...to think the CERN scientists might have ASKED us FIRST?

[BEAUTlFUL]

Grr! So the first experiment went OK, no black holes. Another go this afternoon, sending protons round in the opposite direction. And in a couple of weeks, they'll attempt to recreate the Big Bang by sending two beams of protons round in opposite directions to smash into each other at full speed.

Um... Or how about, they don't.

It seems to me this is a bit pointless: it'll either do nothing, or it'll do something massive which might kill everyone.

Did we not have a say? Surely I weouldn't be allowed to set off a nuclear bomb in my caravan "to see what might happen", so how come scientists are allowed to do something that might be incredibly destructive?

I have a shaky grasp on science (it clashed with Art at school), and I am prone to compulsive worrying, but even so. Did I miss a vote? Did the UN send out "Do you think it's OK if boffins try to recreate the Big Bag in real life?" questionnaire and I missed it cos I was Mumsnetting?

AIBU?

Blinks sleepily and yawns... did I miss something? CERN 10 mins drive from us. If it blows, we're 1st.

Torchwood is on R4 atm. Not that the BBC is getting overexcited or anything....

AFAIK, black hole is a collapsed star with a VERY dense body - a whole planet's mass in a teaspoon, for example. So dense that it has an extremely powerful gravitational pull, such that even light cannot escape it if it crosses its event horizon.

Smashing some sub-atomic particles together is not the same ballgame. Some particles will be observed, perhaps Higgs boson will be discovered and we will understand how gravity works. What it is not going to do is to create a real black hole 200 miles or so under Switzerland, because several colliding particles have nowhere near the mass necessary for a black hole.

Or am I missing something?

I'm just exited about it because it's a BIG MACHINE!. It's not very far from where i lived as a child and also if it does kill the whole world we can all say "I told you sooooooooo!" as we disapear down a black hole!
But seriously, it is safe and very important for the future of mankind and our understanding of the universe and also we may find some really unexpected things...just sooo exiting!
But after Xmas is when everything will be properly up to speed so nothing to worry about yet.

I suspect my excitement comes from the same cause ripeberry! Big machine, lots of fuss, lots of white coats and complicate words. Does it for me

yeah but you didnt read my post... did you.

anyway here is another awesome post on have your day:

listen no one cares anymore about the big bang at the end of the day and quite frankly i am annoyed with the fact that all this blah has been government funded so im paying my taxes so scientist can play with toys and try and blow up the world (if anything does go wrong) leave the world alone. rather than concentrate on what people think of the big bang concentrate on knife crimes and gang teenagers, with that money the government could of changed a few things in this day and age its rubbish !

richard, reading

people are stupid

pmsl at 'little black holes'

The experiments

Richard - Reading? Not reading more like. Richard, Barking.

Thankfully, there are always a few people concentrating on the long term interests of mankind rather than the petty day to day struggles of each person.

But the thing is, you really do know nothing about it....why on earth would you assume that we are all going to die?

Not much point sending out questionnaires to people who are, in the nicest sense of the word, clueless about the situation?

People would rather read about posh sipces new hair do than this i fear

Q) Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

1. sucked down a black hole
2. stabbed by feral teenagers
3. still living at home?

at OP, by the way.

"it'll either do nothing, or it'll do something massive which might kill everyone."

That is your understanding and you wonder nobody asked your opinion?

Who told you that "do nothing" was a possibility?

hang on leave the OP alone, she did science in school dont you know... lol

they did ask you first in the sense that you vote in elections - or I hope you do
The government of the time approved the scheme as have subsequent schemes. If you took a general interest in current affairs you would have seen plenty about this in the news over the years and if you were unhappy about it you could have written to your MP, gone on a demo etc, etc. Instead you're reading a few scary headlines written by people whose job is to wind readers up and jumping to conclusions
If, as others have said, you think chemotherapy, radiotherapy, the internet, to mention just a few are worthless and shouldnt have been invented then no we shouldn't fund scientific projects of any kind
If you'd rather not live like a caveperson than I suggest you appreciate that science has many, many merits

Sorry Fatbob but I did read your post and thought I was agreeing with you on the obscene cost of this experiment. Obviously I got it wrong, just don't know how though, that's how it reads to me!

It's ok, i quoted a post from the BBC, it was a sacastic reply after that. easy mistake

I was half asleep at the time, so may have this wrong, but according to an interview with one of the scientists this morning, we (as a country) spend more on peanuts in a year than was given to the LHC. So really not that expensive in the scheme of things at all.

yeah and we spend twice that on HEAT and take a break.

Sorry Fatbob I have just read all your posts again get it now.

LOL fatbob

Oh dear. Has anyone got TurkeyLurkey's number? I have to tell her the sky is falling

um, it's been delayed...

fly ladies

particle physics

hmmmmm...now there's an idea

mwahahahahahhaaaaaaaa

I'm such a saddo: I've had "Large Hadron Collider kicks-off" in my diary for months.

The chances of annihilation are pretty much zero, but in physics there is no such thing as zero chance. The physicist Greg Landsberg made this analogy: ?If all the molecules of air in the room where you?re sitting would suddenly cross to one side, you would not have any air to breathe. This probability is not zero. It is in the 10 to the minus-25 range.?

One CERN physicist, demoralized by public misinformation and hysteria, was adviced, "Tell the pulbic there's a zero chance, and if the universe is destroyed there willl be no one around to sue."

I reckon the physicists secretly love the annihilationists, because they give CERN lots of publicity.