Today, September 10th 2008, has been labelled "Big Bang Day". I suspect this is because it is my Partner-In-Grime orangepeel's birthday, and Head Teach has a special surprise lined up. Will the mortar board and cane that I got them as a wedding present get an airing, I wonder? Anyway, contrary to badly-informed scaremongering press there is absolutely no chance of mini-black holes spontaneously appearing in the Richmond area this morning. And, despite galloping away from 40, it really, honestly isn't the end of the world...
In other news, they are switching on the Large Hadron Collider at the Cern facility on the French-Swiss border today, and I can assure you that the only black hole appearing in that vicinity is the one being created in my CHF bank account by Swiss architect-locusts (actually, come to think of it, I know a few FX traders nursing black holes of their own, but that's another story...).
The largest ever physics experiment in history is simply mind-boggling in its size, complexity, cost and objectives. Observing artificial conditions resembling the state of the universe around a billionth of a second after the big bang, the Compact Muon Solenoid, wryly described as the size of a cathedral, is a detector that will search for signs of dark matter, extra dimensions, and the Higgs boson - the so-called god particle.
Whatever clues to the nature of the universe that the LHC turns up, it's enthralling to bear witness to the achievements of those that conceived of, designed and built it, humbling to consider the giants on whose shoulders they stand, and inspiring to live in the age of the scientific method.
I personally will be scouring the 40 gigagazillion terabytes of data produced each day for signs of the Holy Whale.
Mankind's most advanced mechanism yet for "trying to understand the mind of god."
Mankind's most advanced mechanism yet for trying to understand the mind of "god."
Happy Birthday Mrs N-B ! ;-)
8 comments:
Wow, the Large Hardon collider, sounds like a painful development to me. I wonder how they get volunteers for a contraption with a name like that? Oh, the bloke in white seems to be saying "me first". Funny that....
UDH - it's the men in white coats you need to look out for...
The LHC could well be painful. They are accelerating things around a circle at speeds that haven't been seen since you were riding a moped around Birmingham roundabouts. Although at 600 million collisions per second, they are going to have a crack at topping your prang rate....
Everyone knows that immediately after the big bang, a cigarette is smoked and then you go to sleep ...... I would have shared this information for far less money.
If I could read market news the way you described it on your last blog, I'd return to the market.
@DP - I think they are more interested in the very short space of time that went on between the banging and the smoking...
@Patsou - Aww, shucks Patsou, that's the nicest thing anyone has said to me on this blog.
No, really, it is. They all take the p1ss out of me here :-)
What, no black holes? I'm almost disappointed.
So, it won't fix my shoulder either, then?
Poot.
Jay - I think what most people overlooked in this story (including FVJ who made a bit of a fool of himself trying to be clever this afternoon) is that although the LHC was started up today there will be no actual collision events for probably a couple of weeks at least... So we'll just have to wait a little longer for our first local singularity.
While you wait, may I recommend a hot bath with a glass of wine. I find this helps, even with healthy shoulders :-)
Post a Comment