Friday, April 4, 2008

Cartoon for April 5

The Large Hadron Collider, some say, could destroy the world. Maybe even the universe.

Now go watch some more sports.

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23 comments:

  1. Aggie DudeApril 4, 2008 at 6:09 PM

    High Particle Physics is real science, and therefore is much more important than...I dunno....APPLYING existing science and technology to real world problems....like health care and poverty.

    I'm glad I don't live in the 'real world' of 'real stuff,' Ted, I just study my silly little social movements and how industrializing our food system is potentially going to kill us.

    Eat that burger.......eeeaaat it!!!

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  2. AnonymousApril 5, 2008 at 6:06 AM

    Meh. If it happens, it happens.

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  3. AnonymousApril 5, 2008 at 6:31 AM

    Now's the time to watch The Mist, Ghostbusters, The Call Of Cthulu and that bootleg copy of Cloverfield you bought from the Korean guy with the knapsack. Don't these scientists have something more important to do?? Cancer cure??? AIDS vaccine?? A car that runs on...??? Dorme bene

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  4. J. A. LudtkeApril 5, 2008 at 9:02 AM

    That was an interesting story, I had no idea two concerned (potential) crackpots were trying to keep the LHC from operating.

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  5. AltWorlderApril 5, 2008 at 11:11 AM

    APPLYING existing science and technology to real world problems....like health care and poverty.

    Yes, because no one is applying science to those problems, and the existence of such problems totally invalidates the need for experiments in high particle physics.

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  6. AngeloApril 5, 2008 at 1:29 PM

    aggie, I am actually studying food instability. Could you point me toward some academic info on the matter?

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  7. AnonymousApril 5, 2008 at 7:01 PM

    On the first part, the "Micro Black Hole", it isn't as dangerous as it sounds. While an atom size black hole can be created, and has been many times now, it isn't dangerous. First, it's "Event Horizon" is so small a proton couldn't fit into it. Second, "Hawking Radiation" does exist and while the galaxy size black holes might evaporate unthinkable aeons into the future, the most stable atom size ones don't have a second of life.

    However,

    Their total lack of care about a 'strangelet' issue is beyond forgiveness, but not totally unbelievable.

    Note that on the testing of the atomic bomb, there was similar concern that the nuclear reaction would 'crack' matter in a way that all matter would tear apart and there would be a wave of death flying through the universe at half light speed. They did the math and the best calculations were 3 million to one, so they went ahead. Later calculations showed it to be so unlikely as to be effectively impossible, like if all matter in the universe were atomic bombs, there wouldn't be enough for the 'just right' chain reaction in three universes. But, at 3 million to one odds of obliterating the universe, they still went ahead with it.

    If I was an anti-semite, I'd point out all the "Jewish" stuff about it...


    But I am an amatuer Biologist. Thanks to the "War on Terror" sh*t, I'm terrified myself to order commonplace lab equipment. Yet look at the sh*t they let these physicist monsters get away with. Gads, I feel like a luddite who wants to smash something, like one of those college setups that is turned into either new ways to murder one's fellow man, or torture him, or make computers better to take another job from someone away or just make the rich even richer.

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  8. aggie dorkApril 5, 2008 at 10:17 PM

    blah blah blah blah blah me me me me blah blah blah i know everything so don't argue with me i'm in the academy so i'm automatically right blah blah blah me me me blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

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  9. JoeApril 5, 2008 at 10:19 PM

    Two amateurs (and I use the term charitably) are trying to gainsay actual, recognized scientists through the legal system? These shenanigans are almost as bad as the creationist/ID hijinks.

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  10. Aggie DudeApril 5, 2008 at 11:13 PM

    Angelo: I'm not sure if by food instability you mean food insecurity or not, so I'm not sure if my literary network is what you need.

    I am a sociologist who studies social movements and alternative agriculture, and we define food insecurity as a state in which people lose control over the the factors that impact whether or not they have access to food.

    By this definition a large portion of Americans are food insecure, because they are dependent upon a food system that is not democratic, not transparent, not necessarily very safe, and possesses extreme levels of systemic failure that can not be fixed using the current market-based paradigm.

