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  #21  
Old 21-11-2009, 10:07 PM
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Kick start the thing and lets see what happens.
Cheers Kev.
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  #22  
Old 22-11-2009, 12:03 PM
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The Sun-Herald had a few articles about the "atom smasher" today. Wrote about its cost (over 6 billion dollars Australian), the problems getting it up and running, "the God particle" (Higgs boson) and, of course, the conjecture the project is being sabotaged from the future. The potential for disaster (e.g. the Earth being sucked into a man-made black hole) makes it popular reading. Apparently, some of the project scientists have received threatening emails demanding they stop the "doomsday machine" experiments. All rather intriguing and an interesting commentary on human psychology (rational or irrational).

Rob.

Last edited by Robh; 22-11-2009 at 01:28 PM. Reason: Spelling
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  #23  
Old 22-11-2009, 01:17 PM
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Crikey, all this crud over a particle accellerator .

Mark
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  #24  
Old 22-11-2009, 01:26 PM
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Some people forget that this is Science Fact, not Science Fiction.
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  #25  
Old 23-11-2009, 04:30 PM
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I like the idea of being sabotaged from the future.

Quick have security check the car park for De Lorean's.
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  #26  
Old 23-11-2009, 04:40 PM
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I like the idea of being sabotaged from the future.

Quick have security check the car park for De Lorean's.

Just search for mad looking, scruffy, grayish long haired old men running around looking lost

And young sidekicks looking bewildered
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  #27  
Old 23-11-2009, 04:44 PM
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Carl, you've probably just described most of the scientist's working there.

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  #28  
Old 23-11-2009, 04:48 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by renormalised View Post
And young sidekicks looking bewildered
Yeah we saw all those dudes dancing on that video... ... insanity?... from their old days... from the future?
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  #29  
Old 23-11-2009, 06:04 PM
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Carl, you've probably just described most of the scientist's working there.

I know my peers
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  #30  
Old 23-11-2009, 06:15 PM
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When I drive my 280zx (looks a little like a De lorian ) and my longish white hair a lot of people asked where my flux capacitor was and all other jokes
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  #31  
Old 23-11-2009, 10:04 PM
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[QUOTE=renormalised;526003
And young sidekicks looking bewildered[/QUOTE]

First year postgrads!!
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  #32  
Old 24-11-2009, 11:24 AM
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Thumbs up

They've just collided some particles. I believe it was at quite low energy but it is certainly progress!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...24/2751515.htm
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  #33  
Old 25-11-2009, 07:48 AM
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More here at Nature:

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/0911...2009.1104.html

Al.
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  #34  
Old 25-11-2009, 09:03 AM
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Can you imagine if they find the Higgs the first time the fire her up at full capacity. Were going to have a lot of bored people standing around doing nothing for a long time. lol.
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  #35  
Old 25-11-2009, 09:31 AM
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Can you imagine if they find the Higgs the first time the fire her up at full capacity. Were going to have a lot of bored people standing around doing nothing for a long time. lol.
Bored?? Not for quite a while. After the discovery of the Hobbit was announced we had more film crews around here than Fox studios. Bert was doing several interviews a day and Mike (who was still at UNE at that time) must have been similarly busy. Then they had to do (or arrange for others to do) more research to silence the detractors. Can you imagine the scene at CERN if they announce that they have found the Higgs??

That raises an interesting problem. I knew about the Hobbit 12 months before the public announcement but we were sworn to secrecy because Nature would not publish the paper if there was any advance publicity. So if they find the Higgs and announce it they may have trouble publishing but if they stay mum there will be claims that the LHC is a dud. (They might go to PNAS or Science but I expect they would have similar rules.)
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  #36  
Old 25-11-2009, 10:31 AM
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we were sworn to secrecy because Nature would not publish the paper if there was any advance publicity.
This is precisely what's wrong with a lot of journals these days. They should stop acting like newspapers and start acting like what they're supposed to be, scientific journals. Once the information is ready to be disseminated, then it should be. Not withheld until some editor decides to "scoop" the "news". The only people who should have the sole rights to withhold anything to be published are the ones doing the research themselves.

In any case, even if they do find the Higgs early on, they won't publish until they're dead certain it's the Higgs they've found. They may find something else completely unexpected that may point them in all sorts of new directions. Or they may find nothing at all.
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  #37  
Old 25-11-2009, 10:39 AM
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Even if they do find it early on, to be a valid, as you know, it has to be repeatable. So they'll be spending a fair amount of time going over it again and again.
During that time there's sure to be other discoveries made that will instigate even more research.
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  #38  
Old 25-11-2009, 10:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by renormalised View Post
This is precisely what's wrong with a lot of journals these days. They should stop acting like newspapers and start acting like what they're supposed to be, scientific journals. Once the information is ready to be disseminated, then it should be. Not withheld until some editor decides to "scoop" the "news". The only people who should have the sole rights to withhold anything to be published are the ones doing the research themselves.
I think you made an error, newspapers get the infomration and run on the same day, newspaper never hold back and the consequence is they make error and usually cause more problems than to begin with and upset as many people as possible.

They do need to hold back to make sure the evdence is verified.
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  #39  
Old 26-11-2009, 12:02 AM
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I think you made an error, newspapers get the infomration and run on the same day, newspaper never hold back and the consequence is they make error and usually cause more problems than to begin with and upset as many people as possible.

They do need to hold back to make sure the evdence is verified.
No I didn't...paper (and TV) proprietors will put a clamp on people going to other organisations/papers, just in order to "scoop" a story. Nature is doing the same, for the same reason...to grab the monopoly on the story. That's not what a journal is supposed to do. A journal is supposed to disseminate information without prejudice or favour. Not fight for the right to publish information which should be public domain (or at least academic domain) anyway. Or restrict the publishing of that information in order to gain some perceived advantage.
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