Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Hadron Collider: Gargantuan Machine Was Sidelined by Human Error. By Geniusofdesapair

...At least it might explain why we've never heard from extraterrestrial civilizations: Maybe they built Large Hadron Colliders of their own. - Fox News

Fox News calls it the doomsday machine. Will the world indeed end in September when the large Hadron Collider (LHC) starts up again? Will the Cern research center “reveal the universe's secrets, or suck us into a black hole?”

“The Independent” said calling the apparatus “large” is an understatement. It is a giant circular tunnel about 17 miles long, underground between France and Switzerland.

You know that song, “See you in September?” Well, maybe not. Could Fox News be right for once? Apparently good theories never account for human error. National Geographic said in February:

LHC operators successfully fired the first beam of particles around the collider's 17-mile (27-kilometer) circular track last September. But shortly afterward, poor soldering work on a so-called splice joint linking two of the LHC's magnets created an electrical overload.

The glitch caused tons of supercooled helium to leak into the underground tunnel and damage sensitive equipment. Since the meltdown, engineers have developed new diagnostic techniques to prevent similar disasters from occurring.


Somehow, I am not reassured.

Prof. Stephen Hawkings "pointed out that if the LHC were indeed to create minor black holes, his own work on the subject could be verified."

Again, not reassured (even though Hawkings believes the black holes will just fizzle out).

Here is a good video on the subject and some 'scientific wisdom' from FOX NEWS:

FoxNews.com can think of a few other things that didn't seem possible once — the theory of continental drift, the fact that rocks fall from the sky, the notion that the Earth revolves around the sun, the idea that scientists could be horribly wrong.

We're also wondering how often the LHC might create individual black holes, since longer-lived ones have a greater chance of merging with each other, and, um, well, see ya. If the worst comes to pass, and there's now a slightly greater chance that it might, at least it might explain why we've never heard from extraterrestrial civilizations: Maybe they built Large Hadron Colliders of their own.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just to freak you out a bit more, we have a collider here in the US, just not as big

Geniusofdespair said...

I am not really freaked out over the collider...just writing about human error that does freak me out. Actually I am always amused about Fox News' views.

Anonymous said...

What if Fox News is right and the black holes keep expanding? Well, at least we might have time to say goodbye, unlike the French.

Mensa said...

I have never found anything true on Fox.

Anonymous said...

But it's Fair and Balanced!

Anonymous said...

National Geographic’s Magazine November 2004
“According to a Gallup poll drawn from more than a thousand telephone interviews conducted in February 2001, no less than 45 percent of responding U.S. adults agreed that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." Evolution, by their lights, played no role in shaping us. Only 37 percent of the polled Americans were satisfied with allowing room for both God and Darwin. I suspect that most of the folks in the USA that don’t accept the theory of evolution voted for George W Bush twice. I also suspect that most of those folks get there news from Fox TV.”

If Fox is wrong about the Hadron Collider and they are just once again stirring up more fear amongst their mostly un-scientific oriented viewers then Fox will look stupid again. If Fox is correct that the Hadron Collider will create a black hole and consume our planet then they wont receive any credit for finally getting a news story correct.

Geniusofdespair said...

Last reader: You made me laugh today. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

"Fair & Balanced"? On what planet?

Anonymous said...

Thanks I try

youbetcha' said...

Oh great, I thought this circle thingy was okay when they cranked it up and we were still here after the failure.

Now, you are telling me I still should be holding my breath?

Anonymous said...
Just to freak you out a bit more, we have a collider here in the US, just not as big
Yah well, here's the News Flash:

I would say that all the evidence points to that US collider being secretly sited right here in Miami-Dade County. (Probably somewhere between County Hall and Homestead/Florida City.)

And it is safe to say that it is NOT revealing the universe's secrets, BUT it could be sucking us into a black hole along with the condos, mortgages, economy, corruption, farm land, overbuilt housing, jobs, traffic, planning, zoning, the NUKES and our wonderful environmental gifts.

There has to be some logical reason for why things are the way they are here. The US collider is as reasonable as anything else I can imagine.