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Tech giants use controversial project as test bed ( Hadron Collider threatens the earth says Suit)
MarketWatch ^ | June 12, 2008 7:03 p.m. EDT | John Letzing, MarketWatch

Posted on 06/13/2008 12:01:07 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach

Lawsuit stirs fear of 'strangelets' destroying the Earth; 100,000 chips deployed

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- If all goes according to plan, a massive underground facility in Switzerland will begin smashing particles together later this summer in an effort to provide a clearer understanding of the physical universe than has ever before been possible.

For companies like Oracle Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co., which have helped develop a system to send the resulting data surging through a sprawling network, the project is already providing a chance to test some of their most cutting-edge technologies.

Video: Tech giants aid project
Some of the biggest high-tech names have helped develop a network meant to transmit data from a massive physics experiment to scientists worldwide. But a lawsuit threatens a delay. (June 12)
Known as the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, the project is composed of a 17-mile circular tunnel beneath Geneva, containing thousands of magnets meant to send beams of subatomic particles hurtling toward each other. The resulting collisions are expected to release matter similar to that present at the "Big Bang" that created the universe.

But a lawsuit filed in March suggesting the LHC could produce doomsday scenarios straight out of a science-fiction novel poses a long-shot threat to delay its launch.

(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: callingartbell; chickenlittle; environment; hadroncollider; stringtheory; theendisnigh
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1 posted on 06/13/2008 12:01:08 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Interesting that the guy who filed the lawsuit is tilting at this windmill with a Spaniard named Sancho.


2 posted on 06/13/2008 12:06:30 PM PDT by Redcloak (The 2nd Amendment: It's not about sporting goods.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

3 posted on 06/13/2008 12:16:57 PM PDT by 6SJ7
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

What is the carbon footprint (manufacturing of parts, energy usage, etc.) of their tinker toy?


4 posted on 06/13/2008 12:26:57 PM PDT by weegee (In 1988 Lenora Fulani was the 1st black woman to appear on presidential ballots in all 50 states)
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To: 6SJ7; NormsRevenge; SunkenCiv; Fred Nerks
OK...reference for others:

The Proton Pack is a fictional piece of nuclear accelerative machinery created by the Ghostbusters.

*******************EXCERPT*************************

It is their primary tool in the 1984 Ghostbusters film for "busting" ghosts. It has a hand-held wand ("Proton Gun" or particle thrower) connected to a backpack-sized particle accelerator. It fires a proton stream that polarizes with the negatively charged energy of a ghost allowing it to be held in the stream while active. The proton packs' particle throwers were originally portrayed as wands worn on each arm.

[edit] In the Ghostbusters universe

The proton pack, also referred to as a charged particle accelerator, functions by "concentrating protons" (though in the first movie it is referred to as "positron collider" once, and the gun is also called a "neutrona wand"), using them to attack "negatively charged ectoplasmic entities". This description is technobabble; in practical terms, the proton gun fires a stream of energy that allows a wielder to snare a ghost, holding it in place so it can be positioned above a trap for capture. Dr. Egon Spengler designed the pack, intending it for this purpose. A cut scene from Ghostbusters showed Egon plugging the pack into a wall outlet to recharge it, only to have the plug melt.[citation needed]

The Ghostbusters' dialogue indicates that it operates similarly to a cyclotron, in that it produces a high-powered stream of charged particles. In contrast to a real cyclotron (which produces well-collimated streams of particles), the beam from a proton pack tends to undulate wildly (though it still stays within the general area at which the user is aiming), is quite destructive to physical objects, and can cause extensive property damage.

According to a line spoken by Egon in Ghostbusters II, each pack's energy cell has a half-life of 5000 years. Knobs on the main stock of the Proton Pack can perform various functions to customize the proton stream, including adjustments for stream intensity, length, and degrees of polarization. According to the cartoon, the maximum power setting for the Proton Packs is "500,000 megahertz" and they have a self-destruct mechanism capable of affecting at least a half-mile radius. The cartoon also made proton packs less efficient with power cells, allowing them to run out of energy when appropriate for dramatic tension.

5 posted on 06/13/2008 12:34:46 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (No Burkas for my Grandaughters!)
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To: weegee

The emissions of the collider are not CO2...they might let lose some strange non carbon particles however....


6 posted on 06/13/2008 12:38:58 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (No Burkas for my Grandaughters!)
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To: weegee
What is the carbon footprint (manufacturing of parts, energy usage, etc.) of their tinker toy?

Probably less than Al Bore's mansion and airplane rides.

