Doomsday!!!

[Paul71]

Any of you scientists know what the Hadron collider is? Can it really be controlled and safe? Was the end predicted by Nostrawotshisface?

Comments gents?

What's an 'event horizon'? How can normal physics suddenly turn into not normal physics? Would i feel any pain being sucked into a black hole? Say it only managed to take my foot off, would i bleed?

 

[trendie]

the Large Hadron Collider!! YEAH!

they are trying to find the Higgs boson, known as the "God particle".
I think it has something to do with linking gravity with all the other forces.

the experiments are to confirm and refine the Standard Model of physics.

Yes, there are fears, mostly by paranoid people, that the experiment may create a mini black-hole, that goes on to "eat" the earth.

But then, when the first nuclear bomb tests were conducted, there was a fear the heat would set the atmosphere on fire.

Just in case, I suggest you dine on the finest wines and exotic foods this weekend, and put it all on your credit cards.
on Monday morning, either we'll all be drunkenly dead, or in sober debt.

NostrilLlamas; is he the same guy that the world would end in 1999?
Anyway, the world wont end now, cos the Mayans say it'll happen in 2012, when their calendar runs out.

have a good weekend. (it may be our last)

 

[Paul71]

the Large Hadron Collider!! YEAH!

they are trying to find the Higgs boson, known as the "God particle".
I think it has something to do with linking gravity with all the other forces.

the experiments are to confirm and refine the Standard Model of physics.

Yes, there are fears, mostly by paranoid people, that the experiment may create a mini black-hole, that goes on to "eat" the earth.

But then, when the first nuclear bomb tests were conducted, there was a fear the heat would set the atmosphere on fire.

Just in case, I suggest you dine on the finest wines and exotic foods this weekend, and put it all on your credit cards.
on Monday morning, either we'll all be drunkenly dead, or in sober debt.

NostrilLlamas; is he the same guy that the world would end in 1999?
Anyway, the world wont end now, cos the Mayans say it'll happen in 2012, when their calendar runs out.

have a good weekend. (it may be our last)

Mornin!

The 'god particle', mmm. I watched this programme once, and it gave a scale/proportion of an atom. Apparently, if the nucleus was the size of an orange, then the other bit going around would be the size of a penny, but, the penny wouldn't be a foot away or a yard or even ten metres away, for it to be scale, it (the penny) would have to be placed 2 miles away from the orange!!!???? What the hell is going on in the world, it's ridiculous.

 

[rnicoll]

Any of you scientists know what the Hadron collider is? Can it really be controlled and safe? Was the end predicted by Nostrawotshisface?

Comments gents?

What's an 'event horizon'? How can normal physics suddenly turn into not normal physics? Would i feel any pain being sucked into a black hole? Say it only managed to take my foot off, would i bleed?

It's fine. A lot of people in important hats sat down and discussed this ages ago, and basically there's no realistic chance of it happening. I'd certainly worry a lot less about this than I would about, say, being hit by lightning.

Event horizon is the point at which the gravity of a black hole is strong enough that even something travelling at the speed of light (such as, say, light) cannot escape. Basically your good 'ol point of no return. Normal physics don't stop applying, it just gets a lot harder to explain.

If a black hole does eat the earth, you won't know what hit you. People tend to fret about being eaten by the hole... err... with that much gravity, acceleration will turn you to mush long (well, a few fractions of a second, actually) before you hit the event horizon.

 

[Paul71]

It's fine. A lot of people in important hats sat down and discussed this ages ago, and basically there's no realistic chance of it happening. I'd certainly worry a lot less about this than I would about, say, being hit by lightning.

Event horizon is the point at which the gravity of a black hole is strong enough that even something travelling at the speed of light (such as, say, light) cannot escape. Basically your good 'ol point of no return. Normal physics don't stop applying, it just gets a lot harder to explain.

If a black hole does eat the earth, you won't know what hit you. People tend to fret about being eaten by the hole... err... with that much gravity, acceleration will turn you to mush long (well, a few fractions of a second, actually) before you hit the event horizon.

At what point does it get harder to explain, the physics that is? Or is that what Hawkins work is about, amalgamating everything?

