Large Hadron Collider

[pilou]

yeah yeah, Tchernobyl was also very safety!

[toxicvoxel]

Remus,
You can take that position from the comfort of your personal circumstances.

[geh4evr]

Alan, I'd never thought I'd hear myself say that something on YouTube which doesn't have to do with SketchUp is actually good.

I wonder if any suicides will come out of this, It happened with Y2K, and I wouldn't be surprised if it happened with LHC.

[chango70]

The problem of the world isn't going to be solved by pouring money that would have otherwise gone to the Collider. Thats very naive Toxic. Pouring money often made things worse.

[Marian]

If we would have spent resources only on "real issues" we woulld stil be in the dark ages. All important discoveries contributed to both technology and society. We can't just put on hold technological development and work on social issues only, if we do that we we'll never resolve anything, people always have problems.
And chango is right that money wouldn't have made any difference on an world scale.

[Ross Macintosh]

If you gave me the €6.4 billion to spend I'm sure I could have done some lasting good...

[toxicvoxel]

Chango,Marian
It is simmilar justification that gave us the first atomic bomb.
If you think that this experiment will explain 'how the universe works', you are decieving yourselves.

[solo]

@unknownuser said:

It is simmilar justification that gave us the first atomic bomb.

lets not forget nuclear power.

[Alan Fraser]

The money isn't an either/or thing. The US public made the same complaint about NASA's budget at the height of the space race ...yet they were spending more than that on dog food.

[kwistenbiebel]

I wonder what the real motivation is behind trying to stop these particle experiments.
Let's call the Chuck Norris help line.

[Ross Macintosh]

Chuck Norris doesn't need a particle accelerator. He is a particle accelerator!

[remus]

@toxicvoxel said:

Remus,
You can take that position from the comfort of your personal circumstances.

I'd like to think i would hold the same beliefs even if i lived in a less privileged society.

And just to throw some numbers out there, the LHC cost approx £5.14 billion, the NHS spends about £7 billion a year on medication and african debt is roughly £100 billion. As im sure you can see, if the LHC money was diverted to something more 'real' it would have very little lasting effect, compared to the huge advances possibe in our understanding with the LHC. Seems like a bit of a bargain really.

[remus]

Oh, and chuck norris can just squeeze his fist closed really tightly, then sniff the results to look for higgs particles (and save the 5.14 billion quid for beer.)

[toxicvoxel]

@unknownuser said:

Seems like a bit of a bargain really

Remus,
I am very interested to know what the 'possible huge advances' are that you are talking about.
I challenge you explain in to us in technical detail what these benefits could be, seeing that you have quantified the yield of these in terms of the investment.

Go on, convince me that you understand the underlying scientific issues that you so confidently support.

[watkins]

In respect of investment and return, one should not forget that the World Wide Web started at CERN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee

Collecting good minds together around a big project always yields long term results. This Forum is a good example.

The billions spent have gone into salaries, commerce, development, education and training, and not least of all the design and implementation of better and more efficient superconducting magnets. The spin-off of such developments could be huge for the power generation and distribution industries who cannot or won't invest in the necessary R&D.

Someone mentioned dog food? I think the UK alone spends over 1 billion a year on their pets. Personally, I would prefer to see that money going towards conserving endangered species, but that's not going to happen, is it. Three billion (?) on a new collider sounds good to me.

Regards,
Bob

[Alan Fraser]

Well, it's been running for 30 minutes and I'm still here.

Actually, the benefits from this could be tremendous...we just have no idea what they might be at this point. The whole particle physics thing is at the very core of much high-end technology from the radio valve onwards. Without this seemingly esoteric research we simply wouldn't have stuff like transistors, microchips, scanners etc.
I'll bet that the investment isn't that much different proportionally from what was being sunk into Oak Ridge and Los Alamos in WWII. If people had known about that, they'd probably have thought the money would be better spent on bombers or aircraft carriers.

[toxicvoxel]

Circumstantial evidence gentlemen. Demonstrate to me that you have a technical understanding of what is going on today.
Or are you supporting an idea that you do not understand?

[remus]

I fully admit that i dont have a technical understanding of the inner workings of the project, and i think youd be hard pushed to find more than a few thousand people who could give you the ins and outs of the LHC.

Enough people who actually understand the subject seem to think its a damm good idea, thats enough to convince me.

p.s. i could give you a rough overview of how it works, if thats enough to satisfy you.

[Mr S]

Hi,

Alan, thanks for that link to the video.
That has to be the one and only time I have enjoyed listening to rap "music".

I liked this comment that appeared there as well:

@unknownuser said:

I love hearing from Creationists who do not believe in the Big Bang warning us ,about creating ANOTHER Big Bang

I also prefer my money being spent on this type of scientific research which hopefully helps extend mankinds knowledge of who and what we are.
A far better investment better than all the billions given in foreign aid to corrupt regimes.

Regards
Mr S

[kwistenbiebel]

Newsflash:
The LHC of Geneva, Switserland has just been started for tests (wednesday 9.30 am CET).
No incidents or black holes been spotted yet.The LHC will be at its full capacity somewhere in october. (source: Belgian newspaper website "De Morgen.be" 10 september)