A little fun before a black hole swallows us all tonight.

Idiots.

 

Or geniuses?

How will the world end? World war, plagues, alien invasion or zombie take over? No, it will end by idiot rapping scientists.

They just turn it on tomorrow. October 21 is when they actually start colliding the particles, so we got about a month and half to live

That's outstanding! That video explained the Higgs in about 20 seconds, and did it better than any physics geek I've ever met.

We are alive!!!! Rejoice!

We are alive!!!! Rejoice!

 

Stop your rejoicing there are a million other ways the world can end today.

 

And a few ways might be unruly sox fans I might add.

Stop your rejoicing there are a million other ways the world can end today.

 

And a few ways might be unruly sox fans I might add.

 

Well, the black holes didnt kill me. At least there is that.

 

 

 

That's outstanding! That video explained the Higgs in about 20 seconds, and did it better than any physics geek I've ever met.

 

Should Balta start rapping in his posts?

Should Balta start rapping in his posts?

 

 

That would be so awesome. Maybe he can wear some soxtalk bling on his youtube video

http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/

We really need Balta to come in here and explain how this thing works and what is going to happen on October 21st.

Some pretty cool live webcams:

 

http://lhc-live.com/

We really need Balta to come in here and explain how this thing works and what is going to happen on October 21st.

So, for everyone...what this thing is going to do is slam packets of protons together at very close to the speed of light, hoping to basically break them apart so that their components can be detected...somehow. THe specific one they're trying to find is the component that contains most of the mass of the universe, the Higgs Boson. There's a dozen or so big physics questions they think they might get closer to answers on as well (Why is gravity such a weak force compared to the others, can other forces be unified, some wierd things relating matter and antimatter) but those are a bit above my pay grade.

 

In terms of whether this will destroy the earth or the universe...no. First and foremost...collisions with these energies happen all the time, even on earth. The planet is constantly bombarded by cosmic rays that have these energies or higher...we're simply doing them in an environment we can measure. The universe doesn't end every time a cosmic ray from some other source hits a solar cosmic ray. Same deal.

 

Will this create a black hole that will destroy the earth? No. Honestly, it'd actually be kind of cool if it generated a black hole. In the 1970's, Stephen Hawking showed that Black holes aren't truly black...some portion of the energy/mass (all the same stuff) they take in is actually radiated outwards in the form of something called Hawking radiation. It is also likely possible that complex information can actually leave a black hole as well, although it may bear no relation to what you put in (I.e. throw in a rock and out pops homer simpson a millenia later. And that's an example from Stephen Hawking himself).

 

Because black holes aren't truly black, they can actually lose energy and therefore shrink. If the mass of a black hole is small enough, it will lose energy at a rapid enough rate that it will vanish quite rapidly. A black hole can actually be an efficient means of converting matter to energy as well...if you were able to contain one of these things at the right size and feed mass in to it...there's an infinite power source for you.

Some pretty cool live webcams:

 

http://lhc-live.com/