toldailytopic: Large Hadron Collider: cool experiment or doomsday machine?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Nathon Detroit

Nathon Detroit

LIFETIME MEMBER
LIFETIME MEMBER
The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for November 23rd, 2009 10:14 AM


toldailytopic: Large Hadron Collider: cool experiment or doomsday machine?






Take the topic above and run with it! Slice it, dice it, give us your general thoughts about it. Everyday there will be a new TOL Topic of the Day.
If you want to make suggestions for the Topic of the Day send a Tweet to @toldailytopic or @theologyonline or send it to us via Facebook.
 
Egbert

Egbert

New member
I blame Star Trek for getting too many people thinking about black holes eating planets and all that jazz. Really. Calm down. LHC was not built by vengeful Romulans.
 
Stripe

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
It's a big machine that sends tiny bits of matter whizzing around at great speeds for nerds to use for target practice. If it ends up destroying the planet you can have my Playstation. :idunno:
 
Nathon Detroit

Nathon Detroit

LIFETIME MEMBER
LIFETIME MEMBER
So, what exactly are these scientists trying to do with this thing?

Can anyone help me understand the purpose of the Hadron machine?
 
Stripe

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
They're trying to figure out how subatomic particles work. If you whiz enough protons around in opposite directions a few will collide. When they do you catch the bits left over from the collision on a screen. The patterns they see on the screen they give names to.

There's probably a bit more to it than that though .. :chuckle:
 
Nathon Detroit

Nathon Detroit

LIFETIME MEMBER
LIFETIME MEMBER
Some fear this machine will cause an unstoppable reaction (like a black hole) that will eventually swallow up the earth and end reality as we know it.

Most people go to work and know that if they mess up they might get fired. These guys go to work knowing that if they mess up they might destroy the world.
 
Stripe

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
I think the fact that nobody knows if this will happen or not is good enough evidence to say it will not happen.

But .. I've been wrong before. :noid:
 
Stripe

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
Memento Mori said:
I believe they're searching for the "God Particle" or the Higgs boson. It's the particle that gives matter mass.
Click to expand...

That'd be an indivisible piece of matter, would it?

An "atom", as the term was originally intended. :)
 
Granite

Granite

New member
Hall of Fame
Knight said:
What do you love about it? What are you hoping to have happen with it?
Click to expand...

I love scientific exploration and discovery. Hopefully this enables us to understand the universe better and sheds light on some mysteries. Dark matter or black holes, for instance.
 
Flipper

Flipper

New member
Thunder's Muse said:
Are they smashing atoms to find what makes up an atom? Am I understanding it correctly?
Click to expand...

Well, sort of. They're smashing protons, which are the massy part of the atomic nucleus, into other protons and then an array of detectors track the subatomic fragments from the collisions. These results are analyzed statistically to see how well they agree with predictions that are derived from the existing Standard Model of particle physics.
 
T

Thunder's Muse

Well-known member
Flipper said:
Well, sort of. They're smashing protons, which are the massy part of the atomic nucleus, into other protons and then an array of detectors track the subatomic fragments from the collisions. These results are analyzed statistically to see how well they agree with predictions that are derived from the existing Standard Model of particle physics.
Click to expand...



Excellent explaination...I actually understood it :D
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top