Countdown to Doomsday

[tjkitsune]

So, I don't know how many people here read up on things going on in science or technology these days, but I was browsing through MSN's articles yesterday and came across an articale about a Large Hadron Collider, which is this giant atom smasher that has been built, and the investigation/trial that started on Tuesday about if it's logically sane and safe to run this machine. The turn on date is scheduled for Sept. 10 of this year, but they're saying the first results won't appear until next month. There are several experiments setup for this machine... Part of the issue is that smashing these atoms can cause a blackhole, which scientists are trying to achieve in order to study them, but their defense is that they're to be weak ones that would die within seconds of forming and wouldn't have enough energy to begin a vacuum of any sort. Article found here. (http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/02/1326534.aspx)

Now, there's alot of people upset about this. The fact that they're playing with atoms trying to create something that could ultimately end the world as we know it. Alot of "What if's" floating around. Several people see no harm and fully trust the scientists with this, while others thing the machine should be dismanteled and the scientists punished for even thinking of toying with such a machine.

There's also all the the other possible ends of the world out there, such as the Mayan Calander ending on Dec. 12, 2012. Maybe believe that this is a sign that the world will then suddenly end.

Another theory is that in Feb. of 2001, the sun went under a polar switch, and the earth is due to have one of its own. Signs are beginning to already be seen with the fact that the artic caps are breaking apart and ice is melting rapidly to the north, which could trigger the polar changes. With a polar change, it can effect the magnetic layer around earth that protects us from the sun's UV rays. Though, most scientists say to this that even "when" this happens, it'll only deplete the layer by 10%-20%. And we know that the earth has changed before in the past with how old the planet is.

You could also throw in some crazy UFO stuff as well. The History channel's been playing alot of UFO documentary shows as of late about the government and presidents hiding the truth that they know of alien life and encounters here on Earth, but aren't letting the public know about it. Will our fate lay in the hands of foreign space people?

What's your thoughts and ideas?

[deathofcheese]

The LHC Doomsayers alternate between pissing me off and giving me laughing fits.

Even at the highest power of atom smashing the LHC is theoretically capable of, we've been having the same exact collisions going on in the Ozone Layer/upper upper atmosphere/magnetic field of Earth since the Earth was formed. Miniature black holes, if they ever formed because of these collisions, haven't killed the Earth yet, and although we're going to make these collisions on a lot more regular basis than ever in the collider, none of the black holes could ever get big enough to cause damage. Someone ran the numbers once and the chance was greater than 1 in 1,000,000. Although we haven't actually studied the phenomenon as yet, black holes can evaporate by releasing what we call Hawking Radiation. So, not only would these black holes be waaaaaay to small to suck in any matter on Earth, but they would dissapate through Hawking Radiation Evaporation before we would even know they were there. Seriously, the time it takes to evaporate a micro black hole can be measured in nano- or picoseconds. Since nano itself is 0.000000001 seconds (that's one billionth of one second), it's more than safe to assume that micro black holes will never be a problem for us.

Furthermore, Fermi Labs' Tevatron, which will be turned off for good next year, is already above the energy level of collisions that the LHC will be at for a few months. Nothing bad has happened there, so we're still safe for a couple months.

There will be micro black holes generated as a by-product of the collisions, but they're only dangerous to the collisions and by-products themselves. The crew at LHC can and will be doing something to ensure that nothing bad happens because of their formation, but really there is nothing to worry about.

If you really want something to worry about, consider this: the total energy stored in the 1232 bending magnets at full operational capacity is about 10 GJ. That's 10 gigajoules (or 10,000,000,000 billion joules) which is about the same energy as 2.4 tons of TNT or 80 gallons of gasoline burned in less than one second. Loss of only one ten-millionth of the beam would be enough to render one of the superconducting magnets useless, which would require all the energy from the rest of the magnets to be dumped to prevent explosive loss of energy.

Disclaimer: all figures and information for this post was gleaned from Wikipedia and my own research into black holes while still a physics major at my last school.

[Bloodcinder]

What's your thoughts and ideas?
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/1534/nuclearexplosionle8.jpg

[Gio Takahashi]

These doomsday stuff makes me laugh, as I really don't believe in that, especially the 12/12/12 thing >_>.

If anything, that's my mom's birthday, I'm sure that's enough of a doomsday for me.

[Seegtease]

It is weird that the Mayan calendar ends so abruptly at such a future date, but meh.

