[polluted]

By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer
Sun Sep 7, 2:52 PM ET



GENEVA - It has been called an Alice in Wonderland investigation into the makeup of the universe — or dangerous tampering with nature that could spell doomsday.



Whatever the case, the most powerful atom-smasher ever built comes online Wednesday, eagerly anticipated by scientists worldwide who have awaited this moment for two decades.

The multibillion-dollar Large Hadron Collider will explore the tiniest particles and come ever closer to re-enacting the big bang, the theory that a colossal explosion created the universe.

The machine at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, promises scientists a closer look at the makeup of matter, filling in gaps in knowledge or possibly reshaping theories.

The first beams of protons will be fired around the 17-mile tunnel to test the controlling strength of the world's largest superconducting magnets. It will still be about a month before beams traveling in opposite directions are brought together in collisions that some skeptics fear could create micro "black holes" and endanger the planet.

The project has attracted researchers of 80 nationalities, some 1,200 of them from the United States, which contributed $531 million of the project's price tag of nearly $4 billion.

"This only happens once a generation," said Katie Yurkewicz, spokeswoman for the U.S. contingent at the CERN project. "People are certainly very excited."

The collider at Fermilab outside Chicago could beat CERN to some discoveries, but the Geneva equipment, generating seven times more energy than Fermilab, will give it big advantages.

The CERN collider is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel 150 to 500 feet under the bucolic countryside on the French-Swiss border.

Once the beam is successfully fired counterclockwise, a clockwise test will follow. Then the scientists will aim the beams at each other so that protons collide, shattering into fragments and releasing energy under the gaze of detectors filling cathedral-sized caverns at points along the tunnel.

CERN dismisses the risk of micro black holes, subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they can suck in planets and other stars.

But the skeptics have filed suit in U.S. District Court in Hawaii and in the European Court of Human Rights to stop the project. They unsuccessfully mounted a similar action in 1999 to block the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state.

CERN's collider has been under construction since 2003, financed mostly by its 20 European member states. The United States and Japan are major contributors with observer status in CERN.

Scientists started colliding subatomic particles decades ago. As the machines grew more powerful, the experiments revealed that protons and neutrons — previously thought to be the smallest components of an atom — were made of still smaller quarks and gluons.

CERN hopes to recreate conditions in the laboratory a split-second after the big bang, teaching them more about "dark matter," antimatter and possibly hidden dimensions of space and time.

Meanwhile, scientists have found innovative ways to explain the concept in layman's terms.

The team working on one of the four major installations in the tunnel — the ALICE, or "A Large Ion Collider Experiment" — produced a comic book featuring Carlo the physicist and a girl called Alice to explain the machine's investigation of matter a split second after the Big Bang.

"We create mini Big Bangs by bumping two nuclei into each other," Carlo explains to Alice, who has just followed a rabbit down one of the hole-like shafts at CERN.

"This releases an enormous amount of energy that liberates thousands of quarks and gluons normally imprisoned inside the nucleus. Quarks and gluons then form a kind of thick soup that we call the quark-gluon plasma."

The soup cools quickly and the quarks and gluons stick together to form protons and neutrons, the building blocks of matter.

That will enable scientists to look for still missing pieces to the puzzle — or lead to the formulation of a new theory on the makeup of matter.

Kate McAlpine, 23, a Michigan State University graduate at CERN, has produced the Large Hadron Rap, a video clip that has attracted more than a million views on YouTube.

"The things that it discovers will rock you in the head," McAlpine raps as she dances in the tunnel and caverns.

CERN spokesman James Gillies said the lyrics are "absolutely scientifically spot on."

"It's quite brilliant," Gillies said.

___

On the Net:

CERN: http://www.cern.ch

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory: http://www.fnal.gov

The U.S. at the LHC: http://www.uslhc.us/

Large Hadron Rap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?vf6aU-wFSqt0


-----> What are your thoughts on this issue? <-----

[polluted]

:star-wars-smileyWoooHooo,it broke down.personally whats so important about what happened after the big bang?and what are they gonna do with the new matter?eh....all that time,resources,brain power,and energy should be used for stuff thats gonna help man kind and or Earth.

[Medpatient]

Originally Posted by polluted

:star-wars-smileyWoooHooo,it broke down.personally whats so important about what happened after the big bang?and what are they gonna do with the new matter?eh....all that time,resources,brain power,and energy should be used for stuff thats gonna help man kind and or Earth.

yea I saw that they are having problems with it. What I find interesting is that it will cost 23 million dollars in electricity just to operate this thing a year.

