Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

MIT physicist gets death threats over collider
The Boston Globe ^ | September 9, 2008 | Carolyn Y. Johnson

Posted on 09/09/2008 7:03:36 PM PDT by buccaneer81

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-52 last
To: buccaneer81
I did some frantic research on seeing this post. I have not got the time to credit all sources. Seems that the original estimate was 2.6 billion swiss francs (whatever they are). An Australian sources says the project was plagued by "cost over runs" and technical problems.

I learn further that 20 European nations have contributed...... but wouldn't you know- oh yes, "The United States and Japan are major contributors". They have observer status. The cost?

$10 Billion US dollars.

I guess I will have to join Ned Ludd at work tomorrow. (joke) That money could have fed a lot of starving third world people.

41 posted on 09/09/2008 8:55:21 PM PDT by Peter Libra
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: buccaneer81

42 posted on 09/09/2008 9:12:13 PM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: buccaneer81

this story reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Ice 9”


43 posted on 09/09/2008 9:14:08 PM PDT by Mount Athos (A Giant luxury mega-mansion for Gore, a Government Green EcoShack made of poo for you)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 353FMG

Wilczek says fears unfounded...

What the hell else is he gonna say?

Anyway - the History Channel just said the world won’t end till 2012 - no worries.


44 posted on 09/09/2008 9:17:34 PM PDT by palomonte (the universe tends to unfold as it should)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: hippyhater

I quit my diet just in case. Want some brownies?


45 posted on 09/09/2008 9:29:57 PM PDT by TNdandelion (Ok..ok! I'm voting McCain/Palin LOL)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: buccaneer81
Wow, you mean I have to get eaten by the Black Hole while I'm TDY in California, rather than home in Texas?

Bummer, Dude.

46 posted on 09/09/2008 10:37:13 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cringing Negativism Network
If light itself cannot escape the gravity of a black hole, how exactly can one “evaporate”?

Quantum mechanics and "virtual particles", which in the vicinity of a small black hole turn out not to be so virtual.

Basically a particle and it's anti particle spontaneously appear. Absent the black hole they would annihilate each other with not net loss or gain of mass-energy. However, if one get sucked in to the black hole, it can't annihilate it's partner. The energy of the partner, including both it's mass and kinetic energy, has to come from somewhere, and "somewhere" turns out to be the mass of the black hole itself.

It's a gravity gradient effect, not even noticiable around a star or galaxy mass black hole, but it causes little black holes, the type the collider *might* make, to go "poof" faster than they can suck in new matter.

47 posted on 09/09/2008 10:44:16 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Cringing Negativism Network
How many of those particles you refer to, collide precisely right into each other in opposite directions, both at light speed — exactly on the surface of our planet?...

Doesn't matter, it's the total energy of the collision that matters. Many cosmic rays have far more energy than two protons colliding in the LHC. Besides, given relativity. The two situations, one faster particle hitting a slow or "stationary" one, and two particles hitting each other at some very high fraction of the speed of light, are equivalent ways of describing the same thing.

48 posted on 09/09/2008 10:49:38 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: TNdandelion

I’m going to wait a few days before I mow the lawn.


49 posted on 09/09/2008 10:55:03 PM PDT by palomonte (the universe tends to unfold as it should)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: buccaneer81
Well...we're not exactly doing it. The Europeans are ( although Americans are a part of the team.)

Yea, but it was supposed to be done earlier than now, and in Texas. But the Congress took away the funding as soon as the Texas site was selected, or almost as soon anyway. (The alternative which would have been more LHC like than the Texas based Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) would have been.

I believe they grow mushrooms in part of the incomplete tunnel under the Waxahachie Texas area.

IIRC, the SSC would ultimately have been able to reach higher energies than the LHC, although initially it would have been comparable to the limit reachable by the LHc.

50 posted on 09/09/2008 10:57:31 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Cringing Negativism Network
Today I saw a van which burned to a crisp on the freeway.

Undoubtedly, yesterday the driver did not crash...

So you're walking everywhere now?

51 posted on 09/09/2008 10:58:38 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: buccaneer81
I have a feeling that the Moon would follow us into oblivion ;-)

Probably not, it would just continue to orbit with the little black hole that had once been the earth. If there was anything alive there, the "event" might have done it in though. A black hole eating a planet is bound to be an energetic event. With the energy being mostly hard gamma and X-rays. :)

52 posted on 09/09/2008 11:00:51 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-52 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson