@Jrsy Devil's Advocate®: Not finding the Higgs Boson would be the best result of all. Other particles could be found that point to other theories like Supersymetry. The Higgs Boson leaves many hole in solutions of physics.
It's a complex machine made up of many different parts, all designed to work together, but only integrated last year. Each of those parts will conform to its specifications (within a certain margin), but you never know how everything is going to work together until you build it and try it. You can model and predict and design all you want, but no model is perfect... that's why we use healthy margins of safety. So yeah, I imagine they do have a much better feel for the machine now than they did then.
That's not to say the understanding of the physics has changed. The likelihood of the machine producing a blackhole which kills us all is still just as likely as the spontaneous transformation of every southpaw into a giant man-eating, airbreathing tunafish.
Still, I find the idea that the Higgs boson cannot exist free, and thus the LHC can never function properly, fascinating. It's not as outlandish as many thing.
"Yeah, we don't really even know what we are doing here... we just welded a bunch of shiny shit together to make a rough circle of tubes underground. And then fired like, particles and stuff through it. It was awesome dude."
I hope they have some big doors there that lock tight, to hold all the aliens in there.
But, the vortigons (sp?), can actually be useful and go into the medical industry. Since they revived Alyx after her enounter with the hunter. #cernhalflife
As a guy named Gordon -- and a Gordon who has worked at particle accelerators before, and is wearing a SLAC hoodie at this very moment, at that -- I completely agree with this assessment. #cernhalflife
@Jackhole: The halls in the basement of the local University's physics department are lined with big crates, usually marked with some indication that it had once shipped some sort of big honking laser. #cernhalflife
Are you freaking kidding me??? The device can potentially implode the bloody PLANET and the geniuses that run the place hire terrrorists to help run it?
@olternaut: The LHC can not potentially implode the planet. It's the same hysteria every time someone builds a new collider. Go learn some physics, moron.
11/21/09
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That's not to say the understanding of the physics has changed. The likelihood of the machine producing a blackhole which kills us all is still just as likely as the spontaneous transformation of every southpaw into a giant man-eating, airbreathing tunafish.
Still, I find the idea that the Higgs boson cannot exist free, and thus the LHC can never function properly, fascinating. It's not as outlandish as many thing.
11/20/09
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11/12/09
You will see something new
But first I must collide
Particle one and particle two #atlaspopupbook
11/12/09
[gizmodo.com] #atlaspopupbook
10/30/09
10/30/09
But, the vortigons (sp?), can actually be useful and go into the medical industry. Since they revived Alyx after her enounter with the hunter. #cernhalflife
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10/10/09
Well that's just BRILLIANT!
10/10/09
10/10/09
Well said. I'm so freaking tired of these uninformed dolts saying that the LHC will implode the earth. Sigh.