Any scientists here? They activate the LHC tomorrow

[Texas Ranger]

DanG thing created Ike, didn't eat the earth, just half of Texas, burped and went on to Chicago, to bad it missed all those politicians fawning in front of the cameras showing their "concern".

[beenthere]

Was he on the forum?  ;)

I believe he was... ;D ;D

[Don P]

I think dat one discovered the truss  ;D

[moonhill]

Well, they shut it down shortly after it was started up, one side that is.  They successfully ran the counter beam.  There was a faulty transformer.  They have fixed the issue and will be testing soon.    Tim

[Warbird]

Cool.  Thanks for the update.  I hadn't heard this.

[Warbird]

Ooops!

http://science.slashdot.org/science/08/09/24/1451233.shtml

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2008/PR10.08E.html

In short:  Destruction of the world has been delayed until at least April 2009.  ;D

[Rockn H]

That anti-matter that they are trying to create by smashing these hadrons together.
Is'nt this stuff suppose to destroy any matter that it touches? :

I'm glad somebody mentioned the lack of solar flares.  Now when it cools down for a few years we know global warming not over it's just been postponed a little.  I just hope this lack of solar activity isn't our fault.

[Ianab]

That anti-matter that they are trying to create by smashing these hadrons together.
Is'nt this stuff suppose to destroy any matter that it touches? :

Thats the theory, of course because antimatter and normal matter cancel each other out and release all the energy thats equlivent to their mass that means several things.

It's REALLY hard to study, because whatever you try and hold it in will react with it, except maybe a really strong magnetic field in a vacum.

It has a huge potential energy, so it's probably best to just create a few atoms (or anti-atoms?) at a time to start with.

If you could make antimatter, and control it's reaction, our energy problems would be over.

Ian

[Warbird]

Beam me up Scotty...  I've found the new antimatter core for the starship.  ;D

When I was taking Physics in college, we hypothesized that it would only take antimatter roughly the size of a pencil eraser to destroy our entire campus and maybe a good portion of the city.  It'll be interesting to see what happens if they actually create some.