Viggen Posted August 27, 2008 Report Share Posted August 27, 2008 I really had a good laugh at that! Although thinking of it, the end is nigh... Let's face it, we really trust science. In fact, studies suggest that the vast majority of people will murder another human being, if a guy in a lab coat tells them it's OK.But surely in their insatiable curiosity and desire to put knowledge above all things, science would never, say, inadvertently set off a chain of events that lead to some sort of disaster that ended the world. Right? Well, here's five experiments that may prove us wrong. The 5 Scientific Experiments Most Likely to End the World Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASCLEPIADES Posted August 28, 2008 Report Share Posted August 28, 2008 (edited) Salve, V. First of all, gratiam habeo for such wonderful link; cracked.com seems really fascinating. Now, we're mixing here two quite different posts: I really had a good laugh at that! Although thinking of it, the end is nigh... Let's face it, we really trust science. In fact, studies suggest that the vast majority of people will murder another human being, if a guy in a lab coat tells them it's OK. Or a military uniform, BTW. The Milgram, Stamford prison, Bystander apathy, Good Samaritan and Asch Conformity Experiments were all well designed classical research which showed us that regarding mass psychology the "just-following-orders" Nazi and similar experience is closer to the rule than to the exception. But surely in their insatiable curiosity and desire to put knowledge above all things, science would never, say, inadvertently set off a chain of events that lead to some sort of disaster that ended the world. Right? Well, here's five experiments that may prove us wrong. The 5 Scientific Experiments Most Likely to End the World On the other hand, I would consider the physical knowledge of SP Davies as questionable at best. Actually, many of the posted comments (eg, those from "Misery") handled far better the pertinent hard facts. Edited August 28, 2008 by ASCLEPIADES Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nephele Posted September 10, 2008 Report Share Posted September 10, 2008 One of them has happened today, and we're still here. Largest particle collider conducts successful test Rock on, science, rock on! -- Nephele Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DecimusCaesar Posted September 10, 2008 Report Share Posted September 10, 2008 One of them has happened today, and we're still here. Largest particle collider conducts successful test Rock on, science, rock on! -- Nephele I'm looking forward to hearing their results. It's amazing what we could discover about matter and the make up of the Universe from this experiment. Congratulations to all the people at CERN. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASCLEPIADES Posted September 11, 2008 Report Share Posted September 11, 2008 One of them has happened today, and we're still here. Largest particle collider conducts successful test Rock on, science, rock on! -- Nephele This has happened before; from the Telegraph.co.uk (Sep 10, 2008): "Large Hadron Collider: 10 other dates when the world failed to end The Large Hadron Collider at CERN has been switched on and, counter to some doomsday predictions, the world is still turning. Here are 10 other dates in history when apocalyptic predictions failed to come to fruition: Oct 3 1533 - Michael Stifel in Lutheran Germany. Oct 22 1844 - US Millerites. 1914 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASCLEPIADES Posted September 11, 2008 Report Share Posted September 11, 2008 And just for the record: the explicit aim of the LHC is: "To smash protons moving at 99.999999% of the speed of light into each other and so recreate conditions a fraction of a second after the big bang". S Peter Davis and others have interpreted this statement as (SIC): "They assure us that they can stage a new Big Bang if they smash some protons together really, really fucking hard. In fact, they can make a million of them per second, which is 999,999 more than God managed". This is just ludicrous; "recreate conditions" implies verifying the physical variables (ie, temperature, pressure and any other that you may imagine) as they might have been "a fraction of a second after the big bang". The Big Bang itself would have been the initial expansion of a "gravitational singularity of infinite density" that would have contained all the known Universe (and presumably a lot of unknown energy and matter too) compressed into a single point. It has been estimated that such ongoing process may have taken so far some 13.7 billion years Needless to say, the reversal of such process (a "big crunch" if you like) is far far far beyond the capabilities of the LHC. BTW, here comes the LHC homepage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nephele Posted September 11, 2008 Report Share Posted September 11, 2008 One of them has happened today, and we're still here. Largest particle collider conducts successful test Rock on, science, rock on! -- Nephele This has happened before; from the Telegraph.co.uk (Sep 10, 2008): "Large Hadron Collider: 10 other dates when the world failed to end The Large Hadron Collider at CERN has been switched on and, counter to some doomsday predictions, the world is still turning. Here are 10 other dates in history when apocalyptic predictions failed to come to fruition: I think we're all familiar with the religious