    If this is what you mean, then I'd start with:

    Patrick H. Mooney and Scott A. Hunt. “Framing Food Security; Hunger, Community, Risk, and Terror”. Received ‘revise and resubmit’ for (the journal) Social Problems.

    If you're more interested in instability from a more biological stance, such as research on pathogens, the root causes of crop failures or infrastructural problems, there are probably other routes that might serve you better.

    I hope that helps!!

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  11. AnonymousApril 6, 2008 at 9:21 AM

    If true, the HLC would be a doomsday machine. Doomsday machines can be considered weapons of mass destruction.

    Haven't we learned anything about believing cranks who accuse others of possessing weapons of mass destruction? Especially when the do so for selfish, ideological reasons and without a shred of hard evidence.

    Particles with energies comparable to those generated by the LHC exist all over the universe. They bombard our planet constantly. If these particles were truly dangerous, Earth would have disappeared a long time ago. The LHC simply generates these particles in a controlled laboratory setting.

    Concerns of black holes were fully studied before the operation of the RHIC collider at Brookhaven and revealed to be bogus.

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  12. AnonymousApril 6, 2008 at 9:24 AM

    To amateur biologist,

    As an amateur biologist, you have scientific credentials comparable to Walter Wagner. He is the lone attorney trying to shut LHC down with a federal injunction.

    If he succeeds, I only hope the Swiss are as dismissive of our laws as we are of the Geneva convention.

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  13. Aggie DudeApril 6, 2008 at 9:49 AM

    "Yes, because no one is applying science to those problems, and the existence of such problems totally invalidates the need for experiments in high particle physics."

    YES, PRECISELY. Until we commit the world to establishing a baseline opportunity for a life free of poverty, hunger and disease, I will NOT be satisfied with small pockets of insulated elites playing with enormously expensive toys and saying "that other stuff isn't our problem."

    People may be applying some level of evaluation to those problems, but they aren't very well funded. The only funding currently is going to either a war machine or things that can be commercialized to make some group of people filthy rich while huge swaths of the population still die from diseases humanity cured long ago.

    If the community of physicists were required to contribute a portion of their time to improving the lives of others outside their labs (I've been to a cyclotron, there's not much going on that is directly related to improving human quality of life), then you'd find these brilliant minds starting to work on solutions that benefit people.

    Don't give me your "people are working on it" crap...Governments have their thumbs up their asses, politicians see more promise in high particle physics than they do in establishing children's health insurance. I'm much more willing to accept this occurring in Europe, mind you, but even Europe has a long way to go and they're actually regressing socially.

    The next step in your logic is from "other people are applying science...." to "those problems will always be there, why invest time in them?"

    This is an argument I've heard countless times as a matter of fact.

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  14. IncitatusApril 6, 2008 at 4:01 PM

    Aggie dude, how do "we" (meaning you and those who think like you), "commit the world" to freeing the world of hunger, poverty and disease(!!)? If it's the old central-planning, jackboot, and forced labor I think I'll pass.
    OTOH, if you're so keen on eradicating everything bad, how about throwing in loneliness together with hunger and poverty? Now that's something innovative for you socialists to blather about!
    You're right about cutting the funding for the war machines, at least. Down with was, be it on "terror", on "drugs" or on "poverty". It only makes more victims than the evils it supposedly struggles with.

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  15. AltWorlderApril 6, 2008 at 6:39 PM

    YES, PRECISELY. Until we commit the world to establishing a baseline opportunity for a life free of poverty, hunger and disease, I will NOT be satisfied with small pockets of insulated elites playing with enormously expensive toys and saying "that other stuff isn't our problem."

    Oh, blah. Who says their playing with enormously expensive toys won't lead to scientific advancements along the way that will be just as highly beneficial to mankind? People thought that the space program was a boondoggle, but we've gained loads of applications in materials sciences and whatnot just from orbital experiments. What if we uncovered some sort of principle in physics through these programs that leads to the creation of better energy sources? I will not let your neo-Ludditism and sociologist chauvinism rob us of fusion power.

