Posted on 03/31/2010 12:41:00 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Scientists celebrated at the world's biggest atom smasher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva on Tuesday as they started colliding particles at record energy levels mimicking conditions close to the Big Bang, opening a new era in the quest for the secrets of the universe.
The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said it had unleashed the unprecedented bursts of energy on the third attempt, as beams of protons thrust around the 27-kilometre (16.8-mile) accelerator collided at close to the speed of light.
"This is physics in the making, the beginning of a new era, we have collisions at 7 TeV (teralectronvolts)," said Paola Catapano, a CERN scientist and spokeswoman, referring to the record energy levels achieved.
This, the third attempt, triggered collisions among the 20 billion protons in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at 1.06 pm (1106 GMT), creating powerful but microscopic bursts of energy that mimic conditions close to the Big Bang that created the universe.
"We're within a billionth of a second of the Big Bang," CERN spokesman James Gillies told AFP. The new stage, dubbed "First Physics", marks only the beginning of an initial 18- to 24-month series of billions of such collisions.
The LHC, which is located in a tunnel under the Franco-Swiss border, ground to halt with a major breakdown within days of its launch in 2008. But the huge scientific experiment then passed several groundbreaking milestones since it was restarted from repairs last November.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailygalaxy.com ...
bttt
Right.
I think those were reported on FR.
Thx.
That's another one that is counterintuitive at best, and mind boggling for most. Given a universe with a finite mass, people naturally picture a universe (a finite volume, if you will), sitting in an otherwise empty and unlimited space of nothingness. Said another way, that the finite volume has an edge, as does the finite volume of a balloon, milk container, and any other three dimensional object. Get to "the edge of the universe," and all that's left is boundless empty space.
But space itself is not boundless, or "unlimited volume." There is no "edge of the finite universe," no way to get outside of the space of the universe and look back at it. We can't picture a finite volume without a boundary (such a thing can't be modeled in three dimensions), so have to rely on a 2 -> 3 dimensional analogy. The surface of the earth has a finite area (2 space), yet, there is no "edge" of the earth where the area runs out. One could explore the entire surface of the earth, every square millimeter, conclude that the surface is finite, but nowhere in that exploration would we find the "edge" of the surface. The two dimensional area of the earth is wrapped in a third dimension.
There is no "empty space nothingness" outside of the universe. And before the universe began (and also inside a black hole) not only is the notion of "empty space" without meaning, the notion of "time" does not exist either. No before, no after. Everything in our reality, space and time included, had a beginning.
The speed of light varies depending on the medium it is traveling in. Photons emitted at the center of the sun interact with atoms and electrons so often (absorbed and re-emitted), that it takes thousands of years for a photon to travel from the center to the surface of the sun. From there, 8 minutes through empty space to the earth.
AFAIK, all the "light slowing" experiments involve passing the light through a medium other than a vacuum.
Since energy and mass can be converted, one to the other, the energy in a photon does have an equivalent rest mass. But while it's a photon, it is purely energy, with no REST mass.
Photons entering and leaving a system or particles that do have rest mass (electrons, protons, neutrons, atoms, molecules), represents the conversion of energy to mass, and mass to energy. The mass of the system of particles that emits or absorbs a photon changes, the photon adds or subtracts mass by adding or subtracting energy.
The neutrino is a particle that is massless in some theories of physics, but most theories and some experiments indicate neutrinos have some (small) mass.
Fascinating.
Thanks for your kind replies.
True that. And in this vast but limited, amazing, violent, and bizarre universe of space, time, matter and energy, He's provided a safe environment for fragile life.
The details long gone from my memory, my college chemistry professor gave a lecture on the concurrent chemical happenings that make up a single cell organism. A protective shell (cell wall), means to convert "food" into other forms, means to replicate. While any one of these can happen randomly, the chances of all, in the same place, at the same time, arranged to effect living and reproducing in a sea of chemicals that tends to stop the process ... no matter how it came off, it is amazing.
And that's a single cell, far removed from the wonder of complex life-forms, and that removed from the wonder of possessing independent, rational thought. "Blessed" is a gross understatement.
And on this day we are reminded of another gift. The ultimate sacrifice of His own human life - that in conquering death, believers in Him might too.
INDEED.
THANKFULLY.
I'm pinging betty boop to your beautiful testimony, dear brother in Christ. Thank you!
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