predictions of doom throughout the centuries, resulting in the bitter disappointment of religious fanatics each time their predictions of global mass destruction fail to come to fruition. This topic was about scientific experiments that people believe might go awry. (Hence my props to science, as opposed to religion.) I'm looking forward to hearing their results. It's amazing what we could discover about matter and the make up of the Universe from this experiment. Congratulations to all the people at CERN. DC, I'm looking forward to hearing those results, too! I echo your congratulations to the folks at CERN. What I find especially amusing is that some people were actually taking bets on the Large Hadron Collider ending the world yesterday. If they had won their bets, how did they intend to collect? -- Nephele Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASCLEPIADES Posted September 11, 2008 Report Share Posted September 11, 2008 Salve, Amici I'm looking forward to hearing their results. It's amazing what we could discover about matter and the make up of the Universe from this experiment. Congratulations to all the people at CERN. DC, I'm looking forward to hearing those results, too! I echo your congratulations to the folks at CERN. Basically, what the CERN guys have achieved until now is a billionaire inversion in the biggest investigation project ever: "billions of dollars: five, maybe ten Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kosmo Posted September 12, 2008 Report Share Posted September 12, 2008 I'll be happy if they find a way to produce cheap and safe energy as the existence or not of the Higgs particle does not bother my sleep. Technology overrides science and media circus trumps all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viggen Posted September 12, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 12, 2008 What happend on 10th sep. was just a pre run, the real ""danger"" is when they actually smash those protons against each other, (at the moment they just run in circles, thats how i at least understand it), in anycase, the most intriguing info we might get ist the 100 dollar bet Stephen Hawkings took out with Higgs, about the Higgs particle, those should (if he is right) if found explain how matter have mass, or in such way, if Higgs is right he will get a Nobel price, Hawkings said there aren`t any Higgs particles and we have to start from scratch... Hawkings Bet... ...it will be in any case the one machine, people will talk about in hundreds of years, the biggest man made machine ever to be built, that discovered endless information about physics and will most likely produce a stream of new technology... cheers viggen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artimi Posted September 13, 2008 Report Share Posted September 13, 2008 are you sure we are still here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASCLEPIADES Posted September 13, 2008 Report Share Posted September 13, 2008 What happend on 10th sep. was just a pre run, the real ""danger"" is when they actually smash those protons against each other, (at the moment they just run in circles, thats how i at least understand it) Indeed; please hold your breath a little longer. The first high-energy collisions (the purported universal doom) are expected to take place after 6-8 weeks (ie, next November). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Neil Posted September 13, 2008 Report Share Posted September 13, 2008 What happend on 10th sep. was just a pre run, the real ""danger"" is when they actually smash those protons against each other, (at the moment they just run in circles, thats how i at least understand it) Indeed; please hold your breath a little longer. The first high-energy collisions (the purported universal doom) are expected to take place after 6-8 weeks (ie, next November). oh dear.. if the world ends, over the edge of what do I now sail my ship? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASCLEPIADES Posted September 15, 2008 Report Share Posted September 15, 2008 And now, a not-so-funny aspect of the ongoing paranoia on the Large Hadron Collider: "Indian girl commits suicide over 'Big Bang' fear . Reuters, Wed., Sept. 10, 2008 BHOPAL, India - A teenage girl in central India killed herself on Wednesday after being traumatized by media reports that a "Big Bang" experiment in Europe could bring about the end of the world, her father said. The 16-year old girl from the state of Madhya Pradesh drank pesticide and was rushed to the hospital but later died, police said. Her father, identified on local television as Biharilal, said that his daughter, Chayya, killed herself after watching doomsday predictions made on Indian news programs". READ MORE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nephele Posted September 15, 2008 Report Share Posted September 15, 2008 From the article: "But in deeply religious and superstitious India, fears about the experiment and the minor risks associated with it spread rapidly through the media." How tragic -- both for that poor girl as well as her nation. Not that my own nation, the United States of America, is by any means free of religion and superstition -- or sensationalist media. In fact, now that I think about it, weren't there suicides back in 1999, when everyone was predicting the Great Y2K Disaster? -- Nephele Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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