 

[JTrader]

No Doomsday in 2012 | Universe Today

Apparently, the world is going to end on December 21st, 2012. Yes, you read correctly, in some way, shape or form, the Earth (or at least a large portion of humans on the planet) will cease to exist. Stop planning your careers, don't bother buying a house, and be sure to spend the last years of your life doing something you always wanted to do but never had the time. Now you have the time, four years of time, to enjoy yourselves before… the end.

So what is all this crazy talk? We've all heard these doomsday predictions before, we're still here, and the planet is still here, why is 2012 so important? Well, the Mayan calendar stops at the end of the year 2012, churning up all sorts of religious, scientific, astrological and historic reasons why this calendar foretells the end of life as we know it. The Mayan Prophecy is gaining strength and appears to be worrying people in all areas of society. Forget Nostradamus, forget the Y2K bug, forget the credit crunch, this event is predicted to be huge and many wholeheartedly believe this is going to happen for real. Planet X could even be making a comeback...

2012: No Planet X | Universe Today

Apparently, Planet X (a.k.a. Nibiru) was spotted by astronomers in the early 1980's in the outermost reaches of the Solar System. It has been tracked by infrared observatories; seen lurking around in the Kuiper Belt and now it is speeding right toward us and will enter the inner Solar System in 2012. So what does this mean to us? Well, the effects of the approach of Planet X on our planet will be biblical, and what's more the effects are being felt right now. Millions, even billions of people will die, global warming will increase; earthquakes, drought, famine, wars, social collapse, even killer solar flares will be caused by Nibiru blasting through the core of the Solar System. All of this will happen in 2012, and we must begin preparing for our demise right now…

As investigated in my previous article "No Doomsday in 2012", a lot of weight had been placed on the end of an ancient Mayan calendar, the "Long Count". According to this calendar and Mayan myth, something is going to happen on December 21st, 2012. Now the world's Planet X supporters seem to have calculated that this hypothetical, deadly planet will arrive from a highly eccentric orbit to wreak gravitational havoc on Earth, sparking geological, social, economic and environmental damage, killing a high proportion of life… in 2012....

2012: No Killer Solar Flare | Universe Today

We could be in for a huge firework display in 2012. The Sun will be approaching the peak of its 11-year cycle, called "solar maximum", so we can expect a lot of solar activity. Some predictions put the solar maximum of Solar Cycle 24 even more energetic than the last solar maximum in 2002-2003 (remember all those record breaking X-class flares?). Solar physicists are already getting excited about this next cycle and new prediction methods are being put to good use. But should we be worried?....

 

[rnicoll]

At what point does it get harder to explain, the physics that is? Or is that what Hawkins work is about, amalgamating everything?

Somewhere around the bit where there's enough gravity to noticably alter the flow of time.

 

[Paul71]

Somewhere around the bit where there's enough gravity to noticably alter the flow of time.

What's space time based on, lightspeed, or something else? Gravity bends light, so would that effect time?

 

[rnicoll]

What's space time based on, lightspeed, or something else? Gravity bends light, so would that effect time?

I _think_ gravity bends space, which alters the flow of time. It also bends light, but I believe that's unrelated. Ya want a better answer, you'll have to wait until Monday when I can prod someone who did more than first year physics at uni.

 

[Paul71]

No Doomsday in 2012 | Universe Today



2012: No Planet X | Universe Today



2012: No Killer Solar Flare | Universe Today

I think we shouldn't ponder it too much. Super volcanoes, asteroids, blackholes, sun flares and all that. Or maybe we should?

When one of the voyager (think it was voyager) satelites left our solar system it turned back inward facing to photograph it all, the photos were spread out 12foot in width on a wall to capture it all, our little planet just about made a tiny blue pixel (don't know what the resolution was). I don't feel safe anymore

 

[equtrader]

No problem, nini balck holes are all over the place anyway.

 

[peto]

No problem, nini balck (mini black?) holes are all over the place anyway.

