is so much more to learn about the ordinary behavior of systems and objects that have a daily impact on life on this planet.

If and when (maybe not in our lifetime) they do figure out just how matter is put together and how to manipulate it. Just think of the engineering possibilities. Matierials science will have a field day creating new substances. Bioengineering will take off and do things they have not even thought of today. The energy sciences will go crazy. Imagine energy cells that last a year ,in use, not just days or weeks and then when low recharge in less than an hour. Small fusion power plants made on assembly lines. For construction how about new types of alloys with aligned atomic structure, instead of the grained types of today, making some of them 50 to 100 times stronger than what we now have. Imagine saw blade tips so strong that they can last many months of heavy use before having to be sharpened. Computational devices with structures so fine and so aligned and so fast as to make the fastest of the ones we now have look like crawling babies. Or how about pavement that is immune to the weather and never gets potholes. Also least I leave it out more ways to kill ourselves too.

Remember all the benefits we got out of the space program and think many many times more advances from nuclear particle research.

[docrowan]

I respectfully disagree. I do not see how smashing together subatomic particles at insane speeds to see what will come out of the resulting explosion will lead to advances in materials and metals science. Work progresses in nanotechnology, carbon fiber, ceramics, etc. without knowledge of quarks, mesons, etc, etc. Remember, they are trying to discover what makes sub-atomic particles tick. Sub-atomic particles are by nature unstable, they evaporate into energy or rapidly combine to form stable atoms. I support pure research, with no definite end other than increased knowledge of the universe around us, but it seems there is much more to be gained from more passive and less costly methods of discovery. I see it as a cost/benefit ratio. I believe we (meaning all people as this is an international effort) can get a lot more "bang for our buck" in other ways.

[crokett]

Again, what Chris said. Somebody spent eleventy billion dollars to test a theory about something inferred. Even the guy who came up with the idea they are trying to prove doesn't think they will be able to. If they don't find the particles, does that mean the theory is wrong or they didn't catch any? There may be side benefits this that I am not seeing but I still don't see the point of the super collider, other than being a very expensive jobs program.

[Kristofor]

There's a lot of irony reading posts on a message board on the World Wide Web that there are few useful real world spin-offs from the technology developed for particle physics research at CERN, and there are better ways to spend the money. Clearly there is a lack of appreciation for history (hint: Al Gore didn't invent the WWW, maybe lookup who did?). That particular piece of spin-off technology was worth how many hundreds of billions of dollars?

But back to the core science... You can have applied knowledge of how to do something, and you can do lots of trial and error research to improve that process, but if you know why things work the way they do you can be much more efficient in your search.

People could use chemical reactions to make useful substances long before the discovery of the structure of the atom. They could even conjecture about how other reactions might work based on patterns and various grouping techniques. However once that basic knowledge of what an atom looks like (protons, neutrons, electrons) and how bonds form it was much easier to purposely design substances and reactions.

[jlm]

I think the comparison of space program spinoffs to this supercollider is flawed. For one, the space program was about as far from a pure-science research program as you can get. It was a series of very specific and well-defined engineering problems, which is why you got so many useful "everyday" technologies out of it. Most of the advances came in manufacturing techniques, materials science, computing, etc. Nobody in the Apollo program cared about any particle smaller than a #10 washer...

These kinds of theoretical physics projects don't tend to produce "everyday" technologies, because they're operating way too far out on the cutting edge to be practical. Is there a single device in the world (not counting these supercolliders) that cares about quarks or muons? I'd agree that there are much better ways to spend $10 billion on pure science. Heck, just think of all the things about the human body we don't understand, or how much of the oceans remain completely unexplored. Way more chance of practical applications to come out of that kind of research.

As for the WWW being a spinoff of such research, it is, technically, but only superficially. The idea came about as a way to manage information in a generic sense. There's nothing about it that's specific to particle physics. If Berners-Lee had been working for an investment bank, he would have only had to change about a dozen words in the proposal.

[JR]

Is there a single device in the world (not counting these supercolliders) that cares about quarks or muons?

As primary research, one doesn't really expect there to be "things" that result. Knowledge is the goal.

However, I think semiconductor technology would expecxt to derive benefits from this kind of science. Semicondoctor circuits are currently just about at atomic size. In order for Moore's law to continue to work, we'll probably have to make subatomic circuitry.

