Black hole scientist at 'Big Bang' Hadron Collider lab held as suspected Al Qaeda terrorist

Quote :

"A physicist at the lab that houses the Swiss Large Hadron Collider, built to replicate the conditions of the 'Big Bang', has been arrested on suspicion of terror links. The European Nuclear Physics Organization (Cern) says the man, whom it did not identify, was arrested yesterday by French police. The lab says the man was working under contract with an outside institute. It said today the man had no contact with anything that could have been used for terrorism. The 32-year-old man was the elder of two brothers arrested in the French town of Vienne yesterday. The arrested man had been working on an experiment in particle physics as a contractor since 2003, Cern said. It described the experiment as exploring what happened after the Big Bang that allowed matter to survive. Cern said the experiment had attracted more than 300 physicists from research centres in 13 countries. Le Figaro newspaper reported earlier that the man had been in contact with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and had suggested several French targets for militant attacks. A judicial source confirmed that one of the brothers had been in contact with people close to the organisation but said there was no indication of a clearly established plot at this stage. "

http://tinyurl.com/yfq46gc


A bit sensationalist, but moderately interesting.

10/9/2009 5:48:48 PM

great, now we are gonna have terrorist black holes?

10/11/2009 4:36:21 PM

sounds like some indiana jones plotline with the nazi's

10/11/2009 5:32:43 PM

Quote :

"terrorist black holes?"

read the heechee saga by frederik pohl...IT COULD HAPPEN

10/12/2009 7:40:29 AM

oh hay CERN

10/12/2009 8:17:18 PM

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

posted on pg 2 but can someone embed this? i love it

10/12/2009 10:41:13 PM

Muslim black holes
Crusader black holes
Zionist black holes

10/15/2009 6:14:57 AM

because it is damn funny.

10/15/2009 7:00:02 AM

i lawled

that's some PBS content right thurr

10/15/2009 8:27:55 AM

Quote :

"A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/science/space/13lhc.html?_r=1&8dpc

10/15/2009 12:13:45 PM

^wild theory

10/15/2009 1:01:02 PM

^ incorrect, it's totally valid and entirely possible

10/15/2009 1:21:29 PM

Well I'm no physicist, anyone care to explain? Are we talking possible or probable?

10/15/2009 1:59:52 PM

the Higgs Boson is what's called the "God particle" right?

this stuff is all crazy (in a cool way) to me.

10/15/2009 2:10:19 PM

^^ in physics, anything is probable, even if only infinitesimally.

Whether particles literally can travel backwards in time and interact themselves is still unknown (i personally don't think they can), but there are some mathematical models where this is an interpretation of what's happening, even though it might not actually be what's happening.

10/15/2009 2:13:44 PM

^^In simplest terms from what i have read, it is the particle that gives photons (or everything else for that matter) its mass. I agree this is incredibly interesting even for the non-physics people out there.

10/15/2009 2:23:36 PM

so its basically scientists from the future trying to stop this experiment from even happening

10/15/2009 3:39:03 PM

Quote :

" LHC reaches operational temps, collisions start in 5 weeks With new safety measures in place, the staff at CERN has brought the Large Hadron Collider down to a temperature that's cooler than outer space, and is preparing to make a second try at producing the machine's first collisions. Some of those collisions may produce elusive Higgs Bosons—or something completely unexpected. The Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful particle accelerator ever constructed, is gearing up for another attempt at actually colliding said particles, with the entire 27km ring having been brought down to an operating temperature of 1.9K—colder than outer space itself. This isn't the first time a startup of the massive device has been attempted; a bit over a year ago, particles had circulated within the LHC for over a week before it suffered a catastrophic failure. That failure has led to a series of new safety measures that should avoid similar problems, but other issues may crop up, simply due to the fact that we've never built anything quite like this before. Of course, that may end up being a good thing. If the LHC can work its way up to its full potential, we may see things that are nothing like anything we've observed before."

http://tinyurl.com/yj9ezde

10/25/2009 6:18:10 PM

LHC is 27 kilometers long. The superconducting super collider was supposed to be 87 km

[Edited on October 26, 2009 at 12:19 AM. Reason : the stupid international space station to up the SSC budget]

10/26/2009 12:16:41 AM

^ we can thank anti-science Conservatives that we'll never see anything approaching the LHC, much less the SSC, in the US.

10/26/2009 12:54:30 AM

If you have a couple free hours over the next few days, check out

As She Climbed Across the Table
by Jonathan Lethem

Reading this thread made me think about the novel. A couple of physicists create a tiny black hole that only accepts certain objects (apples, not bananas, a statue of liberty souvenir replica, a Converse All-Star but not a computer mouse, etc etc). It has its own preferences and resulting personality.

Our narrator is an outsider of the physics community but his live-in girlfriend is on the project and becomes obsessed, and eventually falls in love with the phenomenon, which they name "Lack."