Yep, there was one in Tesco's yesterday. It was on the baked beans shelf, I reached into get a tin and it just vanished, in front of my eyes. I felt my hand being drawn in but snatched it back quickly and all was well, although my fingernails had stretched to twice their previous length, so lucky escape. I complained to the Manager, he said it was not company policy to monitor mini black holes although if a full sized one entered the store they would review the situation, but he offered me some free nail clippers as compensation, so got a result .

 

[rnicoll]

Yep, there was one in Tesco's yesterday. It was on the baked beans shelf, I reached into get a tin and it just vanished, in front of my eyes. I felt my hand being drawn in but snatched it back quickly and all was well, although my fingernails had stretched to twice their previous length, so lucky escape. I complained to the Manager, he said it was not company policy to monitor mini black holes although if a full sized one entered the store they would review the situation, but he offered me some free nail clippers as compensation, so got a result .

Same thing happened to me last Thursday, followed by the Tuesday before. *pause* I hate it when time gets all misshapen.

Edit: On which note, no-one panic too much, it looks like the whole thing may be shut down by the future anyway: FQXi Community: Articles, Forums, Blogs, News - take THAT causality!

 

[Paul71]

No problem, nini balck holes are all over the place anyway.

What, like trading accounts? How are mini black holes everywhere, this isn't going down the porn route is it?

Did you know, that if you could scale down our galaxy to A4 size it would be thinner than the piece of paper?

 

[MrGecko]

FYI

The effect of being sucked into a black hole is known as "spaghettification".

"Normal" physics breaks down when things are going really, really fast. The crux is that, say, a 30s timer will go for longer when it ocurs on a body in motion, relative to the observer, than when stationary.

A simple example:

When particles called Muons are created on the earths atmoshpere (about 6k's up from other particles arriving from the sun), they can be expected to "survive" about 2 millionths of a second. If they are moving at close to the speed of light (300 million meteres per second), they should get about 600 meteres before they disappear - yet they make it all the 6000m or so down to the earths surface - because, relative to the earths surface, time is passing slower.

If you measure time as if you were sat on the Muon, the same 2 millions of a second would last 31.6 millionths of a second down here on earth - enough time for the muons to go nearly 10km, rather than the 600m or so. It's known as Length contraction and time dilation, and happens at, and near, black holes.

Google the "twin paradox" for another example of this, pretty cool stuff.

 

[KillPhil08]

CERN Press Release – CERN announces start-up date for LHC

I thought that mini-black holes are so unstable. That they won't last long enough to do damage. But yeah, all they're trying to do is find where the "missing energy" has gone from colliding particles. Not sure if this is the hadron particle... or the gravitron. I almost got that edinburger doctor to my high school a few years ago after he retired from edinburgh uni. He was busy at the time =/

 

[Gumping]

Any of you scientists know what the Hadron collider is? Can it really be controlled and safe? Was the end predicted by Nostrawotshisface?

Comments gents?

What's an 'event horizon'? How can normal physics suddenly turn into not normal physics? Would i feel any pain being sucked into a black hole? Say it only managed to take my foot off, would i bleed?

In a collider you bash subatomic particles together at very high speeds and look at the fragments. Kind of like reading tealeaves but for nerds :cheesy:

The event horizon has been explained. Normal physics breaks down there because gravity levels are so high that space and time are warped. Kind of like when you enter Selfridge's on the first day of sale and find yourself transported back to a scene out of Braveheart.

The idea with space-time is that basically space and time are related. Hence, gravity pulls time around it as well as space - and hence as you approach the event horizon of a black hole, the gravity is pulling time towards it, so each second for you at the event horizon lasts millions of years outside it. Hence people who enter black holes obviously become very boring.....

And yes, if the nucleus of an atome were the size of a pea, the electrons would be orbiting around it at a distance as if the pea were on the centre circle of Wembley Stadium and the electrons were flying around the car park! The electrons move at 600 miles/second, but the particles in the nucleus are moving at 19,000 miles per second - they are immensely tightly bound! And to come full circle, the Hadron Collider bashes those subatomic particles up.

Thing is, when you bash them up, you generate so much energy that new particles are born. Just like in Hiroshima and Nagasake where the nuclear explosion sites yielded some new elements that had never been seen before.

Am I waffling now?