I don't see any real threats in those matters.

[Charlie]

The way I see it, it could happen in five years, or it could happen in five minutes. The possibilities in this day and age are almost endless. So I'm not taking any of these theories seriously.

[chefTENGU]

The controversy over the Hadron Collider is the result of people who know next to nothing about real physics getting up in arms over what they think is going to happen. Nothing more.

The Mayan calendar ends on Dec. 9, 2012 because they believed it would be the end of the world; what it actually predicts, and quite accurately, is the next date on which various heavenly bodies will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way. On a date like that, they assumed something monumentally significant on a cosmic level was bound to happen; of course, it'll just be a normal day, just like any other.

People have been predicting the end of the world since they began to contemplate such a concept. Every single one of them has been wrong.

[Seegtease]

How did they manage to predict the alignment of certain heavenly bodies so far in advance (or at all, for that matter)? That seems a little unreasonable.

[chefTENGU]

Astronomy was the most important pursuit to the Mayans, and their observatories were probably second in importance only to their temples. They spent a lot of time watching the stars, planets, and movements thereof. In fact, their calendar was more accurate than anything known in Europe at the time (well, at least since the people who built Stonehenge disappeared).

It doesn't sound that unreasonable to me. Just because they didn't have the benefit of the telescope doesn't mean that they were any less capable of thought, reasoning, learning, or innovation than anyone living today. They just came to the right conclusion using a different method.

[Gio Takahashi]

The controversy over the Hadron Collider is the result of people who know next to nothing about real physics getting up in arms over what they think is going to happen. Nothing more.

The Mayan calendar ends on Dec. 9, 2012 because they believed it would be the end of the world; what it actually predicts, and quite accurately, is the next date on which various heavenly bodies will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way. On a date like that, they assumed something monumentally significant on a cosmic level was bound to happen; of course, it'll just be a normal day, just like any other.

People have been predicting the end of the world since they began to contemplate such a concept. Every single one of them has been wrong.


That's very true, yet amazing that people still freak out over it.

[Seegtease]

It doesn't sound that unreasonable to me. Just because they didn't have the benefit of the telescope doesn't mean that they were any less capable of thought, reasoning, learning, or innovation than anyone living today. They just came to the right conclusion using a different method.
I'm assuming the distance of these bodies would be too great to notice without a telescope. I didn't say they were stupid, but you can only learn so much about something without a way to observe it in detail. I mean there's so many factors to consider and with such a great time gap, it seems very unlikely to predict so far. How old is this calendar?

[reginacroft]

I think the mayans got lazy seeing as they probably assumed they would not be around that long lol.

[chefTENGU]

They got hungry. Widespread famine following an ecological disaster spelled the end for their civilization; at least, that's the prevailing theory. No one really knows the exact reason why they abandoned their cities, but that's what most archeologists believe the evidence is pointing to.

Sorry, Zeit. I didn't mean to insinuate or try to put words in your mouth. And you are correct, that many of the things we know about our solar system would be impossible to see without the aid of a telescope (hell, Pluto wasn't discovered until the 1930s).

However, there are many planets and other heavenly bodies which are easily visible to the naked eye. Also, you have to remember that at the time, ancient peoples didn't have the severe handicap of electric lights obscuring their night skies. If you've ever been out in the desert at night, or someplace else far from civilization, it's astounding what a difference you can see in the stars.

They could see all the things we could see, and notice the things we could notice. They just understood them differently. Remember, the word "planet" comes from the Greek for "wanderer," it was their way of describing what they believed to be stars that behaved oddly by changing position in the night sky in predictable patterns. Furthermore, they got lucky; their location in the tropics gave them a different vantage angle to the skies which gave them an advantage in certain aspects which were impossible for people living at other latitudes to exploit (I'm not well versed in astronomy, so it's hard for me to go into specific examples without some research).

It's uncertain just how old the Mayan calendar is, because it seems to predate the invention of writing in Mesoamerica.

[Seegtease]

The More You Know.

[Bloodcinder]

Part 1 of PHD's semi-review of the LHC.

http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/4950/phd090808sxg5.gif

[llama_egg]

So, you know shit's going down when;

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m95/llamaegg/GordonFreemanSpottedAtCERN.jpg

Yeah, Gordon Freeman on site. D:

[Gio Takahashi]

Now that doesn't look like a good sign.

[tjkitsune]

See! It's the beginning of the end!