    If the community of physicists were required to contribute a portion of their time to improving the lives of others outside their labs (I've been to a cyclotron, there's not much going on that is directly related to improving human quality of life), then you'd find these brilliant minds starting to work on solutions that benefit people.

    Guess what? They're physicists. They're mathematicians. The fields of study they chose do not necessarily have the most concrete applications to daily life. I don't know what you mean by "improving the lives of others outside their labs", unless you're suggesting they help run nuclear power plants to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, but somehow I doubt that's what you mean. Are you going to force them to abandon their lives' work to become sociologists? If you're going to decry huge wastes of time, why don't you vent against liberal arts majors?

    Governments have their thumbs up their asses, politicians see more promise in high particle physics than they do in establishing children's health insurance.

    Really? Where's the evidence for this? When's the last time you saw the Bush administration doing even an iota's worth of work for advancing high particle physics? Building a cyclotron != closing down orphanages.

    The next step in your logic is from "other people are applying science...." to "those problems will always be there, why invest time in them?"

    Slippery slope argument.

    This is an argument I've heard countless times as a matter of fact.

    And your dreary neo-Luddite "why are they wasting money on this???" hysteria is something not unknown to me, either.

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  16. AltWorlderApril 6, 2008 at 6:59 PM

    If I was a rich contrarian billionaire like Gates I would fund a scholarship program for brilliant third world children to become high particle physicists. And bioengineers involved in GM foods. And computer scientists focused on artificial intelligence research.

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  17. AngeloApril 6, 2008 at 9:06 PM

    thanks aggie.
    food insecurity. Right. (Mental typo there...). Clearly I am behind in my studies.
    Thanks. My professor is requiring that I use a minimum of 20 sources, all of them must be "scholarly" journals, so more the merrier.

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  18. Aggie DudeApril 7, 2008 at 6:12 AM

    TED!!! I one day long to strike a nerve in people as effectively as you do!

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  19. IncitatusApril 7, 2008 at 3:30 PM

    Re aggie dude: TED!!! I one day long to strike a nerve in people as effectively as you do!

    As long as you don't use a taser to do that, aggie, I'm fine with your trying it.

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  20. bcdmApril 9, 2008 at 7:11 AM

    Aggie dude, why the false dilemma? I thought that was Bush's purvey...

    Doing a few quick number-crunches, I'm pretty sure that, once you get rid of Iraq and other discretionary military spending, and get tax levels back to something vaguely reasonable on corporations and the wealthy, there's enough money in the budget to cover feeding everyone, proper healthcare, *and* high-velocity particle physics, even while keeping the budget balanced. Crazy talk, I know, I know.

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  21. AnonymousApril 12, 2008 at 4:43 PM

    How dare ANYONE do ANYTHING, EVER, while people are starving in the world??? How DARE they??????

    Get off the internet and start helping people nonstop, forever, until you die, if this is honestly your philosophy. If not, stop sharing your ideas so freely until you understand what they really are.

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  22. AngeloApril 16, 2008 at 2:41 PM

    yeah, if you are not too busy fixing the problem to talk about it, then you should not be allowed to talk about it!

    I am so sick of hearing the truth from just any old, lazy, sap. I have standards, damn it. No discussion allowed. No more global warming chickenhawks (TM).

    And if you have ever bought anything that was made in China, you can't talk about Tibet.

    If you live in America, you can't criticize it. You have to move to France, first.

    Everyone, just shut up. The fact that you are a hypocrite is more important than the actual news.

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  23. LumpinProllieApril 16, 2008 at 5:51 PM

    Yesss! Well I just want to ask what we are all really doing to stop this? I am just about to flip out at the gas station with all of the stoopid cows, myself included, standing around the gas pump- glazed eyes- pumping away our paychecks and thinking about who is going to win American Idol/”Decision 2008″ this week, I don’t go that far, I don’t care. I want to scream why the hell are we doing this? Why do we work and work and go nowhere? I want to run anywhere, where the people aren’t docile, where people get as angry as I am now. I am simmering, not down, but up, to the point of boiling. I want to yell all of the time now, but I don’t. I pump my gas silently, and go home.

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