It is cutesy and more of a love story than a science novel but it has some cool thoughts about both how we approach scientific discovery and actual science, like the observer effect and artificial intelligence.

http://www.amazon.com/As-She-Climbed-Across-Table/dp/0375700129/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256565624&sr=8-1

10/26/2009 10:10:48 AM

Quote :

"It is cutesy and more of a love story than a science novel"

Get out of here with that shit.

10/26/2009 11:21:18 AM

Quote :

"^ incorrect, it's totally valid and entirely possible"

FWIW, I think wild was an expression of awe and amazement rather than ridicule. Hyper-literalists are what turn so many people off to science

10/27/2009 6:37:59 PM

lol holy fuck - you'd think it would just come back from the future and just make a section of the thing vaporize or turn into grape jello rather than toying with us like this

Quote :

"Large Hadron Collider Halted By Bird Crumbs"

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,572567,00.html?test=latestnews

11/6/2009 10:05:56 PM

i'd like more explanation of how this could have caused a problem, did the bread crumb fall somewhere outdoors? if so, then why is such a sensitive piece of machinery not housed

11/6/2009 10:51:26 PM

maybe the bird got into the building somehow... but even then you would think they'd have airlocks and all kinds of crap to keep dust from getting into it

11/7/2009 8:48:24 AM

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/emergingtech/0,1000000183,39863004,00.htm

Apparently they have a substation outdoors and I'm speculating that there was a phase to phase fault with Zfault = baguette.

11/7/2009 9:02:00 AM

Another article I read said 'compensating capacitor', which I took to be a pf correction capacitor bank.

Still...was the bird carrying a whole baguette?!?!?!

[Edited on November 7, 2009 at 9:17 AM. Reason : ]

11/7/2009 9:16:37 AM

11/7/2009 1:38:41 PM

11/7/2009 7:54:13 PM

Imagine if the formation of our known universe was thwarted by a bread crumb from a neighboring dimension/universe (M-theory).

11/7/2009 8:55:01 PM

Quote :

""If all goes well, we’ll start injecting particles into the LHC tonight" said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer #LHC #CERN"

http://twitter.com/CERN/statuses/5894212810

11/20/2009 12:03:37 PM

ETA on us blinking out of existence?

11/20/2009 12:08:23 PM

12/12/2012

11/20/2009 12:13:09 PM

^^

Quote :

"Particles are smoothly making their way around the 27 km circumference of the LHC. ... If all goes well, in just over one week from now, the beams could circulate in both pipes of the LHC. The first low-energy collisions should follow shortly after."

http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2009/47/News%20Articles/1221074?ln=en

11/22/2009 10:38:35 AM

Quote :

"If all goes well"

such optimism

11/22/2009 10:52:05 AM

I wonder if we will sense it at all before it happens.

a lot of people will probably think they are feeling dizzy or think that its their own body - like a heart attack or stroke.

i will know that it is the black hole. I have been in this shelter for two weeks now, waiting for it to come...

11/22/2009 11:03:03 AM

I was referring to the idea that it would function at all, not that it'll create a black hole.

Personally, there are worse ways to go than the near instantaneous destruction of my physical being by an immensely powerful cosmic force.

11/22/2009 11:13:56 AM

^in your timeproof shelter?





[Edited on November 22, 2009 at 11:15 AM. Reason : jcf]

11/22/2009 11:15:23 AM

Actually, I've got a DeLorean. I intend to reach 88mph a precisely the moment that the black hole occurs. If my calculations are correct I'll cross not only time but dimensions as well. If it all works out, you're going to see some serious shit.

11/22/2009 11:18:55 AM

We'll be okay as long as they don't ask the Harlem Globetrotters to help them out. Then you might want to worry a bit.

11/22/2009 11:25:59 AM

I think it is timeproof. I don't feel any older today than I did last week, so it must be.

11/22/2009 11:36:15 AM

this is the worst idea ever

11/22/2009 12:11:38 PM

this is like putting two cars with infinitely high top speeds on two sides of a really long, straight highway and holding the gas pedals down for two weeks at which point the two cars collide.

11/22/2009 5:55:57 PM

that was deep.

11/22/2009 6:14:40 PM

^^ no it's not. leave the sciencing to the scientists.

11/22/2009 6:31:35 PM

Quote :

"this is like putting two cars with infinitely high top speeds on two sides of a really long, straight highway and holding the gas pedals down for two weeks at which point the two cars collide."

Your analogy doesn't work on any level. How do you manage to tie your shoe laces in the morning?

11/22/2009 6:47:28 PM

^^it is and i am. don't hate.

11/22/2009 7:37:24 PM

its not deep at all - the cars would reach their terminal velocity long before the two weeks had expired.

11/22/2009 7:44:42 PM

except they have infinately high top speeds

11/22/2009 7:58:11 PM