Physical Fitnas?
Large Hadron Collider
The fitna to end all fitnas!
(Image by Valerio Mezzanotti for the NYT)
We may seem to be headed for that much debated clash of civilizations that Samuel Huntington has written about, but Dennis Overbye, writing for the International Herald Tribune (March 29, 2008), reports on a new technological development might offer the solution to all our problems:
More strife in Iraq. U.S. financial system in crisis. Rice prices soar.Wouldn't that be a beaut of a fitna! A fitna ending, one might say. Unfortunately for us, this probably won't happen:
None of these headlines will matter a bit, though, if two men . . . in Hawaii turn out to be right. They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole that will spell the end of the Earth -- and maybe the universe.
Scientists say that is very unlikely -- though they have done some checking just to make sure.But if it were to happen, it would be a most appropriate deus ex machina ringing down a final curtain on the whole sorry drama.
It would also take care of my flu, a case severe enough to warrent such world-shaking intervention . . . in my humble opinion, of course.
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 5:12 AM
23 comments
23 Comments:
Nice title, Jeffery!
I am often disappointed when I come up with some clever bit of worldplay like that - I usually find, if I Google it,that someone has beaten me to it. I'll never forget how crestfallen I was when I found some years ago that someone had already used "A man's speech should exceed his grasp, or what's a metaphor?"
I had been awfully chuffed when I came up with that, but it turned out I was hardly the first. It looks like you beat everyone else to the punch with this one, though.
I'm not worried that we'll get swallowed up by any black holes or strangelets when the LHC powers up; in fact, I have to say, we science weenies are damp with excitement as the time approaches.
You know, I usually wonder about such puns when I make them, but I didn't think to check this time. I'd like to think that I'm the first, but after reading your comment, I have checked online, and at least one person has beaten me to the punchy line:
"Shy Guy" at Jihad Watch
Once again, Solomon is proven right: There's nothing new under the sun.
Your own pun was heavenly. Too bad others had reached there before and gotten their fingerprints all over it.
Jeffery Hodges
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Oh. Somehow I missed that one.
It was much easier to be original in the pre-Internet era, when the information horizon was so very much smaller.
I think I feel a blog post coming on...!
This is one bit of information, that I wish I didn't know. This is not something the scientist could react to. I think that we should at least be able to travel into interstellar space before we would risk an experiment that could produce a black hole and then only do the experiment remotely in some dead part of the galaxy.
But Hathor, if we don't do this sort of research, we'll never get to interstellar space in the first place!
Tell you what: I'll bet you ten thousand bucks against a single dollar that the LHC doesn't cause the world to end.
A blog post decrying the internet? Are you becoming a Luddite, Malcolm?
Jeffery Hodges
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I don't know enough physics to argue.
Intuitively I think we will be able to get to interstellar space, once we have another breakthrough in mathematics.
That's a trick bet, Hathor. Don't take him up on it! It's one of those heads-I-win, tails-you-lose propositions, and you'll never get your money even if Malcolm loses.
Unless there's an afterlife in which you can dun Malcom for eternity. Wouldn't that be bliss! And hell for Malcolm...
Jeffery Hodges
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I also know too little physics or math. My high school days as science-and-math geek are long forebye.
Jeffery Hodges
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Yeah, that's me: a blog-posting, software-engineering, LHC-loving Luddite.
I get it, Malcolm, you Luddite agent provacateur musical foreigner from 1984!
Jeffery Hodges
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Jeff-er-y
I am glad you are fit enough to be back in your game!
I have to talk to Dad so I can make an intelligent comment about your actual post
later
JeanieO
Jeanie, my lack of the proper intelligence didn't stop me from posting...
Jeffery Hodges
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Hi all,
Had a bit of an unusual electromagnetic disturbance last night and so was unable to participate in this nice metaphorical thing. I worried myself if they'd turned on the juice to those big electromagnets in Geneva.
