Why the LHC may be beaten to the Bang

The Big Bang was supposed to have happened last year.

Then the Large Hadron Collider blew a fuse that had been wired by a couple of teenagers from Turkmenistan (I'm kidding. They were actually from the backstreets of Vilnius.) and had to be shut down for major repairs.

Click image for gallery on the Large Hadron Collider.

(Credit: Maximilien Brice for CERN)

Meanwhile, it seems, physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., have been tinkering with their Tevatron.

The Tevatron doesn't have the scale of the Large Hadron Collider. But it does seem to have one small advantage: it's actually working. Yes, those beams of protons are smashing giddily into some antiprotons coming in the other direction. And, would you believe it, the Fermilab folks may be stumbling into some taxpayer dollars.

"We were looking at huge budget cuts last year, and now we are hoping to get stimulus package money and scrambling to see the best way to use it," Fermilab senior scientist Joe Lykken told the "Associated Press".

The Associated Press also quoted another scientist, Dmitri Denisov, as saying the probability of the Tevatron finding the Higgs Boson, the "God particle," is "between 50 percent and 90 percent."

I have had serious misgivings in the past about this Big Bang adventure. To some extent, I was concerned that scientists never really know quite what they're doing. But much more worrying was the disturbing rap video produced by some of the CERN staff working on the LHC.

You see, these Fermi folks seems far more grounded, no?

(Credit: CC Lotzman Katzman)

So before throwing my weight behind the Tevatron's come-from-behind attempt to blow up the world in one almighty bang, I thought I'd do a YouTube search to see whether Fermilab's scientists might also have committed their inner Michael Jacksons to film.

The best (or worst, depending on your bent), appears to be this video, called "Accelerating Science". It does have more than a smidgen of early rap about it. And there is a very difficult moment when a yellow boot gives a purple beam a kick.

However, I think we can be more forgiving of this movie. It was made in 1992. And the fact that Fermilab attempted some rap beats all those years ago suggests that these are people who keep the curve behind them and never pretend they are Lot's Wife. It might also suggest to some that the Large Hadron Collider rappers were not exactly original.

How can one not be swayed by the words of Jacobo Konigsberg, a physicist from the University of Florida, who is working with Fermilab: "It's really what we live for, to have the opportunity to embark on such crazy quests."

Go crazy, Tevatron. Blow us up in style (again, kidding. Well, maybe).

[mmfiore]

There is a new Theory of Everything Breakthrough. It exposes the flaws in both Quantum Theory
and String Theory. Please see: Theory of Super Relativity at <a
href="http://www.superrelativity.org/" title="Super Relativity">Super Relativity</a> Einstein was right!

[11HollyMolly11]

Why nobody was able to find any alien civilizations yet ? - That's because of there are black holes in place of them now.... Why not ?
For every small problem with collider smart scientists say: ohh well, - we didn't account for that small issue.
Keeping things this way, there could appear the moment when there is nobody left to say: ohh, - we didn't account for that small issue.
99% of population are delegating their future and safety to the remaining 1%.
They also hope that this 1% knows all possible consequences. Isn't that scary ?

If present science are so sure about all possible consequences of creating black holes using Large Hadron Collider or any collider that size, than why any expirements needed ?

How people that are not "against science" can guarantee any HollyDolly mother, that she's childs are in safe place, if they are going to create something that they know nothing about ? Especially if this nothing has one way information flow.
Information can enter black hole but can't escape.

[Dalkorian]

There really is something to be said about sticking your head in the sand and pretending the world doesn't exist around you, isn't there. The only black hole of concern is the one between your ears.

[Michichael]

Holly? You're commenting on something you know nothing about. Shut up. We have already generated black holes, we already know how they're formed and how they work. The research now is how physics shapes itself around them. We already know enough about them to keep things safe.

[i8246i]

"We have already generated black holes, we already know how they're formed and how they work."


HAHAHAHAHA

HAAA


wow,

just wow


In any case, kudos to this lab for keeping their collider working. Maybe they can collaborate with the LHC and compare some notes.