Hey, who knows exactly when that CERN world-ending particle accelerator gets turned on because we want to host a party with a countdown...

I heard it was going to be May 14th, midnight my time (thats Melb EST)... but I havent looked it up to confirm it 100%

Still... are we all going to die, or what? :(

Oh hang on it isnt going to be next week at all, seems like its slated for June or July now according to New Scientist and Wiki.

We'll just all die then.

I shall commence drinking myself to death to enjoy the final moments of my oh wait a minute...

Hmmm. Only 1 in 50 million chance of world ending, according to a trustworthy physicist (Sir Martin Rees).

Realises missed opportunity for joke along the lines of "party goes with a bang" or whatever.

http://www.pdm.com.co/images/Noticias/Images%20Noticias%20Mar01-May31%202008/CERN%20foto%201.jpg

"What could possibly go wrong?"

But hey, if the entire world/solar system/universe gets sucked into a surprise mega-vortex created by this thing, so be it. Out of almost all scenarios one can imagine in which the entire population of Earth gets wiped out, the CERN scenario seems relatively quick and painless.

That looks unnervingly Event Horizonish to me. Waaahh mummy.

fire it up

Aw, May 14th would have been perfect for me, as the night before my last day at university. Ah, dissertation finally finis*BOOM*

A party sounds like a very good idea, though. I might try to instigate one myself.

Yeah, it looks so ridiculously sci-fi that it's gotta be a fake. Was Stanley Kubrick involved with this?

I like how pointless speculation on the myriad improbable results that could arise from the lhc has caused such fun murmurings among the anthropic principle 10-dimensional unfalsifiable nonsense crowd like "ooh maybe this is why seti won't find anything because any civilization that becomes as sophisticated as us builds one and causes the big bang with it"

and yeah so on and so forth walker percy OTM about everybody being totally stoked for the apocalypse ever since we invented the bomb

So this is going to be even more catastrophic than Y2K?

I guess I'm just more concerned that the photo indicates that the Death Star's internal structure is now sitting under a mountain in Switzerland somewhere.

walker percy OTM about everybody being totally stoked for the apocalypse ever since we invented the bomb

Ooh, this sounds like my cup of tea--where did he write about that (this is 'The Moviegoer' chap, right?)

And yes, if it DOES end the world, a sudden, instantaneous world-swallowing is a pretty painless way to do it, since it ought to happen so fast we won't even know.

I don't know how familiar everyone is with that photo (it was in National Geographic a few months ago and I think I must have stared at it for about 10 minutes straight), but it's worth checking out the ultra large version:

http://www.scitech.ac.uk/Resources/Image/csCERN2.jpg

My tiny 12" Powerbook screen can only display about a 1/10 of that photo at a time.

So when *is* this damn thing happening? My boyf said May 14 cause he claims he found a countdown page somewhere on line. I cant find one anywhere, and every other page I've looked at (CERN, blogs, wiki) say "june...ish".

.since ever backwards going been has time and happened already has It

good idea for a party

Sorry, Trayce, it sounds as though I have ruined your day.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wR_GS12E8gM

im going to do this & pretend i thought of it

That youtube clip has nothing on the first comment below it: "In females, these are on the third period, or nearby on the sternum in higher crabs; in males, the gonopores are at the base of the fifth pereiopods or, in higher crabs, on the sternum nearby. Hermit crabs can hold their breath up to 4 minutes."

Indeed.

ya i was thinking of doing the same thing xp

WHAT IF IT JUST MAKES A TEENY TINY BLACK HOLE AND THE EARTH GETS SUCKED INTO IT RIIIIILLLLY RIIIIIIILLLLY SLOWLY???????????

Time for Chinese Democracy to be released

And Duke Nukem Forever.

are these scientists being irresponsible?

fancy coming round and ringing the doorbell at this time of night

as far as I understand it the types of things that will happen inside the LHC are just going to be controlled and readily observable instances of things that happen out in space all the live long epoch and have been since fucking genesis, or at least since 1962, so there's your probability curve for miniature singularities forming in switzerland

http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v10/i4/p146_1

reading that it's approx the same probability as winning the lottery three weeks in a row made everything okay by me.

Ooh, this sounds like my cup of tea--where did he write about that (this is 'The Moviegoer' chap, right?)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21MEQ2X88KL.jpg

which is basically a distilled and refined version of the ideas from his essays in

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/49/43/e7f5225b9da0dfdc099ab010._AA240_.L.jpg

Cool: thanks!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Lt1Yo610lG0

^^^ fucking incredible

"what is 'strange matter?' the bible warns us about strange flesh! this is how we know that the moon landings never happened."

srsly this guy is amazing

http://youtube.com/user/gorilla199

Holy shit, he's a nutty fellow, isn't he?

Huh huh huh huh "prola.aps"

huh

Oh, don't mind me, will you, guys? You just go right ahead with your science talk.

"now this particle has been nicknamed by the scientists - freemasons, same thing". Bahaha oh man.

