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May 1, 2009 — Editor’s note: This story was originally posted in September 2008, but after seeing The Daily Show With Jon Stewart on April 29, 2009, and John Oliver's fantastic report on the issue, we couldn't help but re-post.
Today was perhaps the most exciting day in a more than a decade for scientists and science lovers around the world. Not since the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke into fragments and collided with Jupiter in 1994 has there been as much news and excitement over a single event in the scientific community.
Rather than corresponding to a massive, cosmic event, today’s news focused on the sub-atomic level. Scientists flipped the switch on the world’s largest particle collider – known as the Large Hadron Collider – in the first major test of the $10 billion project.
It will be at least a year before the Large Hadron Collider reaches full power, yet today marks the beginning of a new frontier in particle physics.
Buried 330 feet beneath the Swiss and French Alps, the 17-mile long collider is the most powerful in the world. Two photon beams will be accelerated to near the speed of light within the tunnels, and when they collide a collection of even smaller particles and anti-matter will appear, disappear, and shower onto nearby detectors.
There are many reasons why the LHC has sparked so much interest in the scientific community. The LHC represents the largest (and most expensive) terrestial scientific experiment ever undertaken by mankind. While the Europeans have taken the lead, 60 nations in all have contributed to the event, including $531 million from the United States.
The reason for such high expenditures is in the potentially groundbreaking science. Many are hoping that some of the most puzzling questions in science — from those of dark matter, dark energy, and the possible existence of hidden dimensions of time and space — can be answered by the LHC.
Much as the quantum theories of the early 1900s led to many of today’s everyday technological devices, the discoveries made at the LHC promise to transform common life far into the future.
Among the most exciting possible discoveries is the existence of the so-called “God Particle,” or Higgs boson, which would help confirm current theories of how particles acquire mass.
String theorists will also be on the lookout for evidence of other dimensions. The LHC reaches much higher energies than its American counterpart, the Fermilab Particle Accelerator in Batavia, Ill., which may allow for particles to zip into other dimensions and then suddenly reappear again – proving the existence of other dimensions interwoven into our universe.
Such a discovery would be a major victory for string theory, a description of the Universe which posits that the most basic particles in the universe are miniscule, vibrating strings. Various permutations of the theory have come and gone, but all require multiple dimensions, and none have yet developed a comprehensive, cogent, mathematical description of the universe.
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2 Comments on "Part I: Don't expect CERN's Large Hadron Collider to reveal new dimensions of space and time"
Amal — September 11, 2008
I wish to find a result,
but it willnot be complete.
it will give result for something else that is not put on calculation,
SaneScienceOrg — September 11, 2008
Man's technology has exceeded his grasp. - 'The World is not Enough'
(Breaking News: September 11, 2008 - 'Peter Higgs launches attack against Nobel rival Stephen Hawking' - The Times: "Professor Peter Higgs, the scientist who gave his name to the Higgs boson, the particle at the centre of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment, launched a withering attack on Professor Stephen Hawking, saying his work was "not good enough"." "Both men are contenders for the Nobel prize — depending on the outcome of the experiment — and their spat is likely to send shockwaves through the scientific Establishment." "Since he retired nearly 20 years ago, Professor Higgs, 79, has gradually detached himself from his academic world, preferring to read novels and play with his two grandchildren. He has, however, stayed in touch closely enough to pour scorn on the views of Professor Hawking and on scientists who predicted that the LHC might bring the end of the world.")Pb-Pb collision in LHC at sqrt(s) = 5.5 ATeV.
Zealous Nobel Prize hungry Physicists are racing each other and stopping at nothing to try to find the supposed 'Higgs Boson'(aka God) Particle, among others, and are risking nothing less than the annihilation of the Earth and all Life in endless experiments hoping to prove a theory when urgent tangible problems face the planet. The European Organization for Nuclear Research(CERN) new Large Hadron Collider(LHC) is the world's most powerful atom smasher that will soon be firing groups of subatomic particles at each other at nearly the speed of light to create Miniature Big Bangs producing Micro Black Holes, Strangelets and other potentially cataclysmic phenomena as described below.(Risk Evaluations HERE.)
Particle physicists have run out of ideas and are at a dead end forcing them to take reckless chances with more and more powerful and costly machines to create new and never-seen-before, unstable and unknown matter while Astrophysicists, on the other hand, are advancing science and knowledge on a daily basis making new discoveries in these same areas by observing the universe, not experimenting with it and with your life.
The LHC is a dangerous gamble as CERN physicist Alvaro De Rújula in the BBC LHC documentary, 'The Six Billion Dollar Experiment', incredibly admits quote, "Will we find the Higgs particle at the LHC? That, of course, is the question. And the answer is, science is what we do when we don't know what we're doing." And CERN spokesmodel Brian Cox follows with this stunning quote, "the LHC is certainly, by far, the biggest jump into the unknown."
The CERN-LHC website Mainpage itself states: "There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions,..." Again, this is because they truly don't know what's going to happen. They are experimenting with forces they don't understand to obtain results they can't comprehend. If you think like most people do that 'They must know what they're doing' you could not be more wrong. Some people think similarly about medical Dr.s but consider this by way of comparison and example from JAMA: "A recent Institute of Medicine report quoted rates estimating that medical errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 people a year in US hospitals." The second part of the CERN quote reads "...but what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator,..." A molecularly changed or Black Hole consumed Lifeless World? The end of the quote reads "...as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe." These experiments to date have so far produced infinitely more questions than answers but there isn't a particle physicist alive who wouldn't gladly trade his life to glimpse the "God particle", and sacrifice the rest of us with him. Reason and common sense will tell you that the risks far outweigh any potential(as CERN physicists themselves say) benefits.
This quote from National Geographic exactly sums this "science" up: "If all goes right, matter will be transformed by the violent collisions into wads of energy, which will in turn condense back into various intriguing types of particles, some of them never seen before. That's the essence of experimental particle physics: "You smash stuff together and see what other stuff comes out." From "The hunt for the God particle". Read about the "other stuff" below:
http://www.SaneScience.org
http://www.risk-evaluation-forum.org/anon6.htm
http://www.LHCFacts.org/
http://www.LHCDefense.org/
http://www.LHCConcerns.com/
