The world may end on September 10, 2008

Experiment to re-create Big Bang could end the world

Don't know much about it myself, but thought it may be of interest to people here...

Were it to happen, how would ever know?

Then don't get worried. Do you really believe everything in the Daily rags? I was involved in HEP for 11 years. I'll be prepared to bet that the world will not end in 9 days...

Darn! I was getting all set to go out shopping and max out my credit cards. But if it won't end after all, then perhaps I'd better just stay home

Related earlier topic: Dangers of the new Large Hadron Collider

Believe me, I am not even remotely worried. I just thought the article may be of interest to some. When I said I don't know anything about it, I merely meant that I shan't be able to contribute further to the thread, because it's all gibberish to me...

At least I wil die in Mauritius!

Thanks, kathie, the article was interesting. And if it does bring about the end of the world, according to the article, it will probably take about 4 years to do so. No worries then.

To be fair, it'll swallow France first.

And a little bit of Switzerland...
The article goes on about this being the largest accelerator yet. However just about EVERY new accelerator was the largest at time of start-up (otherwise there was little point). Just to illustrate, when I was part of a team working on the PETRA accelerator at DESY, Hamburg this was the most powerful e+e- accelerator. Then along came LEP in CERN which was at higher energies.
Proton-Antiproton accelerators have been in existence before (CERN, US) so LHC is just an extension...

The LHC uses the same tunnel that LEP had been in...

I'm out of that field of work for over 20 years but still have a few contacts. The designated Director General of CERN was a colleague of mine in the PETRA/DESY days...

Well, HEM, having said you know the Director General of CERN, would you care to state an opinion on whether or not he intends to destroy the Earth with this thing?

Designated Director General of CERN...

My opinion: No he does not

Back to work

Ah - that's the bit I'd been wondering about. Whether the whole Earth would just go "pop" in an instant, or be eaten away gradually, giving us time to worry about our fate. But then again, if the LHC did spawn black holes, and they drifted to the centre of the earth (that's what black holes do, isn't it?), and proceeded to eat it up slowly from the inside, how would we know, until the surface finally caves in?

So will we all be breathing a sigh of relief the day after, on 9/11, when we realise that we are still here, or will we continue to worry for years about a potential monster black hole that may or may not be devouring our planet?

So if a physicist tells you that he was big bangin' at the weekend it may not mean what you think?

USAF have been opening wormholes for the last 12 years... I'm sure O'Neill will be on stand-by in Geneva on the 10th.

I really hope not, im due to fly to Egypt on the 11th and its non-refundable...dammit

Maybe Egypt will be flying to you instead.

If I had a quid for every time someone had said the world was going to end...

On the other hand, knowing my luck, it would end when I had enough to retire on

I will try to be surrounded by nice, funny and soft people on the 10th, in case it takes less than 4 years to squeeze the earth, and ok...I will not eat garlic that day...

Does it mean i don't have to pay the rent this month then?

That would depend if you're Catholic or not. Don't want too many sins hanging around...

I don't believe stuff like this unless its posted by our very own DJCRAZY

I was thinking that his contributions were missing here...

This thread needs a Large Hadron Rap.

The world already ended on 1 Jan, 2000 : 00:00:00

You have nothing to worry about. The theory that predicts the black hole predicts they will evaporate by Hawking radiation immediately. Also if this theory is correct then black holes have already been created my times on earth from cosmic rays (which can have a lot more energy then we can make in particle accelerators) hitting the Earth. Since we are still here I wouldn't worry.

Cant we pretend its going to be the end of the world so we can throw one hell of a Black Hole Party on sept 9th!

We dont even have to worry about having a hangover the next day

Those physicists who have designed this big bang experiment, can turn their backs to a mirror, drop their pants and bend down, and they will spot the amazing black hole image in the mirror.

Excellent idea Pricy, next TTT should be a Black Hole Party.

Ob-cracked link



I used to work at CERN (and I visited the Atlas detector last October), so I'm following the lead-up to beam with some interest, but this article is much more fun.

On my last visit we were planning the OPAL experiment for LEP & I got to see the UA1 control room. Some time ago as you see...

You can pretend whatever you want. I don't want to take away a reason for a party. As a physicist with one of the experiments there I'm personal more eager to celebrate the first collisions. Hopefully we will find something totally unexpected. Here is an LHC related comic for your entertainment: http://xkcd.com/401/

since the worlds going to end lets all go out and get big ass loans n pool our money and buy a castle...made of cheese

I will spend this short time hunting down and beating the crap out of these scientists – any one got any of their names - HEM?. Probably wont be much else to do – it will be difficult to find any women for sex as they wont be so interested without them needing any money.

one of the is called doctor freeman...u should have no problem taking him down lol

I just asked my colleague what he would do in the event that the world was about to end.

He said that he would shag anything that moves!!!

He asked me what I would do. I said 'I'll keep bloody still !'

It's great to see that the Americans don't have one of these machines. I bet they are pretty pissed off that they did not have one first!!!

Yeah too bad... what are you talking about? I know at least one of the scientists on this project is American. So the Americans might now own the machine, but at least some of the brain power behind it is American.

If it does bring about the end of the world, my advice is to stay indoors!

Hadron rap

Any up for a huge party just before they switch on their Euro-doomdsay machine?

Don't worry everyone, the Obama Messiah will save us.

The USAians have had a very hard time with this one. Normally they prefer to go it alone, but between the USA preferring to spend its cash on certain other (much more important) international projects, and the rest of the world collaborating on this one, they've been unable to outdo CERN here. What to do?

Yeah! We Europeans got one. Where's yours?
"..Ah! Bonjour my old neighbour friend. <squeezes in next to the franco-swiss lot> I take back all those froggy jokes!"
Le black 'ole francais?
If we get our very own black hole we can sell it to the Americans. It doesn't come in a choice of colours, but in the words of Henry T. Ford "have you tried painting one of those things?"

I'm still trying to figure out how the American's aren't in on this project. They may not be paying for it or the majority of the brainpower behind it, but they still have people working on it since it's a project from the effort of multiple countries.

CERN member states:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom

CERN Non-Member States:

Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Iceland, Iran, Ireland, Lithuania, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine and Vietnam.

CERN Observer States and Organizations:
the European Commission, India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, Turkey, UNESCO and the USA.

And Toytown.

doesn't mean there aren't scientists working on the project that aren't part of CERN.

if he's not working on the project then i haven't a clue what my friend's husband has been doing the past 10 years and why he claims he's working on this, is over there now, coming back this weekend, then back over there for the 'big bang'.

Of course they're in on it. USA's physicists are just as enamoured of the LHC as everyone else. But the USA's physics funding has traditionally been fueled by competition with the rest of the world. And the two factors I've mentioned have put a big dent in that this time around.

We're already planning it: End-Of-The-World party in Munich, 9.Sep.2008