Nevermind about checking to make a neat comment on Jeffery's current subject. There were several made on the March 30 entry over at:
http://www.twistedphysics.typepad.com/
And one idiotic comment.
JK
Indeed, JK. Following your link, we read:
The self-styled Prophets of Doom never rest in their single-minded mission to halt scientific progress around the globe and quash the spirit of free inquiry and discovery wherever it threatens to bloom. In this case, the plaintiffs want to postpone start-up preparations for "at least" four months in order to "reassess" the collider's safety. Because, you know, it could destroy the world by creating mini-black holes, magnetic monopoles, or converting all the matter in the universe into exotic strangelets.
(*cue exasperated eye-rolling*) Oh, give me a break already. This is nothing more than the latest round of fear-mongering that always seems to accompany the start-up of a new accelerator. In fact, one of the plaintiffs is none other than "former nuclear safety officer" Walter Wagner, who spearheaded the attempt to create panic surrounding Brookhaven's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) -- that lawsuit was dismissed, and rightly so. News flash to Wagner (and his ilk): RHIC has been operating since 2000. The world has not yet ended. Nor did it end when Fermilab's Tevatron turned on -- not a single artificial supernova appeared, despite all the preliminary hand-wringing by fear-mongers -- or when the Stanford Linear Accelerator came online.
Perhaps some of you think I am a bit too hasty in pooh-poohing the risks associated with a big powerful machine like the LHC. Let me assure you that this is not the case: I believe very strongly that science has a responsibility to evaluate the safety of its experiments, particularly for something as massive as the LHC. LHC scientists have done so. Wagner's concerns are nothing new to anyone who has followed the development of the accelerator's design and construction over the last decade or more. The inherent risks have been fully and fairly considered by the best scientific minds in the world, who take their responsibility for ensuring safety of operation very, very seriously. To suggest otherwise is, frankly, an insult to the world high-energy physics community.
Say, that's a pretty interesting-looking blog. Thanks for the tip, JK.
I left some pics on my blog of our own "twisted physics" here last night on the hill in Fulton County. Very weird, right in between the house and other barn.
www.jeanieoliver.blogspot.com
Jeff,
Dad,otherwise known as "physics central", just says,"damn lawyers"!! which means he didn't want to talk science right then, just storms and cattle!
JK,
I've known who you are for weeks now. So if you don't comment on my blogs I have no one to converse with! Choose another sobriquet, or just kid around and don't sign them
JeanieO
Welcome Malcolm,
As you might tell JK has eclectic tastes when it comes to blogs. And too much time on his hands.
Yet it is this time thing as the site describes and the inherent dangers of some other people who might share some of JK's crackpot tendencies. We worry that lightning might be some big conspiracy, and though we know most come to naught there have been conspiracies, ergo.
There must be a conspiracy existing in Geneva planning to destroy the world.
It does make sense when you see it posted on a reputable site doesn't it?
JK
JK,
If there's a conspiracy afoot to destroy the world, I think it's more likely to be found on E. 42nd St. than in Geneva.
Well JeaniO,
I thought perhaps you just might. However I was thinking that by using a dictionary more often I might be able to throw you off the track.
However I did mention to our mutual a few days ago that I shall be taking up an extended research project in Antarctica in the near future and that there was no internet where I'd be going.
There will be of course a new doppelganger doppleganging for the incredible and unfortunate representation JK has used to bounce his ideas off of. One who shall be more circumspect should his biographics intersect with the others'.
JK
Malcolm,
I didn't notice that particular location on the Antarctica map I received from the Institute. But since I do have some sense of where Geneva is, I'll keep the "strangelet conspiracy" fixated there for now.
Oh, don't worry about me. I've packed two pairs of mittens.
JK
"I am superfluous here."
Jeffery "Otiose" Hodges
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Oh, gentle scholar, what would we do without you to get us started on this gerrymandered conversation!
JeanieO
Ah, my dreamy Jeanie, "the world is full of blogs" . . . or so said Thales of Miletus.
Jeffery Hodges
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