It's also worth noting that there are number of technologies spinning off these experiments, in similar fashion to NASA. The superconductor technology is essentially brand new over the last 15-20 years, with this experiment providing the most substantial use of it. One expects benefits in the area of electricity transmission.

The distributed analysis network is also a major step forward in computer science. Interconnected with 10GB links around the world, hundreds of servers will be sifting the data. This should provide some benefit in the area of massive computer arrays.

There is also a massive amount of real-time analysis going on. The scientists working on those sub-systems can be expected to move forward the that area of computer science.

JR

[crokett]

. Clearly there is a lack of appreciation for history (hint: Al Gore didn't invent the WWW, maybe lookup who did?). That particular piece of spin-off technology was worth how many hundreds of billions of dollars?.

Kristofor, your comparison is somewhat faulty.

ARPANet was originally created to solve the specific problem of sharing data between disparate sites. It had an immediate practical application. The super collider was built to test theories about particles that may or may not exist.

JR, as for the related technologies, superconductor research existed before the Super Collider. I guarantee you power companies have poured a lot of $$$ into that. Distributed analysis was around before the collider was. It is what super computers essentially do, especially modern ones. This is a bit dated but Blue Gene is a collection of AIX systems connected via high-speed backbone. The internet just does it on a larger scale - the most famous is SETI@home, released in the late 90s IIRC. 10Gb link speeds are not because of the super collider, it is just benefiting from them.

I concede the one area this may benefit is in subatomic computing. I suppose research for the sake of research is ok, but this is a massively expensive experiment. Research that is driven by practical application (superconductor materials) is even better.

[cgallery]

Okay, two people have mentioned it and I'm going to ask a question about it.

Exactly how would sub-atomic anything work? I am pro this collider, for the record. But I can't imagine how we would ever make anything work at a subatomic level.

[JR]

JR, as for the related technologies, superconductor research existed before the Super Collider. I guarantee you power companies have poured a lot of $$$ into that.

Agreed, but this is an excellent example of high-energy usage, the results of which will be publicly available.

Distributed analysis was around before the collider was. It is what super computers essentially do, especially modern ones. ... The internet just does it on a larger scale - the most famous is SETI@home, released in the late 90s IIRC. 10Gb link speeds are not because of the super collider, it is just benefiting from them.

Agreeing again, but pointing out that the massive amounts of raw data are being distributed in quasi-realtime, with coordinated sifting and analyis. This would be a practical experiment in such high-volume data manipulation. The 10G reference was meant only to hint at the size of the problem, not to suggest it represented a breakthrough in and of itself.

I suppose research for the sake of research is ok, but this is a massively expensive experiment. Research that is driven by practical application (superconductor materials) is even better.

This is an important point. I think we'd probably agree that the experiment would be "worthwhile" if it was less expensive. One could also argue that space exploration is similarly not "practical", yet most of us are intruiged by having a probe float to the surface of Mars, or photograph Saturn moon.

Top physics theoretitions tend to be quite spritual because their observations have to do with the fundamentals of time and matter, challenging and refining the very universe we see. What is the right price for the pursuit of truth? Should we run in fear of black holes, as is being done by some in relation to the LHC, or should we try to unerstand their properties and perhaps benefit from the knowledge?

Science fiction sometimes stretches our imagination by defining a fourth dimension. The Higgs boson apparently exists in a dimension different from the three we know. Shouldn't we try to understand what that dimension is, how it imipacts us, where it will take us?

Just sayin'

JR

[JR]

Exactly how would sub-atomic anything work? I am pro this collider, for the record.

If an 1" square IC was moving electrons among 10,000 logic points, then an IC moving quarks between 10,000 logic points would require perhaps 0.1" square (I don't know the real numbers, these are presented for illustration puposes only). It would do this because the width and length of circuits inside the IC would be smaller. It would require less material, operate faster, use less power.

JR

[Wood_workur]

Lets see collide 2 small particles at high velocity. Particles shatter into many smaller parts. Where in all that can a black hole form? Don't you just love fear mongering. Not to mention that most of the people doing the fear trip are people who could not pass their high school physics class if given the answers before hand. I am not worried in the least. When it all comes to pass the nay sayers will be so silent when nothing more comes of it but more questions than answers.

Stephen Hawking said so. therefore its the law.

Atom #1: Hey, I just lost an electron!!!
Atom #2: Really? Are you sure?
Atom #1: Yes, I'm positive.

don't make me tell you the one we learned about precipitation reactions in ap chem last year. and people wonder how that class could have possibly been fun....