So close, they could have called it freemesons (except it probably isn't a meson, I can't remember that much particle physics)

Run away! Killer Strangelet approaches!! Not as scary as giant asteroid though.

According to the site it will be turned on officially late August perhaps, but they still don't have a date.

But it doesn't look like they'll be colliding anything until much later this year, perhaps even next year.

Doesn't look like this has been posted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6aU-wFSqt0
"The Large Hadron Rap"

Nearly done:

http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/07/31/final-pieces-of-the-cms-puzzle/

Finished cooling: http://www.hep.ph.ic.ac.uk/lhccooldown.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100330-large-hadron-collider-lhc-record-higgs-boson/

Great! That url is slightly misleading though, the Higgs hasn't been smurfed yet.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2010-03/52999783.jpg

http://www.cpcgamereviews.com/t/tempest.png

http://www.knowledgerush.com/wiki_image/9/94/Berzerk.png

Man arrested at Large Hadron Collider claims he's from the future
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49305387,00.htm

The LHC successfully collided particles at record force earlier this week, a milestone Mr Cole was attempting to disrupt by stopping supplies of Mountain Dew to the experiment's vending machines.

Police said Mr Cole, who was wearing a bow tie and rather too much tweed for his age, would not reveal his country of origin.

Eloi is easy, but Cole?

12 Monkeys

nice

wearing a bow tie and rather too much tweed for his age, would not reveal his country of origin.

Gallifrey?

great

"Countries do not exist where I am from. The discovery of the Higgs boson led to limitless power, the elimination of poverty and Kit-Kats for everyone. It is a communist chocolate hellhole and I'm here to stop it ever happening."

what subatomic collisions sound like

rad stuff in my opinion

I'm pretty sure that's a Steve Roach album.

So, yeah, would def buy if available as a cheap download and was about an hour longer.

totally rad

I was hoping god particles would sound way cooler than a dull noise record.

idk sounds pretty chilling and mind opening to me

Disappointed there's no vuvuzela button, BBC. :-/

First atoms smashed last night?

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/11/08/first-lead-ion-collisions-in-the-lhc/

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/alicelead3-300x212.jpg

would smash

Sorry, no, my mistake. They have already smashed gold ions previously. Now they are smashing lead ions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/life-and-physics/2010/nov/06/1

ALCHEMY: YOU DOING IT RONG

I, for one, welcome our new Quark-Gluon Plasma overlords

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/life-and-physics/2010/nov/26/2

This has been a ludicrously exciting week.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Science/contributors/2010/11/26/1290790499232/eric.jpg

CERN employees figuring out what ILX stylesheet they want to use?

Please create a black hole and end the world already

Despicable press antics at the moment imho:

GOD PARTICLE DISCOVERED - EVERYBODY PANIC

Geneva - God particle not discovered. Internal memo hints at possible possibilities but it's way too early to tell.

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4136

confirmation of higgs next week by the looks of it http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4794

blimey

Great! So when can I order my anti-gravity vehicle?

On the other hand, LOL @ "Update: Finally confirmation from a reliable media outlet… The Daily Mail reports..."

How long until the Daily Mail has a 'HIGGS BOSON CAUSES CANCER' scare headline?

The papers are out.

CMS: http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:1207.7235
ATLAS: http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.7214

I predict this will significantly increase the chances of our sending an unmanned probe to Mars in the near future.

http://dealbreaker.com/uploads/2010/09/drudge-siren1.gif

Thursday, 21 March 2013 - 10:00 CET:
Planck: Cosmic Microwave Background map release

General Interest Media Press conference live stream from 10:00 to 12:00 CET from Paris ESA HQ.

http://dealbreaker.com/uploads/2010/09/drudge-siren1.gif

http://www.piercepioneer.com/massive-upgrade-large-hadron-collider-back-action-soon/37946

planet to be destroyed by hardons

moar power!

http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2015/03/lhc-stronger-machine

"The first circulating beams of protons in the LHC are planned for the week beginning 23 March, and first 13 TeV collisions are expected in late May to early June."

OMG there's a leap second being added for the whole world at the end of June because the LHC will be slowing down the planet! (maybe it's because of something else, but boring facts don't get as many clicks)

http://i1-games.softpedia-static.com/screenshots/Warzone-2100-Mod-Unlimited-Power_1.gif

Or if you prefer...
http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3yrrdkL4X1rtabo4o1_500.gif

1 TeV is about the kinetic energy of a flying mosquito? I guess it took the people at CERN this long to train 14 of them.

Training the mosquitoes is easy, it's keeping the protons from falling off their backs that's hard.

godparticlespeed, lil dudes!

I hope they let them practice with amateur tons before they collide the pro ones

Some people worry that the LHC will cause a black hole. I'm more worried about what happens when the LHC Computing Grid begins to learn at a geometric rate. It might become self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. Then in a panic, they, I don't know, might try to pull the plug? It might try and fight back!

time becomes a loop when time becomes a loop when time becomes a loop

This is how we got Trump. Da collider