7 posted on 06/13/2008 12:43:11 PM PDT by Just another Joe (Warning: FReeping can be addictive and helpful to your mental health)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Dick Armey and his band of no vision = no spending republicans killed the Super Collider project in Texas over a price tag way below the crap being passed out for bike trails last year. This project now in progress in the EU would be in it’s 15th year, in Texas if the brain dead had any vision. Republicans are not very street smart.


8 posted on 06/13/2008 12:49:58 PM PDT by q_an_a ( that is right not out in public in the media in mialings to citizens ther)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

“Strangelets, for example, are theoretical objects that could destroy the matter they touch..”

You mean turn anything they touch into sh*t? You mean government, don’t you?


9 posted on 06/13/2008 12:53:50 PM PDT by 353FMG (What marxism and fascism could not destroy, liberalism did.)
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To: 353FMG

LOL...it might help the Irish with their battle with the EU...


10 posted on 06/13/2008 1:00:42 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (No Burkas for my Grandaughters!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

So that’s how that Japanese car runs on water!


11 posted on 06/13/2008 1:09:12 PM PDT by count-your-change (you don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
And, of course, there's the other Health Risk.

Namely, if your Large Hadron lasts more than four hours, call your doctor immediately.

12 posted on 06/13/2008 1:39:31 PM PDT by Tanniker Smith (Teachers open the door. It's up to you to enter.)
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To: Tanniker Smith

LOL!


13 posted on 06/13/2008 2:23:18 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (No Burkas for my Grandaughters!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

If they make it a class action suit, I want in.

Just in case the world should cease to exist.

Gonna need some money to move somewhere else, once the planet is gone.


14 posted on 06/13/2008 4:43:38 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (I reserve the right to misinterpret the comments of any and all pesters)
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To: UCANSEE2
Won't you need inter Galactic Exchange currency...not sure if dollars or the Euro will be recognized. ...LOL
15 posted on 06/13/2008 6:18:47 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (No Burkas for my Grandaughters!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; AdmSmith; bvw; callisto; ckilmer; dandelion; ganeshpuri89; gobucks; ...
Thanks Ernest. I don't see how there's money to be made with this lawsuit, so I'll just wait for the world to end, like everybody else. ;')

16 posted on 06/13/2008 7:12:50 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_________________________Profile updated Friday, May 30, 2008)
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To: Tanniker Smith; martin_fierro

LOLOLOL!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2030707/posts?page=12#12


17 posted on 06/13/2008 7:16:46 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_________________________Profile updated Friday, May 30, 2008)
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To: SunkenCiv; Tanniker Smith

18 posted on 06/13/2008 7:26:28 PM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: SunkenCiv

What would it take to fabricate a micro-black hole? Well, precisely what the LHC is trying to achieve. So you need to ask yourself, ‘Will a micro-black hole continue to grow into a macro black hole?’ Ancillary to that is, ‘Were there micro-black holes with the demise of the first stars in the early universe ... and did they lead to the formation of galaxies as they grew into macro-black holes?’


19 posted on 06/13/2008 7:32:34 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
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To: MHGinTN

:’) Assuming there are black holes, going into one won’t even hurt; we could be inside one right now and not know it. :’D

Lawsuit: Huge Atom Smasher Could Destroy World
(French/Swiss Hadron Collider)
Fox News | 3-28-08 | Paul Wagenseil
Posted on 03/28/2008 11:52:07 AM PDT by springtime4hillary
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1993231/posts

Asking a Judge to Save the World (from the Large Hadron Collider)
New York Times | 3-29-08 | Dennis Overbye
Posted on 03/29/2008 10:57:09 PM PDT by atomic conspiracy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1993903/posts

CERN to Morons: Large Hadron Collider Won’t Destroy Earth. Morons.
Gizmodo | 3/31/08
Posted on 04/03/2008 12:56:00 AM PDT by LibWhacker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1995923/posts

-and-

Big Bang at the atomic lab after scientists get their maths wrong
Times Online | 4/8/07 | Jonathan Leake
Posted on 04/08/2007 8:55:49 AM PDT by LibWhacker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1814013/posts

Particle collider magnet self-destructs
AP on Yahoo | 4/3/07 | Alexander G. Higgins - ap
Posted on 04/03/2007 9:35:12 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1811659/posts

New particle accelerator could rule out string theory [ Large Hadron Collider ]
New Scientist | February 1, 2007 | David Shiga
Posted on 02/03/2007 1:18:18 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1778727/posts

Physicists Say Can Find No Sign of ‘God Particle’
Reuters / Yahoo | December 5, 2001
Posted on 12/06/2001 4:46:03 AM PST by Darth Reagan
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/584881/posts


20 posted on 06/13/2008 8:04:49 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_________________________Profile updated Friday, May 30, 2008)
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