[polluted]

they should colonize the moon and set these nutty experements up there.plus its ideal tempsfor them and no gravity

[The Urban Spaceman]

Originally Posted by polluted

they should colonize the moon and set these nutty experements up there.plus its ideal tempsfor them and no gravity

my people won't LET you eff around on the Moon. it's bad enough you screwed your OWN planet up...
why do ya think you're having SO much trouble getting offa this planet? we won't let ya! unmanned flights only, we don't want you all going out there and overpopulating the freaking galaxy and spreading your racism and wars.
maybe if y'all grow up someday...

[polluted]

true~true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rziV5AyPh1I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5yiIJphwGk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkFAQHFWQWw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gewwwPDbZ0

[The Urban Spaceman]

Originally Posted by polluted

true~true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rziV5AyPh1I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5yiIJphwGk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkFAQHFWQWw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gewwwPDbZ0

yes - you HAVE found our message. thank you for sharing it with everyone.

[Will]

Yeah I haven't posted anything at all on the LHCollider as it just infuriates me and I just cannot believe or understand how these guys are being allowed to do this????

I have done a lot, I mean a lot of research on this and granted it will probably be okay, but the fact is nobody knows for 100% sure that it won't destroy the earth, it has the potential to create an irreversible slow growing black hole That will Destroy the Earth or a fast growing black hole That Will Destroy the Earth or micro quasar That will Destroy the Earth or may create any of countless other catastrophes that we can't imagine.

How the "most intelligent people in the world" can put everyone in harms way is beyond me, I mean even if there is only one in a Trillion chance of total destruction that is still INSANE, it is criminal that these guys are allowed to gamble with ALL LIFE on the earth....It's sickening.


I encourage you guys to see what this really does look it up, when the particles collide they will do many things, actually destroying matter and creating new matter, including possibly dark matter, anti matter, and other unknown particles, how can any of that be 100% safe, anything could happen when they don't even know what they are expecting......INSANE

They even expect and even hope to create many miniature black holes (that they expect to evaporate IF the Theoretical Hawking radiation exists, if it doesn't exist then they just keep growing and Destroy the Earth ) Insanity

I'm just going to stop ranting right now as there isn't much I can do but wait and watch.

[The Urban Spaceman]

Originally Posted by Will

Yeah I haven't posted anything at all on the LHCollider as it just infuriates me and I just cannot believe or understand how these guys are being allowed to do this????

nobody is "allowing" them to do it - didja happen to notice it doesn't actually work? we did that! not to worry - we won't let y'all destroy Earth. we wanna do that ourselves in 2012 so we won't let you spoil our fun. besides, all we're gonna do is "sterilize" the planet. this thing could actually remove it from this reality and sent it to another one. so we aren't gonna let you actually turn the thing on. so go have a bowl and relax. Spacey has everything under control.

[Will]

Originally Posted by The Urban Spaceman

we wanna do that ourselves in 2012 so go have a bowl and relax. Spacey has everything under control.

One of the Curious things is the Quasar forming prediction says that it is estimated to take around 48 months for it to grow in size enough to destroy the Earth everything............Hmmmmmm 2008 + 48 months hmmmmmm 2012, seriously coincidental.


I do like your relax advice, what else can ya do

[The Urban Spaceman]

Originally Posted by Will

One of the Curious things is the Quasar forming prediction says that it is estimated to take around 48 months for it to grow in size enough to destroy the Earth everything............Hmmmmmm 2008 + 48 months hmmmmmm 2012, seriously coincidental.


I do like your relax advice, what else can ya do

hey, everybody laughs at the old Spaceman... "oh that Spacey - he just loves to joke around."

did you ever see the movie K-Pax? by the end of the movie could you tell if Kevin Spacey's (another coincidence? i don't think so!) character was cRaZy, or if he was REALLY from another planet? makes ya think doesn't it... maybe old Spacey ISN'T just making jokes... 2008 + 48 months = 2012! you caught the significance now didn't ya...
so maybe I'm just another guy just making up stuff to get a laugh on WT - and maybe NOT...

so we might as well relax ... if they kill us all with Atom Bombs, Atom Smashers, and anything else that has to do with the Atom, we'll never know what hit us anyway. so forget about getting under your desk - just relax, smoke a bowl and wait and see. who knows, getting sucked into an Earth sized Black Hole might be FUN... maybe Disney needs to make it a ride at Disneyland... the Black Hole Ride! screw Space Mountain!

[polluted]

2012 is a new begining.which translates to a new solar cycle.next cycle is aquarius.the only way earth will be destroyed,is by human hands.or an asteroid.which is like 34 yrs away.we should be building a plasma weapon for such a thing.