LHC GO BOOM?

[Alex Libman]

People who do actual work with their computers run Linux, and they think KDE 4 sucks enough to avoid using it.

That does look like KDE, but could be any version though.

http://blog.scopeport.org/nix/lhc-kde/

[Mayor Maximus]

More importantly than the LHC experiments, we've finally gotten proof...


People who do actual work with their computers run Linux, and they think KDE 4 sucks enough to avoid using it.

What is considered 'actual work' on computers?

[trollfreezone]

More importantly than the LHC experiments, we've finally gotten proof...


People who do actual work with their computers run Linux, and they think KDE 4 sucks enough to avoid using it.

What is considered 'actual work' on computers?

Clever question.

[Kevin Freeheart]

What is considered 'actual work' on computers?

Anything that generates public outcry because it might cause the universe to implode is probably a good sign.

[Alex Libman]

From MIT Tech Review -- CERN Hadron site hacked by the "Greek Security Team" --

One of the drawbacks to world-wide publicity, is that the extra attention draws the interest of unsympathetic crowds as well as the intended audience. On September 10th, a group calling itself the Greek Security Team gained access to the computer network at CERN associated with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, and threw up a page defacing the original (see left). Opinions differ about the potential for even greater malicious damage and reports state that the Greek Security Team were simply making an example of the light security at what is ostensibly a technologically advanced Science Project site. James Gillies, Head of Communication and CERN's spokesman, is quoted as saying: "We don’t know who they were but there seems to be no harm done. It appears to be people who want to make a point that CERN was hackable."

[BonerJoe]

What is considered 'actual work' on computers?

Anything that generates public outcry because it might cause the universe to implode is probably a good sign.

Then I qualify. 

You think I'm kidding. 

Does it work like in that Die Hard movie or what? LOL.

[Alex Libman]

From Slashdot.org science -- LHC Shut Down By Transformer Malfunction --

A 30-ton transformer in the Large Hadron Collider malfunctioned, requiring complete replacement on the day the LHC came online. No one at CERN reported any problems, and they only released this data once the Associated Press sent people to investigate rumors of problems. I guess its hard to just sweep a 30-ton transformer breaking under the rug.

[Alex Libman 15]

From Slashdot -- LHC To Start Back Up In November At Half Power --

Large Hadron Collider, smasher of particles, will get another chance to prove itself this November.  The restart will begin with tests at half power, a mere 7 trillion electron volts (TeV), and ramp up slowly to the designed goal of 14 TeV.

"Measurements indicate that some of the electrical connections could not safely handle the amount of current needed to run at the full 14 TeV, so will need to be replaced before dialing up the energy that far.  But even 7 TeV is much higher than physicists have ever probed in the laboratory before.  The Tevatron accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, is the current record holder, with collisions at 2 TeV."

[AL the Inconspicuous]

From Slashdot -- LHC Shut Down Again - By Baguette-Dropping Bird --

Is Douglas Adams scripting the saga of sorrows facing the LHC?  These time-traveling Higgs-Boson particles [WP] certainly exhibit the sign of his absurd sense of humor!  Perhaps it is the Universe itself, conspiring against the revelations intimated by the operation of CERN's Large Hadron Collider?  This time, it is not falling cranes, cracked magnets, liquid helium leaks or even links to Al Qaeda, that have halted man's efforts to understand the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

It now appears that the collider is hindered from an initial firing by a baguette, dropped by a passing bird:  "The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant overheating in parts of the accelerator.  The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine."

[TimeLady Victorious]

less baguettes, more holes punched through the multiverse plz.

[AL the Inconspicuous]

From Slashdot --  The LHC, Black Holes, and the Law --

Now that the physicists have had their say over the safety of the Large Hadron Collider, a law professor has produced a comprehensive legal study addressing the legal issue that might arise were a court to deal with a request to halt a multi-billion-dollar particle-physics experiment (abstract).

The legal issues make for startling reading.  [For libertarian philosophers especially!]

The analysis discusses the problem with expert witnesses, which is that any particle physicists would be afraid for their livelihoods and anybody else afraid for their lives. How can such evidence be relied upon? It examines the well established legal argument that death is not a redressable injury under American tort law, which could imply that the value in any cost-benefit analysis of the future of the Earth after it had been destroyed is zero (there would be nobody to compensate). It asks whether state-of-the-art theoretical physics is really able to say that the LHC is safe given that a scientific theory that seems unassailable in one era may seem naive in the next. But most worrying of all, it points out that the safety analyses so far have all been done by CERN itself. The question left open by the author is what verdict a court might reach.

[Harry Tuttle]

From one of the comments:

By 2012, when it reaches its maximal power, CERN, the 'European Company of Nuclear Research' that has built the cannon, will be deconfining millions of quarks per second, enough quarks to detonate 100 Earths.

...and a different quote...

You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

 

[AL the Inconspicuous]

I'm not saying that LHC is dangerous, but it would definitely take a government to cause any serious damage to this planet.  In a free society, doing anything potentially dangerous would result in you being flooded with demands for transparency and lawsuits from your neighbors (possibly millions of them) and their representatives, making many of the more insane scientific ventures downright impossible here on earth.  That's what outer space is for!  Most mining and manufacturing would eventually take place there anyway, and dangerous experiments should as well.  And once you beat gravity getting offa this rock, getting to the other side of the solar system is no trouble at all.

[The ghost of a ghost of a ghost]

Is he still alive?

[error]

Indeed. It would only occur to a government to invent something like the nuclear bomb.