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Time travel, end of the world, or what?

2008-02-15

LHC It seems to be en vogue now to be busy with alleged effects of the new particle collider LHC (Large Hadron Collider) of the CERN which is planned to be completed this May – apart from the “end” of the Mayan calendar which pretendedly either spoil (or prevent) or enjoy us at our Christmas holidays 2012 (a topic even in the current edition of the TV magazine HörZu) – or just lets it start again from its beginning… what’s more realistic, given all those end-of-the-world prophecies that have been wrong all the time?

So recently, for instance, on Golem.de (German) a chaos researcher who probably sees himself as a great scientist found a place for his conspiracy theories and fearmongering about the creation of black holes with the LHC, allegedly threatening to swallow the earth, and the Daily Mail reports about two Russiam mathematicians who believe the particle collisions could create a door to the future, thus allowing time travel.
(via Blog mich am Arsch and JanneWap)

The “bad” thing about all this is just that all energy that the LHC can generate is still way smaller than the energy that are being released all naturally for billions of years when cosmic rays hit the earth’s atmosphere (and also other planets).

Where are the time travelers from the future? Where are the black holes that swallow the earth, why does the earth still exist, with human beings who can think about and blog about such stuff?

Either these time tunnels and black holes don’t exist at all (then the corresponding theory is wrong and the LHC, too, won’t be able to create them) – or they are unobtrusive and not dangerous. So why all that fuss about that?

See also » Safety at the LHC.

LHC photy by poluz (flickr)

Links of the Week (2008/01)

2008-01-05

Short (more or less) and sweet:

And I’d like to remind you of my blog carnival “Music of the Year 2007”, a little over 9 days left to participate – for anyone worldwide. :mrgreen:

Too exactly translated

2007-11-05

sunspots Just heard in the documentary “Secrets of the Universe – The Sun” (recorded today on History Channel) in German (my re-translation):

“At the places where the sun’s magnetic field is most twisted and complex, heat rising from below is enclosed and thus cooled by up to 537 degrees [Celsius]. This creates dark spots on the sun’s surface, the so-called sunspots.”

I don’t think the American original text meant “up to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit” really accurately to a single degree.

:bigsmile:

And it’s rounded wrong, because 1000°F = 537,7°C.

PS.: Anyone got a haisplitting smiley?

50 Years since Спутник

2007-10-03

Sputnik-1 Almost exactly 50 years ago, on 4 October 1957, Sputnik 1, the first satellite, has been launched – rather surprisingly –, heralding the era of space flight.

This aluminium ball’s construction, 58 cm in diameter, wasn’t too complex and done in just four weeks, and the scientific instruments on board were limited to temperature sensors that could also detect a drop in pressure as it would happen if a micro meteor penetrates the casing, whose readings were sent to earth with the famous beeps from the radio transmitters. The political benefit – “Hello Yanks, our strong sockets can reach the orbit (and you too, if necessary)!” – was a little bigger, of course.

If you want to read all this in detail, you can do so e.g. at NASA.

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